Ahlan Cairo Nights 2009 - Montreal

I wanted to take one more big dance trip this year, and so I chose Ahlan Cairo Nights in Montreal. I was exactly six months pregnant and I found I was able to keep up with MOST of the workshops, although Randa pushed me beyond my limit. Gone are the days where I could dine on a single Larabar and keep dancing all day!

The biggest surprise of the weekend was the fantastic Dr. Mo, co-founder of the Reda troupe. At seventy years old, he is as strong and lively as a man half his age. He has a calm, kind teaching style, and doesn't hesitate to correct. I liked that he would get down on the floor, hold hands with someone struggling with a move and walk them through it. For each workshop he taught, we got through an entire choreography and they were easy to remember because he has studied how people's memories work. We learned each choreography in a series of blocks. He is also a fan of repetition, returning to something from an earlier part of the choreography. In fact, he told us - if you do something beautiful, you must repeat it - and if you do something complicated, you must repeat it immediately so that the audience can understand just how difficult it was.

He taught a classical oriental routine with Andalusian elements, where Andalusian dance is an imagination of the court dances of Moorish Spain, as there are no records of what their dance styles were like. He also taught a Sha'abi choreography to one of Saad's latest hits. The Sha'abi/Baladi choreography was my favorite - cute, fun, and sassy. But I did feel like a princess with all of the arabesques and turns of the Andalusian routine.

But it was more than the choreography . . . it was the advice he gave on the dance. One of my favorites: "We do not dance to impress - we dance to make people happy". I couldn't agree more. I wouldn't want to share all his secrets - for those, you can pick up a DVD from Little Egypt or attend one of his workshops.

Exhausted, but so Inspired

I'm back from the weekend-long Yousry Sharif workshop in Mansfield, MA – with two new music CDs and a head full of beautiful choreography. It is the first time that I have enjoyed the choreography from a workshop enough to want to memorize it and keep it forever. I noticed that several others felt the same way. We learned seven and a half minutes of choreography in total, to the adorably named "Raqset Kitty!". It included everything from latin-inspired steps to khaleegy to the Robot. Yousry was a kind and clear instructor, who did not live up to his reputation of sternness. In fact, he smiled quite a bit and was fun. Don't get me wrong – it was a serious workshop – and serious hard work. I was thoroughly beat by the end and could barely lift a hip.

My friends and I also had the pleasure of going to the World Dance and Music Center in Pawtucket RI for a post-workshop show (not connected to the workshop). Lola put together a beautiful evening with four dancers (Ok, I was one of them) and the highlight for me was the band. George Rizk is an expert drummer, and I already knew that I enjoyed Mitchell Kaltsunas' ensemble. They played the most gorgeous version of Leilet Hob for me, and the drum solo was the best drum solo I've had live. There was none of the usual muddiness, only clear and crisp Dums and Taks.

Both events were significantly far from my house, but I would drive that far again for either experience. For now though, I am going to rest my tired body.