- Title: EGYPT: Iranian-born dancer teaches expatriates in Egypt to belly dance
- Date: 23rd June 2007
- Summary: (MER-1) CAIRO, EGYPT (RECENT) (REUTERS) WIDE OF INSTRUCTOR LIZA AL-LAZIZA SPEAKING TO CLASS/STUDENTS SITTING ON THE FLOOR STUDENTS LISTENING TO INSTRUCTOR AL-LAZIZA LEADING CLASS WIDE OF STUDENTS FOLLOWING INSTRUCTOR VARIOUS OF AL-LAZIZA LEADING CLASS VARIOUS OF STUDENTS DANCING (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) BELLY DANCE INSTRUCTOR LIZA AL-LAZIZA SAYING: "I am trying, not only I but all artists who love Eastern dance, to bring back the authentic dance that belongs to Egypt - Naima Akef, Samia Gamal, Tahiya Karioka, all of those people, there were even ones before them, Suheir Zaki, Mona Said." AL-LAZIZA SPEAKING TO STUDENT (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) BELLY DANCE INSTRUCTOR LIZA AL-LAZIZA SAYING: "I teach them Eastern movement, the feeling of Eastern dance, hand movements, body movements and the honour of the dance." AL-LAZIZA LEADING DANCE CLASS/STUDENTS DANCING CLOSE OF TWO DANCERS DANCING (SOUNDBITE) (English) BELLY DANCE STUDENT KAZ SAYING: "Lifetime dream - I've been learning for about three and a half years and the opportunity came up, my teacher organized a trip and I just had to come." STUDENT HELPING ANOTHER STUDENT STRETCH (SOUNDBITE) (English) BELLY DANCE STUDENT LIEV SAYING: "Well because I'm from Sweden and then its not taught in this way, and you know all the details and everything that I don't get from a Swedish teacher maybe cause this is where the culture is and this is where the dance comes from, so I mean, it's all the technique that I really learn." MORE OF AL-LAZIZA TEACHING DANCE VARIOUS OF STUDENTS FOLLOWING INSTRUCTOR (SOUNDBITE) (Arabic) BELLY DANCE INSTRUCTOR LIZA AL-LAZIZA SAYING: "The problems for an artist like me is that there are no good venues to work in. For example ten years ago, all of the night-clubs, all in the five star hotels were open. Now there are very few, maybe two places are open." VARIOUS OF AL-LAZIZA TEACHING AND STUDENTS DANCING BEHIND HER
- Embargoed: 8th July 2007 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Egypt
- Country: Egypt
- Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVADNIRO3S4V9G7K0WAIFXRUENJZ
- Story Text: At first glance, there is nothing unusual about the belly dance workshop being led by one of Egypt's most famous dancers, Liza al-Laziza.
Yet although the class is taking place on the soil of one of the Arab world's cultural capitals and the students are being taught an art form dating back centuries in Egypt, all of the hundred or so young women who patiently follow the svelte, Iranian-born al-Laziza's expert guidance are expatriates.
And the makeup of the workshop is symptomatic of a larger trend -- while belly dancing has become hugely popular outside the Arab world, it is, in Liza's view, something of a dying art in its spiritual home.
Like so many non-Arab belly dancers, coming to one of the places in which the sultry, ancient discipline is said to have originated, was a lifetime dream for Liza.
But upon arriving in the Arab world's largest city, al-Laziza found that belly dancing was in decline and often frowned upon by an increasingly conservative society.
Liza, who grew-up in Britain, says that she and other teachers are trying to breathe new life into the dance.
"I am trying, not only I but all artists who love Eastern dance, to bring back the authentic dance that belongs to Egypt - Naima Akef, Samia Gamal, Tahiya Karioka, all of those people, there were even ones before them, Suheir Zaki, Mona Said," she said listing off Egypt's most famous dancers.
Despite her talent, working as a foreign dancer has not always been easy for al-Laziza.
The popularity of belly dance around the world has led to an influx into Egypt of dancers from abroad, particularly from Eastern Europe. Partly due to public pressure, the government responded to increased competition for Egyptian dancers by banning foreigners from dancing in 2003, before quickly lifting the ban and instead setting up a strict licensing system.
Far from conforming to the stereotype in Egypt of foreign dancers as lewd, unskilled and corrupting an ancient art form, al-Laziza and her young students are striving to learn belly dance as it has been performed for hundreds of years.
"I teach them Eastern movement, the feeling of Eastern dance, hand movements, body movements and the honour of the dance," she says.
Liza says she is self-taught and that she felt the dance within her long before she began belly dancing in earnest in France in the 1990s.
In addition to teaching regular classes to predominately foreign women at her studio, she performs weekly at one of Cairo's largest hotels.
The girls who come to learn from the Iranian dance guru are just a small number of those infected with the belly dance bug as the art has spread in distant lands.
Kaz, an Australian girl taking part in the workshop, says coming to Egypt was a unique opportunity.
"Lifetime dream - I've been learning for about three and a half years and the opportunity came up, my teacher organized a trip and I just had to come," she said.
While belly dance is often combined with other dance disciplines when it is taught abroad, the students who come to study with Liza learn the classical form in the energetic, precocious way she practices it.
One student in the workshop, Liev from Sweden, said there was no substitute for studying belly dancing in its native land.
"Well because I'm from Sweden and then its not taught in this way, and you know all the details and everything that I don't get from a Swedish teacher maybe cause this is where the culture is and this is where the dance comes from, so its all the technique that I really learn," she said.
One thing that Liza's students learn in her classes is that being a good dancer doesn't just mean learning the intricate movements, but also developing a love for the culture and music that inspires the dance.
But while Liza is trying to imbue her young foreign dancers with a love of Egyptian culture, she feels that, paradoxically, Egyptians are losing touch with a very special part of their cultural heritage.
And she sees as evidence of that the fact that even a dancer like her, who has gained respect in Egypt despite her foreign roots, finds it increasingly difficult to practice her art.
"The problems for an artist like me is that there are no good venues to work in. For example ten years ago, all of the night-clubs, all in the five star hotels were open. Now there are very few, maybe two," she said.
The road to the spiritual home of belly dancing has been full of twists and turns for Liza al-Laziza, and en route to Cairo she has danced throughout the Middle East and also in the UK and Paris.
But while she has fulfilled her long ambition to dance in Cairo, Liza has also found out that the art she so loves is not treasured the way it used to be in Egypt.
In training women how to belly dance, Liza is doing her part to give something back to the art that has given her so much. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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