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Email: yasmina@yasminaofcairo.com
Web Site: www.yasminaofcairo.com
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JOURNEY OF DESIRE, REVIEW
I knew Journey of Desire would be a personal account of life in Cairo as a
professional dancer, and there are several excellent tableaux of performances
by the wonderful Yasmina of Cairo, but the film’s strength, for me, lies
in what it conveys about the culture and music and just what this dance is all
about it. On that score I think it’s a must-see for students and teachers
alike, especially those who are not so clear – or who are misinformed!
– about oriental dance’s cultural context.
Yasmina traces her career in dance, from England’s green and pleasant land
of her childhood, to her final destination in the desert-bound heat and chaos
of modern Cairo. We are given glimpses of the struggle and the hard road to
employment as a dancer – the training, the orchestra, the costumes and
costumiers, the negotiations with agents. One of the lighter strands of the
film (depending on your perspective, I suppose!) is Australian dancer
Caroleen's saga of the long journey through officialdom to full possession of
all the relevant legal documents allowing a dancer to shake just one shimmy in
public. We see Yasmina training with the inimitable Ibrahim Akef and are
introduced to her personal story – her marriage to Safaa Farid and the
birth of their son, Azz – alongside the progress of her career.
The previously mentioned tableaux are joyously performed, full of life and
verve and giving a tempting glimpses of Cairo life – from rooftop baladi
to Giza assaya and – probably my favourite – a humorous, Keystone
Cops-like segue of the utter chaos of Cairo traffic leading into a sha’abi
number with hunky dancing garage mechanics! The performances show
Yasmina’s utter professionalism, ranging through the different styles, and
her consummate understanding of the music and culture of her chosen home.
We don’t only get Yasmina’s perspective though – she has also
interviewed other world reknowned dancers and teachers like Dina, Shareen el
Safy, Raqia Hassan, Beatta and Horacio Cifuentes, and I challenge anyone not to
be moved to tears by Morocco of New York’s emotional description of tarab!
In fact, the whole subject of this dance that we so enthusiastically embrace
and taken to our hearts is treated with such deserved seriousness and joy that
I was moved to tears several times during the film.
This is no amateur offering. The production values of the film are totally
professional, from expert camerawork and lighting to familiar techniques of
interviewing. It could easily be broadcast as it is on any British terrestrial
channel and stand alongside the best.
So not only do we have a variety of performances from Yasmina – seriously
emotive, light-hearted or just plain fun (check that purple wig!) - we are also
given a truly invaluable insight right into the heart of Egyptian culture, both
elements providing a much-needed framework for our understanding of this
wonderful dance. This is a truly professional, informative, insightful,
instructive and, perhaps most importantly, joyful film.
Ali Orr, NADA Magazine UK
THE MAKING OF JOURNEY OF DESIRE: A FOREIGN DANCER IN CAIRO
Picture the scene: a garage somewhere in the back streets of Cairo, crammed
with dusty vintage cars that have seen better days, a film crew, four bemused
male dancers in mechanics’ overalls, and a crowd of local onlookers
who’ve squeezed in to have a look. The temperature is a scorching 90
degrees, we are dripping sweat, the ground is lumpy gravel on which I’m
attempting to dance in high heels wearing a stretch disco outfit and a purple
wig. Not for the first time since it all began I’m asking myself,
“What exactly am I doing here, and am I actually completely mad?!”
Like many a creative project, Journey of Desire: A Foreign Dancer in Cairo
evolved over time, and ended up a very different piece of film from its
original concept. The title was thought up by the film’s director Sara
Farouk (known by some in the UK as Maureen O’Farrell), after reading my
script. The “desire” was (and, for some, still is) to dance in Cairo.
The “journey” was my personal one. It changed my life completely but,
as the film shows, having a relationship with this dance - especially with the
added ingredient of Cairo - has affected or changed the lives of other women
too. To all intents and purposes the film explores the relationship between
Cairo and the many foreign dancers that come here and, having come, have felt
compelled to come back again and again, or to live and work here.
In 1999, when I had been dancing in Cairo for four years, the idea of
documenting the local scene began to formulate in my mind. At that stage,
surrounded by what seemed the disintegration of the dance - most of the great
stars hanging up their costumes and night-clubs closing left right and centre -
the obvious approach seemed to be to try to capture what was left before it
disappeared, and to interview Egyptian dancers. Here was a world that was
disappearing before our very eyes and would probably never return. Despite
having done a degree in Film and Photography at Central London Polytechnic back
in the 1980s, I was by profession a stills photographer, not a film-maker.
Details! Determined not to let lack of experience stand in my way, I bought a
broadcast-quality camera in London and returned to Cairo full of optimism and
purpose. But my initial approaches to dancers and trainers upturned a problem I
hadn’t bargained for: each interview looked set to involve substantial
sums of money; the idea of being interviewed for purposes of documentation was
alien to those I spoke to. Wasn’t I planning to sell the film and get rich
(they reasoned)? Then I would have to pay them to talk! As a novice film-maker
I was financing the project myself, without any sponsorship or backing, so I
backed off, disheartened, and for several years the camera lay gathering dust
in my wardrobe.
But that’s not to say I didn’t film anything - indeed, I continued
making “home movies” of life in Cairo with my camcorder, some of
which were to come in useful later on. When I had my son Azzedine and finally
decided to retire officially from the Cairo stage in 2003, I withdrew from the
dancers’ “circuit” and concentrated on teaching and on the
journalism that was beginning to link me with other artistic and creative
circles in Cairo. But in the back of my mind the idea of making a film never
went away, and I became more and more convinced that it was still a good idea.
Over the years I could not fail to notice the considerable international
interest generated by the idea of foreign dancers working in Cairo, and this
emerged as a starting point. “Why not tell my own story?” I finally
realised. Occasionally I came into contact with other people attempting to make
documentaries about the dance in Cairo (one such film, in which I had
participated, had been shown in Germany back in 1996, and I still hear dancers
commenting about it today). Such film-makers work under difficult conditions,
not least because officially they must declare their intentions to the Egyptian
Ministry of Information and are closely monitored as a result. Also, a visiting
film-maker with time constraints is bound to come up against the logistical
nightmare of trying to work to a tight timetable in a city which invariably
thwarts any attempts at organisation! How much better and easier would it be, I
reasoned, to actually be living here and have the luxury of unlimited time and
inside knowledge to achieve the end result? Unfortunately what I didn’t
have was the luxury of a decent budget, but I began the project bit by bit,
using money I was earning to complete different segments whenever I could. Once
the project was underway, Farida Dance also gave me an injection of funds as an
incentive to carry on, just when I was feeling particularly daunted by the
financial outlay.
The dance sequences that are now incorporated into the film began as a
completely separate idea. I had toyed with the concept of producing a teaching
video to include choreographies, each ending with a “performance”
shot on location, to add a bit of fun and colour. As the documentary idea began
to take shape in my mind, however, I saw how these sequences could be given a
context and used to illustrate different aspects not only of the dance but also
of my feelings about Cairo. The location of each dance reflects for me
something about the spirit of that piece of music. Sometimes the result ended
up almost exactly as I’d planned, and sometimes it didn’t at all but,
as is the way in Cairo, it often worked out fine anyway. Like the time we
arrived at the carefully arranged location with expensive film crew in tow and
a time limit (the sun was setting) only to discover the owner of the place had
not bothered to check what was happening there that day, and a construction
company had literally just dumped a ton of bricks at the exact spot I’d
chosen to dance on. (After hastily regrouping, we moved to a different spot and
cut it later with another location - and the result was even better). When we
shot the baladi rooftop sequence, the obvious props we needed were chickens
(every baladi rooftop in Cairo has them!). Who could have predicted the bird
flu epidemic, during which every last chicken in the city was slaughtered or
removed from view, and couldn’t be found for love or money?!
About filming in front of the pyramids I have only this to say: if asked by the
Ministry of Antiquities where I got permission, the official response has to be
“No no - can’t you see it’s a studio backdrop with clever
lighting?”
For anyone who has been to Egypt, and has an imagination, Sara and I need not
spell out the difficulties of working with a cut-price extra-low budget film
crew. If we didn’t both have a sense of humour I doubt we could have gone
the distance. Lights toppling over, buzzing microphones and cables being
tripped over on a regular basis weren’t the half of it. Some of the time
it was film-making by trial and error, and we never knew quite which type of
lighting would turn up on each interview, so some poor interviewees got full-on
unflattering tungsten, while others had soft filters and reflectors. (Superstar
Dina, being a pro at the game, took no chances and cannily insisted we come and
film her at her friend’s photographic studio, where she seated herself
between three large soft-boxes. Smart.)
Filming on the streets of Cairo poses its own hazards and difficulties and, for
obvious reasons, we usually got the Egyptian cameraman to go off and do these
shots on his own. It is a much lamented issue among documentary film-makers
that the Egyptian authorities place strict restrictions about what one can and
can’t film in public places, with the emphasis being on presenting
everything in the country in a flattering light. Plenty of foreign film crews
have been chastised for (sometimes inadvertently) filming a pile of rubbish, or
children begging. In a recent Egyptian movie, heartthrob actor Hany Salama
played the role of a documentary maker shooting a film about street children.
While filming through the car window a shot of a vagrant kid sniffing glue, he
is hauled bodily out of the car by passers by and dragged off to the police
station to explain himself. Our own cameraman Medo also ended up in the police
station on one occasion after filming in the street, and kept the film running
so we got to see the inside of the station and the officer filing his report,
unaware the record button was still running.
Sara and I were also careful not to show any footage that deliberately
incorporates a mosque or the call to prayer. It was a shame, as Egyptian people
enfold their religion into the fabric of their daily lives in a very real way.
It seemed, in fact, strange to us to be excluding an aspect of life that is
intrinsically part of Cairo, and very audio-visually present. But I took the
advice given to me by Egyptian friends, and acknowledge that especially in the
current climate it might be controversial to mix Islam with belly-dancing in
any form whatever. We interviewed over thirty people in the course of making
Journey of Desire - and almost all of them make an appearance. The list grew
and grew as I thought of more and more things I wanted to say! One could point
out that this is an unorthodox approach to film-making but, then again, most
film-makers don’t necessarily have the option of doing it this way. To
some extent I was limited, especially in terms of international dancers, by who
came to Cairo during the period in which we were shooting - but the more
“inclusive” the film became, I sometimes missed opportunities which I
later wished I hadn’t. On the other hand Sara, more aware than I of the
hard realities of editing, had to constrain me on numerous occasions and simply
say to me, as I reached for my phone to order the camera crew for yet another
interview: “WE DON’T NEED IT.” “Er, ok then.” All
those years back, when I prepared to make that other film about what was
happening to the dance, I did manage to interview one visiting “name”
in the dance world: Shareen el Safy, who was then owner and editor of Habibi
magazine. I took the interview down from its shelf, dusted it off and, watching
it, realised that most of what she said is still very relevant today. I am glad
that the other dancers who participated in this film did so with grace and
enthusiasm, wanting to share their experiences, not least because there is
often seen to be a sense of rivalry, competitiveness and hostility among
dancers in Cairo (as the Russian dancer Noor told me unequivocally during her
interview: since we are all women, such an atmosphere of hostility had come as
no surprise to her).
There were other dancers whose experiences in Cairo I would have loved to
include. Among them two special and talented performers, Samasem of Sweden (who
was there before me and stopped almost when I did) and Sahra Saeeda of
California, who preceded me at the Meridien Heliopolis and was a hard act to
follow. Both these dancers were inspirational to me and a part of what one
night-club manager referred to as “the golden age of the foreign
dancer” in the 1990s. Neither were in Cairo at any time whilst I was doing
the interviews for the film, so unfortunately I never got a chance to invite
them to take part. I also wanted to interview the Brazilian dancer Soraya but,
though she was willing on the phone, we never could actually pin her down to a
time or place. Many people contributed in different ways to the making of the
film, lending their time, effort and expertise freely, because they supported
the idea. I would like to mention in particular Hallah Moustafa, the designer,
who proved herself to be far more than just a brilliant costumier. Also Safaa
Farid, Abou Azz, who helped with co-ordinating the dance sequences, among other
things. As is appropriate for Egypt, the film sometimes became a family affair,
both off screen and on - as those of you who know us will recognise!
Making Journey of Desire was a fascinating experience for both Sara and I in
terms of what emerged from the many people we spoke to on the subject of the
dancer’s role in Middle Eastern society. For me it confirmed what I had
been aware of for many years as a performer here: that in Egypt attitudes
towards the oriental dancer and all she represents are complex and sadly often
overwhelmingly negative. Hardly anyone seemed truly able to speak freely on the
subject, even those who initially said they would. And when I approached a
contact in the world of modern dance (who has had numerous problems herself in
becoming accepted as an artist in her own right) to comment - from the point of
view of an Egyptian woman in the field of “legitimate” dance - she
became instantly cagey. To even speak openly about “bellydance”
would, it seemed, be so problematic that she wouldn’t feel comfortable
doing so. When it came to comments about the way the dance remains officially
unrecognised and unsupported by the powers that be, many people would only
speak “off the record”. Ah, what an interesting documentary those
off-the-record conversations could make.
I hope that people will truly get a glimpse into what it is like inside the
world of a working foreigner in Egypt. It is very much a joint effort, and I
could never have made it without Sara’s knowledge, support and expertise.
This is what she herself has to say about the film: “Directing Journey of
Desire has been a truly rewarding experience from a visual, intellectual and
emotional point of view. I have learnt so much from listening to and observing
the contributors as well as from the problems and joys related to the process.
Of course it is a film, first and foremost, about Egypt and its dance, but it
is also an investigation into attitudes regarding a special kind of woman - a
woman who is strong enough to own her own sexuality, to really know herself,
her art and her place, and exhibit that strength publicly - to perform alone.
For both participants and audience the film is exactly what the title says it
is - a journey of desire – a journey that means something different to
each individual.”
For myself it has at times been a difficult thing to produce because it has
involved a certain amount of raw self-exposure. It has been a bit of a
roller-coaster but, in the end, whether people enjoy it or not, I can vouch
that it comes from my love of Cairo, my love for the dance, and it comes from
the heart.
Yasmina |
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