summerdance

This is Zizi Mustapha. She is a retired dancer from the early days. She has since donned Hijab and given up dancing.

This lady has always intrigued me for many reasons. For one thing she gave birth to one of my absolute favorite Egyptian Actresses- Menna Shalaby. She also had an amazing personal history. Please bear with me as I share a little of it.

Zizi Mustapha began her dancing career as a runaway. She had seen dancing all her young life and she ran away from home, some say because of abuse. She went to a friend's house, but her girlfriend's mother could not let her stay, so she basically ended up with no where to stay and accepted an offer from a street girl to work in this small cabaret.

She got famous really fast, both for her youth and for her boneless hips. She danced at different places and eventually retired after 20 years.
She has done some acting, before and since her retirement. Her daughter is truly gifted dancer.

This clip just shows her style. She asked the audience what song they wanted to hear and they chose Lisa Faker. She does what most people want to see zizi do. Everyone always wanted to see these ("Astik" i.e elastic hips)

Anyway, I love her and I adore Um Kulthum. Although, like most Arabs I am deeply offended when a dancer tries to dance when Um Kulthum herself is singing.