Workshop and Haflah Review
Yasmina of Cairo
July 9 2005
by Samoora of El Amiraat

Yasmina of Cairo’s relationship with the Middle-Eastern Culture, life, Music, habits and the strong Love for the Raqs Sharki was obvious as soon as we saw her perform. Yasmina as we all know and feel, has been and is still recognized by Arabic and Egyptian audiences for her flexible ability and talent. With over 10 years dance experience in Cairo - Egypt, Yasmina has dedicated herself to full time dance studies and practice. She has performed and still does in many private events within Egypt and outside of Egypt, in Europe, Australia and America.

The big day was Saturday, July 9, 2005. The Yasmina of Cairo Show in Tadley (near Reading, U.K.) after a day of workshops with her. Yasmina’s show was in the forth part of the evening, hosted by Afra al Kahira and Sara Shrapnell. The first part of the show featured Middle Eastern Guest dancers from UK and US.

Sara Shrapnell started the show with a Turkish Rom dance. Sara's dance was performed with delicate hand movements, gentle upper body undulations, and beautiful facial expressions. Beatrice danced a graceful baladi to Ala Rimsh Ayounha in a lovely bright pink dress. Lily, our lovely American belly dancer friend performed to Enta Omri! Excellent performance that made everyone mesmerized! The audience was taken away into Lily’s dance world at that moment. Fantastic is probably not enough to describe Lily’s dance that evening.

The second section was performed by Mersin titled “Mersin at the Oasis”, who danced a medley, which consisted of a selection of numbers which represented Middle Eastern dancing travellers, congregating at an oasis and dancing for each other. This set was bright and colourful and showed their complex choreographies.

Charlotte Desorgher opened the third section with a nice drum solo moving her body percussively with nice locks, pops, drops, shimmy and stops. Charlotte has a relaxed style, which the audience enjoyed immensely.Samoora followed Charlotte, she started her dance with applause! She performed a traditional Saidi piece which was much appreciated by the audience.

Emma closed the third section with a performance to a love song “Habibi Yaeni” which had a very positive attitude and openness to keep her performance fresh, exhilarating and most of all entertaining. Her dancing was very controlled, elegant and refined.

The final section of the show began all in gold – our lucky charm by the performer Afra al Kahira. Afra performed a fusion number as Hathor (House of Horus) who was a goddess of many things, among them she was a goddess of love, music and beauty. Afra's performance was original and refreshing to watch. We all enjoyed it very much.

Part two of the final section was the dream coming true, yes, Cairo did come to us! Yasmina who's known for her professionalism and expressive style to all her performances performed in the second part of that evening and that was just fantastic! Yasmina opened her show with Heya di Yasmina - (This is Yasmina) then to a mix of classical, Saidi and baladi songs. After she had performed a Raqs Sharki routine in her very nice green bedlah, Yasmina went backstage to change, so as a last minute request Mersin were asked to perform once more, they performed a lively up-beat bollywood fusion number. Then Yasmina came out wearing a baladi dress and performed a very nice and memorable folkloric dance.

The evening was a wonderful success; the audience enjoyed a variety of dance styles all of which were extremely high standards.

By Samoora of El Amiraat