Phewww deep breath and starting:
From last year when Hossam and Serena had invited me for dinner at their house in London, knew that I HAD to attent a workshop of theirs. The long conversations we had (the dinner lasted for 6 hours lol) inspired me, and we had exchanged many opinions on oriental dance worldwide.
So on June when I checked their site and they had this workshop at London, i was like, ok I'll go on October, anyway I had already missed my backgammon friends (if you think i'm addict with oriental dance, you got to speak with my Internatonal Backgammon Friends lol).
Had to cancel more than 20 hours teaching for the week I left (having my students screaming and complaining that I'm abandoning them) and also leaving husband, daughter, fish, dogs and a house in total mess dont mentioning that we had elections in Greece (so the Parliament was on fire) I just left everything behind me for a week
On Thursday night was the consert of Hossam Ramzy and Serena with other dancers. My first surprise was that it was held in a Chapel :eek:
So much in contrary with oriental dance, seemed unreal.
The place was full with dancers/musicians/arabs of London.
The orchestra was amazing (more info here
http://www.hossamramzy.com/tours/t_uk2006_concert.htm).
At the begining dancers from Planet Egypt danced and warmed the audience and after came Serena. I had her DVD but watching her live was just melting my heart, and ofcourse Hossam's personality was in the air.
Really loved the night, and worthed the traveling from Luton to London.
On Saturday we had the first workshop it was labeled as Classical for me it was a Revealing the beauty of arabian dance and music workshop.
On my surprise the min I endered the class i heard screams Mariaaaa Mariaaa and i was like what??? and omg there were more than 10 girls that we had met in Egypt at workshops !!!!! They didnt knew i was gonna be there, and I didnt knew about them also, so gossip time he he he.
Serena gave us a "rout" to dance Gamil Gamal, and we had the orchestra playing for us full time. Now if anyone knows Hossam personal knows his style.
Its not easy for everyone, his personality is sooo demanding, knows what he wants from the dancers, he shout, he scream, he laught, he say jokes, he inspire. I am not sure that it can work for everyone, but for me it did. And for almost all of us in the workshop.
The orcestra was playing solo's with the instruments and we had to follow exact the sounds and just being our selves, not copying anyone, so Serena had to sit down, it was a very esoterical experience.
We had to take some breaks during the day (6 hours workshop, but lasted almost 7) because errr you know arabs and musicians they have to have their sigarete and their shisha !!! yep they had shisha with them !!! and as I am a bad girl and smoke, I was with them all the breaks. And it was great speaking with Emil Bassil who was playing violin for Oum Kalthum, and Wadie Nossier who made me cry in the class with his ney, El Gamal El Soghayyar with whoom we had eye laught contact all the time in the class (he could NOT believe I'm not arab, and he was mad with me hiding that i'm arab and saying i'm greek lol), Sheikh Taha with his emotional accordeon and finaly Jogef Iskander with his drums, ofcourse Serena and Hossam (we were the smoking gang of the workshop, seems that arab and greeks were the only one smoking there, dont sayyyyyyyy its good, we are bad lol).
Being just me, I lost the train returning at Luton found my self at Birnigham and trying to go back to London with no success so ended at a lousy hotel over there snif snif.
Next day (Sunday) was dedicated for Baladi. Yes yes yes, I was crying with the music almost all the time. Do you know the feeling of dejavu? I had it all the time, but like in other life. Hossam was speaking to us all the time, about baladi with examples, about the culture of baladi and arabian dance.
Meantime I had met with the other 2 greek origins Andrea from Australia and Helen from Holland, and we had lots of laughts. With many of the girls we will meet again on November at Egypt so we did plans on going out and partying.
The whole workshop for me was more emotional than everything else. But since for me oriental dance is based on emotions it was educational also.
For sure I'll do it again even the same subjects. Just loved it.
Now... people from all Europe was there, owners of schools in many countries, and... they booked me for workshops in european countries they just liked my style la lala, yes i'm jumping up and down !!!! because it was total unexpected for me.
Being in Greece sometimes feels so isolated, that you dont know what exactly you are doing, but felt good for me, like i'm in the right path.
If you have a chance to study with Hossam and Serena go for it.
Its different from other workshops, educational and an experience.
Maria Aya
p.s. photos to come