This was Raqia’s first London workshop, sponsored by Maureen O’Farrell (who was unable attend due to commitments in Turkey), and hosted by Lesley Allen.

Raqia is a natural teacher whose energy is incredible. Considering she had spent the last few weeks traveling and teaching, she really put us through our paces. The focus of this workshop was a really good stick choreography to a pop song by Nadia Mostafa. Totally unfazed that some of the participants were unfamiliar with modern Egyptian posture/styling (i.e. movements performed with straight legs rather than bent, with shimmies produced from the knees) Raqia first spent some time making sure that we were all able to perform some of her favourite movements correctly. She also moved around the class regularly, helping individuals with technique and made a point of getting those at the back to come to front so that she could repeat things where they could see – a real must when there’s a large number of students.

The choreography itself was well structured and taught to us in small manageable sections, with plenty of re-caps and practice, so that we remembered what we had learned. Raqia also explained what Nadia was singing about which put the choreography into proper context. As the afternoon progressed I became in awe of Raqia’s energy & patience, even though some of us were beginning to show signs of weariness she looked ready to do a few hours more!

At one point some students commented that they found a particular movement or section of the choreography very difficult, Raqia’s response could be summed up as: ‘Why pay good money to come and learn something that’s too easy? If there’s no difficulty involved there is no challenge, and you would think you had wasted your money coming to the workshop.’ This is exactly the reason why I go to workshops; to learn from wonderful teachers like Raqia. I want the opportunity to improve my skills as a dancer, in fact I need the challenge this gives me; to help me continue to grow my knowledge of Oriental Dance.

Here in the UK we get very few visits from master teachers like Raqia – when these opportunities arise we need to make the most of them whenever we can.

Thank you Maureen & Lesley for making this possible. I look forward to the opportunity to study with Raqia again in the future.

Afra al Kahira

Raqia Hassan is founder and director of the acclaimed Ahlan Wa Sahlan Festival, held annual in Cairo. Visit her website at www.raqiahassan.net for more information.