10 Jun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1ET18RxWl0
It’s been a while since I gave you my belly dancer of the month. Too much traveling and too many different things to work on but my life has been a little more relaxed recently and here is my choice for this month, a resplendant Samia Gamal who with Tahiya Carioca, is my other favourite belly dancer. And like Tahiya, she avoids being vulgar despite the suggestiveness of her movements. Every time I watch her I wonder how her jaws don’t ache with that wide fixed smile she has throughout her dances. She is very young in this clip taken from a 1954 film called Raqsat al-Weda’. The choreography and set are delightful, her body and movements absolutely gorgeous and the characters watching her very amusing despite some tragic expressions! I hope you enjoy it as much as I have!
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31 Jul
I have been very lax about posting recently. A combination of deadlines and too much travelling but I am back now and I promise you not to forget my belly dancer of the month any longer. So, for this month, I am offering you a double bill: a beautiful dancer, Randa Makhoul, gyrating to the music of Mashrou3 Leila, my favourite Arab group. I didn’t know Makhoul but am glad to have discovered her. She is pretty, has a gorgeous body and dances beautifully. What more to ask of a belly dancer. Perhaps to have the class of a Tahiya Carioca but not many do, so, she will do, for now and at a later stage in other clips. Anyhow, I hope you enjoy her and Mashrou3 Leila as much as I do.
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6 Jun
Last month I forgot to post a belly dancer. Too much travel and work but here is my choice for this month, a very young Tahiya Carioca who as you you may know is my all time favourite. It is a rare clip from a 1936 film called The Police Station (I think it is the right translation for Khafar al-Darak) where she must have just featured as a dancer as the first film mentioned in her Wikipedia entry dates from 1942. And even if she is already moving beautifully, you can see from her expression if nothing else that she is not yet an experienced dancer. Still, she is totally lovely and definitely worth watching whether you are a Tahiya fan or not!
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2 Aug
You are lucky today. You are getting three clips in one. Just found this on youtube without unfortunately much explanation but they all seem to be of a very young Tahiya, possibly before she became the huge star she was. Not sure. Anyone who knows, please tell me. In any case, she is particularly beguiling in the third dance where she is as always incredibly sexy without being vulgar, but there even more so with an element of purity which is not something you would normally associate with belly dancing!
