This was Yousry Sharif's first visit to the UK as a teacher. Over 3 days he provided us with an amazing amount of choreographic, interpretation, and styling information. Yousry is a very exacting teacher; at the beginning of each session he made it clear that talking during class time was unacceptable and that he expected us to work hard to achieve the best results. However, he also stressed the importance of having fun and enjoying the dance too!
Friday evening was a Master Class aimed specifically at teachers and professional dancers. Particular focus was given to styling and expression along with 'contractions' to produce a lovely cheeky baladi style. As part of this Yousry taught half of a choreography to enable us to put this into practise. Great attention was placed on getting the detail and 'feel' of the music just right and how to make the dance expressive without being tarty. For me one of the most interesting parts of the evening was Yousry's clear explanation of the correct technique for producing a shimmy from the legs rather than the hips. Over the years I have had lessons with many other Egyptian teachers and all of them have left me with the feeling that this type of shimmy is not safe to do. Yousry's method, and the clarity of his explanation of it, makes me feel much more confident in using and teaching this type of shimmy.
On Saturday we began work on learning a complete choreography. Again, much time was spent on technique to ensure a completeness which learning the steps on their own can never give. Although we worked at quite a pace, time was still found to answer individual dancers' questions and to practise each segment thoroughly before moving on. After the lunch break there was a Q&A session where Yousry endeavoured to find out how much we know about dance rhythms. The end result was that there appeared to be a great amount of confusion not only amongst less experienced dancers, but amongst the so-called 'qualified' teachers too. Having said that, I know from personal experience that my own students can be shy of naming rhythms (or anything else for that matter) in front of their peers for fear of getting it wrong and making themselves look foolish. It certainly made me examine the methods and teaching aids I currently use for teaching my students how to understand and appreciate Middle Eastern Dance rhythms. The downside to this interesting discussion was that at 5pm we had only really learned about two thirds of the choreography and many people went home feeling disappointed not to have the complete version.
On Sunday we arrived expecting to begin work on a new choreography but at the very start of the session Yousry announced that he would like to complete the one we started yesterday. He was, I think, surprised to discover that quite a few of the dancers present had not been at the previous session and were understandably a little concerned by this. However, by careful recaps of the previous day's work, he soon managed to bring most of the new dancers up to speed with the footwork, if not all the styling etc. I personally did not participate in the Sunday workshop due to a health problem (in fact sadly I had to go home when we stopped for lunch), but was able to sit and observe. This enabled me to truly appreciate Yousry's skills as a teacher. He might be a strict disciplinarian (he even made jokes about his reputation for being 'difficult') but his enthusiasm was boundless and he was always able to raise the energy levels and get everyone enjoying themselves. So his classes are hard work? Who cares! We need more people like Yousry who give so much to their students and who work so hard for our dance. All of my students who attended the Saturday & Sunday workshops came away with a real sense of achievement, feeling they had learned something really valuable about Middle Eastern Dance.
Afra al Kahira