Who?

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Suzanne Azhaar

Active member
Reflecting (while doing laundry) in my time Dina was the most sought after dancer in Egypt. But we all grow old and move on. Who is the most famous dancer in Egypt now? Or Turkey for that matter? Does anyone know?
 
Shanazel

Shanazel

Moderator
I've seen videos of Alla Kushner. She does a lot more arm waving and chest waggling than I find appealing, and "subtle" is not a word that comes to mind while watching her. I've also seen videos of Amar Gamal, who I like better. This is a nice presentation and I love that bodysuit under the old-fashioned chiffon circle skirt.
 
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Suzanne Azhaar

Active member
Enjoyed Amar Gamal; soft, sweet, and delightful. Even though I didn't prefer the strong dancing of All Kashner, I love, love, love her outfit in this video. Especially the arm coverage. Stellar.
 
Greek Bonfire

Greek Bonfire

Well-known member
I've been watching Alla Kushnir for years, and she has evolved into a much better ME dancer than she used to be. I wonder how old this list is. Amar Gamal is always a classic standby. There are some newer ones, one of which comes to mind is Cinzia Purificato from Italy, and Sahira who is from the U.S., and also uses zills A LOT.
 
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Suzanne Azhaar

Active member
Shanazel said:
Thanks, Fotia. I wasn't familiar with Cinzia and liked THIS VIDEO very much. Look at that costume! Found Sahira and zils only which is very nice. I also like Tamar Bar-Gil very much, but don't know how much she is dancing these days. Tamar
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Loved the video of Cinzia (thanks for sharing), but, how does the spandex fabric take the wt. of two meters of Egyptian fringe? (That's at least two meters, probably more.) Is there bias tape underneath to help hold shape/wt.? How do you think that design is put together?
 
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Shanazel

Shanazel

Moderator
I suspect the entire upper part of the costume is underlined with some fairly substantial woven fabric leaving only the skirt free to dangle and sway. A friend made a beauty pageant dress for her daughter that was essentially a complete dress built to support a second overlaying dress. It was the same problem: invisible support of substantial decorative elements on fragile fabric so the dress looked light as a cloud but was in fact engineered like the Empire State Building.
 
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Suzanne Azhaar

Active member
Shanazel said:
I suspect the entire upper part of the costume is underlined with some fairly substantial woven fabric leaving only the skirt free to dangle and sway. A friend made a beauty pageant dress for her daughter that was essentially a complete dress built to support a second overlaying dress. It was the same problem: invisible support of substantial decorative elements on fragile fabric so the dress looked light as a cloud but was in fact engineered like the Empire State Building.
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That makes complete sense. Solid front structure going around to the back ( approx three inch depth in the back) to hold the wt of the fringe. Could visualize the moment I read what you wrote.
 
Shanazel

Shanazel

Moderator
Another Cinzia saidi and another one of those amazing costumes. Suzanne, you can see a little better on this one how it might be constructed to hold the embellishments. She also has the corner of the back skirt panel strapped to one ankle, though the strap broke or was detached part way through the dance..

Cinzia saidi
 
Shanazel

Shanazel

Moderator
I think that's an ankle bracelet that the skirt corner attached itself to, then broke away. Yeah, dance costume trivia fascinates me.
 
T

Tourbeau

Active member
Dina and Fifi are still involved in the entertainment industry. I don't know how much Fifi performs, but there's a video of her dancing in a dark red galabeya on her Instagram that has comments from March 13. I don't have an Insta account, so somebody else will have to figure out whether this was a recent show or something older. https://www.instagram.com/fifiabdouofficial/

<<pause for Zorba to complain that everything annoying about FB is even more infuriating with Insta>>

I wasted a while today trying to figure out if Dina is still performing at the Semiramis, but the absence of an answer might not mean much, considering how COVID upset international tourism. In the meantime, here she is dancing with Hend Sabry in the recent mosalsal "al Bahth 'an Ola."


As far as other dancers, Lurdiana's name keeps coming up, and to the best of my knowledge, Johara, Fatah Nasri, and Camelia are still working in Cairo, as is Shahrzad who runs remote classes from Cairo. The actress/dancer Safinaz/Sofinar Gourian/Grigoryan also keeps pretty busy. And Amie Sultan is trying to get a project going to increase respectability of the dance in Egypt.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/feat...cers-and-ancient-mummies-join-cairo-s-revival
https://facebook.com/FarahNasriBD
https://facebook.com/people/Camelia-of-Cairo/100063609824934/
https://facebook.com/SofinarPageOfficial/
https://m.facebook.com/ShahrzadDancer/
https://worlddanceheritage.org/belly-dancers-egyptian-media/
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20201230-foreigners-shake-up-egypt-s-belly-dancing-scene
https://dw.com/en/how-a-russian-became-a-belly-dancing-star-in-egypt/a-51448665

I know it's a motley assortment of links, but I tried to pick things that were either recent or explanatory. Many of these dancers have more than one social media account but you can usually find them pretty easily.

{Edited to fix mistake discussed on page 2}
 
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