Cairo Diary Day 4 - a Pharaonic day
Today was a bit of quiet time, with artemisia_danst & Kay. We went to Al Azhar park, which is a beautiful public park, and was a haven of calm & rest. We had a drink in the café there, overlooking the Citadel. We talked a bit of teacher stuff.



Then Artemisia & I went off the Khan al Khalili. It was just for Mahmoud’s really. She was going mad, trying to find skirts & belts that would appeal to her students. If it were me, I would have gone for more bright colours, but apparently they’re all pale blondes in Belgium!She knows her market. I bought a couple of scarves for me and a few coin ones that I think would sell if I offered them to my students, but which I wouldn’t be heart-broken if they didn’t. I got some new khul-khal, as mine are falling to bits. And ginormous baladi earrings, one pair in silver metal & one in yellow metal.

Then we met up with Kay again, to go on to Pharaonics. Madam Amira is a fascinating lady. A very savvy businesswoman, and completely charming. Her stuff is very high-end. Beautiful quality & design. But it’s too “Oriental” for me. I’m more of a Baladi babe. I’m really not at all into 2-pieces (although the crazy pink trouser suit will be my first 2-piece since the Turkish bedlah, which I sold off a couple of years ago). But Artemisia was very happy.

Back to the Grand, for a rest. Not much of one, though, as it was on to the first show of the holiday.

We were on the Nile Pharaon boat. The boat terminal and indeed the boat itself is decorated in Over The Top Pharaonic Opulence. There is a doorman dressed in a Pharaonic style uniform, and carrying a gold staff styled like an ankh at the top, like you see in the pharaonic paintings of kings holding their staffs of office, and symbols of kingliness. But I’m afraid, being a doorman, he didn’t strike me as terribly kingly!


Apologies for the terrible photo quality. One of the things I forgot to pack was my camera, so I was relying on my crummy phone camera. It's ok in daylight, but not so good when it's dark.

There was a cute little girl there, waiting with her parents, a very heavily veiled lady and an obviously doting daddy. She was maybe 2½ or 3, and so sweet and chatty, smiling and waving to us, chatting and playing with Noella, blowing kisses to us all. Such a cuty!

We were sat on a side table, close to the dance floor. We had a good view of the stage, but not a front view. Kay had words with the manager about that afterwards! Artemisia & I positioned ourselves right at the stage-side. The stage was miniscule,made with a couple of pieces of moveable dance floor. The meal was a buffet and there was plenty of it. I even managed to eat vegetables which is a bit gosh-darn healthy for me. I’m usually a hardened carnivore. I was starving though- I’d eaten nothing since breakfast.

The show started with a couple of singers. The bloke singer was going Spanish-ish stuff… Volare, The girl from Ipanema, that style of thing. He was from a 1970s timewarp- crimson satin shirt & medallions down his chest. He got a few people up to dance from our party. When a Saaidi piece came on, I was dancing in my seat too much for him not to notice. It wasn’t really my fault at all, it’s that I ldo ove the Sa’aidi. Anyway, when I tried to sneak off the stage, an older gentleman, as it turned out, the manager, turned it into a Dabke. Now I stink at Dabke- it doesn’t ftr the music, because it’s a 6-count, while the music is a 4-count, so it’s always seemed wrong to me.

The girl singer was doing poppy stuff, she did Ya Tabtab, which was the only piece I actually recognised. It was all cute soulful girly pop though.

The dancer for the night was doing her set upstairs first, while the musicians/singers were doing their set for us, then they swapped over. I think that was the best way round, because it built up to the dance set, rather than giving us the dance set followed by crap singing. So I was happy.

The dancer was Joanna, a Portuguese dancer. She has a slight look of Yasmina about the mouth and jawline, but darker skinned. She’s a nice dancer & I liked her. I felt she was trying a bit too much to be Dina, but she was doing enough of her own stuff for me to enjoy watching her dancing. She used the Suhair Down hips in an interesting way, which I probably can’t define now... She went into them from an accent, often in the 3s, like Dandesh might, but she’d be much more grounded & baladi than Joanna was with them. I found a couple of the times she was using arms that showed a Flamenco-style possibly generic Hispanic style, in the lift of her elbow, the curl of her wrist. She was using space in an interesting way, given that her dance space was so miniscule.

The first set was Oriental, majenci, then something sung, probably an old song, but I didn’t recognise it. She was wearing a purple dress that didn’t look terribly impressive, though it showed her moves well enough. She uses a lot of little abdominal locks. The beading on the dress wasn’t all that, I thought. I’d seen nicer dresses & bedlah over the course of the holiday so far. But anyway, apart from being a bit Dina-esque, with the hand to the nose, the hip rotations with stops, the deep dips & up again... Apart from all that, she’d got a nice personal style.



She left & a Tannoura dancer came on. He was doing fine. He only had four tambourines to play with. He did the mother & baby thing (I’ll have to try & get someone to explain that to me properly). Then he did the Over head spin while going out into the audience. That’s got to be hard work on the lifting arm, those tannoura skirts aren’t lightweight things. He dragged Katerin onto the stage withhim and did the lying underneath the tannoura thing. Then he got Artemisia up & put the tannoura skirt on her & made her spin! Nice one!

Then Joanna came back in a really cute leopard-print bedlah & mandeel, doing a Sa’aidi stick piece, and she got me up with her, part way through it. Just a few horsesteps & hip rotation, but it was fun. I do love a bit of Sa’aidi (did I say that already?) In this set she seemed more relaxed, the audience had warmed up a bit, and she knew she had happy dancers in the audience. Also, the baladi set is so much more fun. (Not that I’m saying I hate Oriental, I love it, but it’s not so much “fun”, it’s more serious.) She did Hawa Ya Hawa as the stick piece, then she went into a baladi progression piece, then a drum solo, which was very well done, with funny bits where she was playing with the drummer as well as the audience- the “Wait for it, wait for it...” game. When she was taking her bow, she threw kisses our way and one to me in particular. Is proud!