Joana Saahirah´s World Blog
A Collection of Articles, Videos, and Freebies on Egyptian Dance, Self-Discovery & Empowerment
If you´re a performer in Egyptian Dance, read this🌞🌹
💫📯What makes an exceptional Egyptian Dance Performance?
If you´re an oriental dancer, what folks erroneously call a "belly dancer", you´re surrounded by myths, tabus, and misconceptions.
It doesn´t matter if you´re a professional, an amateur, or anything in between. If you´re involved with this art form, you´re surrounded by the fog. A lack of clarity.
As a teacher in the field, I´ve coached thousands of all sorts of dancers, especially performers or dancers who dream about becoming perfor...
What are the Muwashahat, the dances of the Al-Andalus?🌙
- 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 joke every day, fresh out of the oven.
He was, and will always be, my dearest long-term teacher, friend, work collaborator, co-creator, and best 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, stum...
Why we run away from our Power
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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Egyptian Dance that Smells like Jasmine
How to Slow Down (for dancers who live in a rush)
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 ...
The art of Control and Surrender in Egyptian Dance
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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The Forgotten Pillars of authentic Egyptian Dance
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...
She showed me what was possible🌟
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...
What I learned in 2023🎉
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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Murder at The Oriental Café
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...
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