Dev - Aisha Azar thank you for your time, You have a dancing career which stretches over 33 years. Do you ever have a chance just to sit back and go Wow ! I am still dancing.

A'isha Azar - Right now I am teaching 2 regular weekly classes, 2 regular private classes, and a semiprivate. My dance company is in rehearsals until Dec 31 for a couple of up coming shows and I am rehearsing for a show in which I am a soloist next week, and I have some costume stuff to take care of as well. We just did our semi-annual Layali Tarab event and I choreographed all of the group folkloric dances for that and designed and built a lot of the costumes. I am not sure that I get to sit back too much, as I will start planning our March 2009 event as soon as I can get around to it. Sometimes I AM amazed to realize that I have been dancing all of my adult life. I started in 1974, the year I turned 21. I am now 55 and I hope I have a few good years left in me. I figure that if I actually die before I retire, I won't get stuck cleaning out the closets, drawers, boxes and bins that hold a lifetime of dance paraphernalia!

Dev -Your involvement with the dance also led you to do other social work, particularly with the Middle Eastern Societies in your area . As a dancer performer do you find yourself as a society ambassador building the gaps between cultures.

A'isha Azar - I never thought of it that way, but in a way, you might be right. I always just thought of it as people just interacting in ways that benefit us all. I do find that I have ended up in many positions where I have helped Americans and Arabs see the other side of the story. I have worked to help two groups of people that I love to understand each other better through helping Arabs to speak English better, talking with American groups about some of the principles of Islam about which they are generally not aware, going with Arab refugees to government appointments, helping people fill out forms for their children for school, performing in venues that allow me and my dance company to further educate the public or academic groups abut Arab culture, etc. In helping, I benefit greatly because Arabs are generous in helping me to better understand their various cultures, dances, music, and Americans help me by supporting our events either by coming to performances or hiring us to further our cause or Arab causes. For example, Baharat!!, my dance company, sponsored a Palestinian couple who teach and perform Debke with a group called Jafra. They raise money this way for a group that brings Palestinians to the States to get their educations. Many American friends who might not ordinary show up for just a dance performance came to show solidarity and make a contribution to the cause. Many dancers in the area benefited by learning some wonderful Debke and we all got something of value from each other!

A'isha Azar - It was amazing!! I think my purpose was different than many dancers. I went to stay for two weeks with my friend, Hallah Moustafa. She lives in Mari Oteyah and is the only foreigner living and working in her neighbourhood. Hallah will live out her life in Egypt if she can. she feels that it is where she truly belongs and I believe she is right. She lives like a middle class Egyptian and she works every day with Egyptians. I went to Egypt to get that Egyptian life experience rather than to concentrate on dance, although I did attend dance events as well. Hallah's flat is on the 12th floor and when you look out to the right over her balcony, you get a perfect and close view of the Great Pyramid and its companions. I had coffee with them every morning!
I believe that "Egyptianess" is the heart and soul of the dance and my trip was an opportunity to explore that further. My most important discovery was that Egypt is a place of polar opposites, and this is very clearly reflected in the dance. One morning Hallah and I were walking over to her shop from her flat. Walking beside us and then in front of us were an old man and a young girl, perhaps 13 years old. The man had a grizzled grey beard and wonderful brown wrinkled skin. He was in the typical Egyptian blue full gelebiyeh with shalwar and ropey looking sandals. The heels of his feet were rough and so were his hands. He wore a greyish scarf and had a head wrap as well; very Saidi looking. He was beautiful enough to make me want to stare at him outright! He did not ever turn around to look at us and held any curiosity in check. The girl with him was dressed in a long sleeved tight t-shirt with a cap sleeved t-shirt over the top. If memory serves, it was pink. She had on tight little camouflage pants and light up tennis shoes, with hijab to cover her hair. She would turn around every minute or so, in an attempt to get an eye full of these two foreign women behind her! I wanted to badly to take their picture, but of course I did not. But, they were sort of the symbolism of Egypt, old and new side by side, ancient and modern trying to live together in some semblance of harmony. They were the Sphinx and the KFC that is right by it. When we think of what this reflects psychologically and sociologically, spiritually and even physically, we are saying a lot about the cities of Egypt. On the other hand, when I was in the Delta there was another Egypt all together.
I loved Egypt and did keep a journal that is available for reading along with a few photos from my trip. It is posted on my site in the library. 

Dev - What is your observation and thoughts about the future of the dance in its country of origin and is the negative vibe in the media having a detrimental effect.

A'isha Azar - I think first of all, that we need to think in terms of Turkey and Lebanon being countries of origin as well, but the subject I know best is Egyptian belly dance. Many people are predicting that there is a negative thing going on now, and the dance will end in countries of origin. They are not taking into account that in countries of origin, the dance has ALWAYS had either a negative reputation, or that the average citizen cares as much about belly dance as the average American cares about it, which is very little. My personal feeling is that the dance will survive and go through the same kinds of phases that everything else goes through. It will be more popular for a while and then less popular and then more popular again, just like ballet in dance, Empire waist lines in fashion and German Shepherds in the dog world. things wax and wane in belly dance. I have seen two upsurges just in the 34 years that I have been dancing!

Dev - The last 30 years many dances have been influenced by middle Eastern Dance and often use the word Belly Dance to describe those dance styles. Do you think the word Bellydance now has a broader definition and should there be a specific term to describe the authentic Egyptian style.

A'isha Azar - I think in the minds of some dancers that "belly dance" has a broader definition and now means many different things. However, when we speak of the general public, they still think of belly dance as something that comes from the Middle East. The idea of what belly dance is may not be firm in the minds of the public, but when they are told they are seeing a "belly dancer", they do not think in terms of a dance that was made up in California or a fusion dance that was made up in a studio somewhere in the West. Their imagery is that they are seeing something from an exotic land far away. I often get a lot of flack, as you know, for daring to suggest that we need to clearly define what we are doing for our students and for the general public. "Belly dance" is the non-literal English term for what the Arabs and Turks call "Dance of the East". It is an authentic ethnic dance that denotes origins in the Middle East, and to those educated in the dance, also, North Africa. We can think of Egypt, Lebanon and turkey as the hubs of the dance, with each region having its own style that reflects the ethnicity of the region. Egyptian style already has a specific term in English. it is "Egyptian belly dance", and that is what I explain that I perform when speaking with people who are not dancers or do not speak Arabic or Turkish. When speaking with other dancers or Arabs or Turks, I feel comfortable using the ethnic terms, but the average person on the street does not understand what "Raqs Sharghi" means. I do not believe in talking down to people, as if I expected them to speak the language of the dance. I DO believe that when a person shows enough interest to join a class or come to a performance, then is the time they need more information and I do my best to take the time to use the right terms then, so that audiences and students can learn more. I believe that if one is presenting a fusion style, that the term "belly dance" no longer applies and that different terms need to be introduced so that the public understands what is being presented.

Dev - You have previously mentioned that when you saw Jamila Silampour and her dance troupe Bel Anat perform they did not reflect middle eastern dance, But for many Belly Dancers in the west jamila was one of the pioneers of Middle Eastern Dance . Do you still think what Jamila did was a Western version of Belly Dance rather than authentic Belly Dance.


A'isha Azar - Well, the only time I thought that Jamila Salimpour was presenting belly dance was before I studied belly dance. when I began to study the dance, then I realized that something was just..... not right....and at the International Conference on Middle Eastern Dance in Costa Mesa, California, 1997, Jamila Salimpour said so herself in front of a huge audience during the opening events. She referred to what she had presented in the past as "half hokum". I really like Jamila and was so happy that she finally came out and just said that she had often not done authentic dance. the fact is that, yes, she did use some Middle Eastern movements, but out of context, what meaning does movement really have? I do not believe there is such a thing as "Western belly dance". Belly dance is a very specific ethnic dance and it is not western at all. Unfortunately, Jamila and others who were presenting this new creation of their's in the 1960s and 1970s opened a huge can of worms in which the dance's ethnic identity was stripped from it to make way for them to basically do their own things in the name of "belly dance". I think as we see more and more fusions that make less and less sense, (such as "bellynesian", belly dance on stilts, belly dance in kilts, people with barbed wings in their backs etc,) that more people are beginning to see the necessity of really more clearly defining what we are presenting to the public. there is a lot of great fusion out there, but it is misnamed as "belly dance", when it is actually a western interpretive form.

Dev - Misinterpretation about Belly Dance is widespread, As a teacher and performer how you deal with the situation particularly with a Western audience who are not educated about Belly Dance?

A'isha Azar - I deal with it by educating them to the best of my ability. With the dance company every performance is narrated and we have a person who does just that only,without dancing. Her only job is to tell our audiences about the dances we are performing. For belly dance, we usually explain that the dance is about a hundred years old, is called Raqs Sharghi or Oriental Tanzi in languages of origin. We tell a bit about where it comes from, etc. For fusion pieces, including American or Western Oriental, we give info about those dance forms as well. These are all different dances and we give the audience info that supports belly dance as a specific ethnic dance, while I consider other forms mentioned here to be fusion or interpretive, depending. As a teacher, it is even easier to be specific because I have continued, long term access to students and can give them a depth of education about the dance and what it is....and is not.

Dev - Aisha Azar if you have to describe Fifi Abdou in 3 words ?

A'isha Azar - Bawdy, Fun, Beautiful

Dev - Two words for Samia Gamal?

A'isha Azar - Charming, Lovely.

Dev- And one word for Dina

A'isha Azar - Bodacious.

A'isha Azar - Thank YOU for including me in your wonderful interview series!!

Aisha Azar's Website Baharat