- Come, Joana. Let´s work.
That´s how Mahmoud Reda, the father of Egyptian Folklore and creative genius of the "Reda Troupe", would greet me, every morning, right after his usual hug and joke, a new one, every day, fresh out of the oven.
He was, and will always be, my dearest long-term teacher, friend, work collaborator, co-creator; and friend. I miss him dearly.
I´d be half-asleep but willing; not yet recovered from a night of shows with my orchestra.
After falling off the taxi, stumblin...
My aunt is a victim. I´ll tell you her story.
Oh, no. This is a terrible beginning. Let me restart.
According to my observation, people can be divided into two categories: the Victims and the Thrivers.
I´m not judging; just stating facts.
First, we have the Victims - often considered nice and deserving of people´s sympathy.
The victims tend to be, surprisingly or not, a bit narcissistic.They presume the world revolves around them, destiny is conspiring against them - ´cause they´re imp
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There are many challenges and joys in the life of an oriental dancer.
Some of the challenges are obvious - learning the dance technique, the music, the culture and mentality behind them; dealing with limitations and ambitions; choreography and improvisation; and interpretation.The list would go on if we had time. And we don´t have it.
Then, there are the sneaky, invisible challenges that most dancers aren´t aware of.
At the top of the list comes Overdoing and Excessive Speed which lead, no ...
In Egyptian Dance, as in Life, the goal is perhaps - and I use the word "perhaps" because, by now, I´ve lost all my certainties - to get as close as possible to balance.
The balance between doing and not doing - action and stillness.
The balance between emotion and intellect - feeling and thinking.
The balance between sharpness and softness - being assertive and organic.
The balance between harmony and chaos - an educated body in a free soul.
The balance between ambition and love for t
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I´m speaking to you from a place of Magic✨
Yes, Magic.
I don´t know where you´re coming from, if you´ve been involved with Egyptian Dance for a long time, on a deeper or a shallower manner. I don´t even know how much you desire to take from this dance or what you have in store for it - because we give and we take from it - but one thing I know for sure:
There´s a Magic in authentic Egyptian Dance that can save us. It has saved me again and again, especially in times of sorrow, disappoint...
Once upon a time, a time that seems distant and yet so close, I had an awakening.
A Tunisian artist called Leila Haddad was going to present an Oriental Dance performance at "Culturgest", one of the most prestigious theatres in Lisbon, Portugal.
Leila dragged a fascinating culture behind her. Her photo on the poster of the performance smelled of cumin and "bokhour" (incense); her ellusive presence promised a magic I´d never witnessed.
At the time, I knew close to nothing about Oriental Da...
Growing older is inevitable - the privilege of the ones who live to tell; growing up is optional.
And what I´ve observed is that most of us grow older without ever growing up.
One of the reasons why we don´t grow up is because we refuse to learn from life experience.
I´m a compulsive learner. Give me a course, a book, a podcast, any great learning tool, and I´m a happy girl.
Yet, I know that there´s no better school than life experience.
That is if:
1. We´re willing to look back wit
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This is not what you think. And certainly not what I expected.
When I moved to Egypt, during the official - bumpy - start of my career, I experienced the infamous cultural shock. I also suffered from the even more infamous "colonizer´s syndrome".
I criticized. Pointed fingers. Couldn´t understand how locals thought, felt, and behaved.
I grabbed, perhaps tighter than I should, to my values and perspective on the world, presuming they´d be superior to the ones I was witnessing. Always superior...
As a dancer and, certainly, as a person, I often struggle to keep my soul intact.
Wars - internal and external -, economy, global warming; personal and collective issues. And, what hurts deeper in the skin, heartbreak coming from the observation of a world that seems less and less human, more and more machine-like, robotic, soulless.
Making sure I, too, don´t lose my soul starts to look like a full-time job. Luckily, it´s a pleasant job.
Here are 3 of my favorite SOUL BOOSTERS suited for t...
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