Interview with Sahra Saeeda

Posted on July 22, 2005

Contents, Materials, Images © 2005 © Jemina Kathaleen Shikany

 

Angela: We really enjoyed the workshop, especially because of what we’ve been studying in class. When I started teaching this Saidi section I e-mailed Shareen El Safy (since I have her video Saidi for the Stage) and asked her where the Said is actually located in Egypt. You answered that today in class. I also wondered about some of the hand movements I have seen Raqia Hassan and Shareen El Safy use.

Sahra: What are they? (Angela demonstrates)

Angela: Shareen says she learned them from Raqia. Are they actually Saidi?

Sahra: Not that I know of. Are you sure they’re not Saudi?

Angela: No they’re presented as Saidi and both Shareen and Raqia are dancing to the Saidi rhythm.

Sahra: I’ve never seen Saidi people do them. I’ve seen Cairo people do them. (Angela stands up and shows in more detail)

Angela: There’s this one (one palm to face, one palm to pelvis) which I think looks vaguely obscene.

Sahra: I do too.

Angela: And this one (hand hits head, hand hits hip at same time) Raqia actually pats her rear end!

Sahra: I’ve never seen Saidis do that.

Angela: Concerning hand movements you mentioned today the Salute.

Sahra: Yes, it touches the forehead and out from the head and back. And then sometimes the chest.

Angela: Like a Salaam type thing.

Sahra: Yes.

Angela: Shareen mentions Mahammed Khalil, could you tell me about him?

Sahra: He choreographed for Nagwa Fuad. I’ve met him in person. He was at the Second Conference.

Angela: Yes, unfortunately, we didn’t get to go to that one. We loved the first one.

Sahra: I’m not sure which specific dances he choreographed for Nagwa.

Angela: Shareen quotes him as saying that the basic core of a Saidi dance is the reference to the horse.

Sahra: Sort of the basic step.

Angela: Yes.

Sahra: I don’t know that that’s the whole core. I would say that the whole core is the Tahteeb and the Assaya. I would say that is the core.

Angela: The cane dance.

Sahra: Yes, but the horse is absolutely an important part of it.

Angela: Do you think the Saidi is a Bedouin dance?

Sahra: No, not at all. It’s a farmer’s dance.

Angela: So it’s fellahin.

Sahra: Yes it’s Saidi fellahin.

Angela: OK, I was confused about that.

Sahra: Yes, fellahin means farmer and you have the Delta fellahin. Usually if you see a dance that is referred to as fellahin it has to do with the Delta.

Angela: So the fellahin rhythm is from the Delta.

Sahra: Yes – but they have Saidi fellahin too.

Angela: When you’re studying all of this don’t you wish you could go back in time? When I started teaching this Saidi class I showed them a photo in National Geographic of a bas relief of a line of Egyptian dancers (in Pharaonic times) kicking up. The caption says they’re kicking like they’re Rochettes or something but to me it looks like a high kicking horse step. Don’t you wish you could get in a time machine and go back to Dynastic and Pre-Dynastic Egypt and watch them dance?

Sahra: I would love it, because even though we have some things drawn (and it tends to look very gymnastic) we have no idea what the music was like. You know we have some idea about dancing but no idea about the music. We have some of the instruments so we have a hint about the sound but I would like to go back to hear the music and see the dance.

Angela: When you’re studying this don’t you sometimes get the feeling that this is something very ancient?

Sahra: Oh yes, no doubt. I have a T-shirt that says “Belly Dance Established 5,000 BC.” When I was in the Said in Mallawi they took me to an old Coptic Christian Church. It’s a really old church that’s supposed to protect the whole (Christian) area. So we went in there and it was the weirdest feeling – it was like the air was just sparkling with tone. The thing is that we went upstairs and we sat there after the sun had gone down and there were, I’d say, five people. Some had finger cymbals, some held a bowl you know they had these bell sounds going. They said this is going on all the time for the protection of the area and they don’t know of a time when it wasn’t going on. So music has been in the church every second for at least hundreds of years. The thing is that Saidis don’t change that easily especially if it is religion. They want to keep it the same. But when I was there I was thinking this predates Christianity. On their walls what was written was partly in Pharoanic language with references to Gods and Goddesses. They had obliterated a lot of it and replaced it with Greek.

Angela: When talking about Egyptian dance I tell people that after I met Mona El Said she looks to me like she could just step off the wall of a pyramid painting. She looks just like the portrayals of Ancient Egyptians.

Sahra: Oh yes, you see some people there, especially when they stand sideways their eyes look just the same.

Angela: Why do you think the Said is called that? Said has different meanings in Arabic. Said was one of Mahammed’s descendants.

Sahra: Port Said was named for the ruler of that name. But the name Said was before that. I’ll have to find out. I don’t know the exact time they started calling themselves Saidi.

Angela: Do you think Aisha Ali would know? Shareen suggested I contact her with my question.

Sahra: Yes, she probably would.

Angela: I have and interest in linguistics and I always like to know why thing are called what they are. I had asked Shareen the geographic boundaries of the Said…

Sahra: It used to start just south of Cairo, but the city has grown so much it’s in Cairo now.

Angela: So are the people who live in the Said considered a tribe or tribes? Do they consider themselves separate ethnically when they call themselves Saidi?

Sahra: Yes, and they also consider themselves the sons of the Pharaohs. They have a deep felling for their land. They are hooked to their land. When they built the High Dam in Aswan they displaced the Nubians. They had, by treaty, to relocate them to give Nubians other land. Well the Saidi aren’t going to give up their land. Land that has often been in their family for thousands of years.

Angela: It’s interesting that they call themselves the sons of the Pharaohs. It seems to me that Oriental dancers use Saidi steps if they want to make their dance earthier or more exciting. Is that accurate?

Sahra: Well, what happens in Cairo is the Beledi, which is more of an Awalem type of thing – it’s very urban. Then at one time back in the fifties and even before that because of Egyptian film they started having this sort of Superstar type of belly dancer.

Angela: Like Samia Gamal.

Sahra: There were the Awalem entertaining at the local weddings and all that and then the stars dancing at the five star hotels. If you read the book, “A Trade Like Any Other” it talks about this in detail. It’s a fantastic book every word of which I agree with. Then fast forward a couple of decades and when they performed they’d have a oriental number, then they would have a Saidi part they would dance in a Saidi folkloric costume.

Jemina- Mona (El Said) did that.

Sahra: Yes, it wasn’t in the awalem unless the awalem were hired to dance for a wedding with Saidis there. In the nightclub it started being a portion of the show. At one point it was a portion in my show too.

Angela: To add variety and appeal to a wider audience?

Sahra: Yes, because the National Troupe founded by Mahmoud Reda had made the Cairo people more aware of the Saidis and so to integrate them further of course the nightclub dancer would have Saidis there for the show. She would learn the Saidi steps to do with them and little by little it was talking hold. In the early nineties the Saidi heel drop became part of the oriental dance repertoire.

Angela: Do you think that its fair to say that the heel drop is a reference to the horse, which is what Shareen El Safy says.

Sahra: Well, it’s a reference to Saidi.

Angela: It’s not so obvious that it’s a horse reference, maybe that’s a value judgement?

Sahra: Yes, because the heel drop is part of this step (demonstrates crossover horse step). They make their horses do this (demonstrates further with the crossover horse and the knee lift horse with a toe brush). When the man does this he’s acknowledging his love of the horse but this one (the heel drop) I don’t know for sure. But the horses don’t do a heel drop.

Angela: It seems more realistic to me to just say that it relates to the earth; being grounded with the beat.

Sahra: They’re very earth related so I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the case.

Angela: Also, when we saw Vashti she taught what she called the Reda pose. I’ve seen the step forever. Ragia does it in her dances. Essentially, it’s a jackknife. What do you call it when you teach it and is it Saidi?

Sahra: I know the Reda Troupe does this kind of thing and I’ve seen it but I’ve never used it in my choreography.

Angela: Ragia was dancing a Beledi Saidi fusion so it may not even be Saidi. Vashti showed it as a pose. It’s totally fetching.

Sahra: I know that they do it. It’s in one of their videos. I’ll have to ask Mahmoud next time I see him.

Angela: Anna, my niece, took a class with Reda and I think that’s where she picked that up.

Sahra: I’ll ask him about that.

Angela: You talked about Nubian dance – that’s Aswan and South. About 10 years ago National Geographic did an article about Nubians in Dynastic Egypt. That they worshipped the same Gods etc. But they look different, they’re blacker. So I think were originally ethnically more central African and then were influenced thousand of years ago by the Pharoanic Egyptians.

Sahra: Well, they had separate cultures. But the Egyptian Pharoanic culture would get very strong and they would dominate. Then the Nubians would get strong and they would dominate. They had a relationship like that. One would take over and “unite’ they country then they’d fall into warfare again or put too many troop outside of Egypt and it would change again.

Angela: I really found interesting the influence on Nubian Dance you ascribe to the Gulf (the Khaleegi) and tracking that influence.

Sahra: I’ve been realizing that more and more in the last few years. It was only a few weeks ago when I was in Egypt that I made the connection between the Saudi Arabian music and the Nubian music. I hadn’t even thought about it before.

Angela: When you were teaching us the Nubian steps you taught that elevated chest lift. It looks like a Central African movement to me. Is it related?

Sahra: Probably. Also the basic Nubian posture is different. It’s bent forward. Nowhere else in Egypt do they do that.

Angela: I’ve seen a similar step in a Moroccan dance done by and American. Do you think that’s authentic? Have you ever seen it in Moroccan dance?

Sahra: I don’t really know enough about Moroccan dance to say. I have a Moroccan friend I’ve danced with a lot but I don’t remember her ever doing that.

Angela: Well, they have hundreds and hundreds of dances. It’s very hard to say for sure is something is authentic or not.

Sahra: Exactly, just because you haven’t seen it doesn’t mean you can automatically eliminate it.

Angela: I like fusing elements. I think that’s very “American Belly Dance.” I just don’t want to do something really anachronistic so that’s why I’m so curious about certain steps.

Sahra: Yes, I think it’s fascinating to find the influences and the way people borrow steps and what they choose to keep and what they choose not to do.

Angela: The human body is limited to only a certain number of manipulations of the form. Why do some cultures choose the positions they do?

Sahra: Yes – that’s Dance Ethnology 101.

Angela: That rhythm that you taught today. What’s it called?

Sahra: I don’t know. The whole idea of men clapping in counter point is called Al Kaff “the clapping.” I don’t know of a name for the specific pattern.

Angela: Well, sometimes I get the feeling that we somewhat arbitrarily identify a rhythm by a geographical place or object and the musicians just know them by the rhythms. Of course here in the U.S. we have different names than the Egyptians. Different countries use different names.

Sahra: Like Beledi – if you ask Egyptian musicians to do Beledi they don’t do the rhythm, they do a Beledi progression.

Angela: They think of it as the dance.

Sahra: They think of it as the progression, the one that starts with the Takseem, the Teib, th4en a fast part and often ends with a drum solo.

Angela: Like a composition.

Sahra: Yes.

Angela: What is Teib?

Sahra: That’s the question answer thing with the music.

Angela: Like a call and response.

Sahra: Yes, I’ve always danced it just by feeling. After I finish my show and when I get back from teaching in Germany in September I’m going to have some lessons with an organist from Cairo. He’ll teach the whole progression really break down all the parts of it musically for me.

Angela: Our time is over, thank you Sahra.

Disclaimer: The interview was recorded on tape and there were some parts that were harder to hear then others. Dream Dancers and Sahra do not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any of the information or content contained on this web page.