December Review
December 9, 2009 by evagreen · Leave a Comment
What a great night! The Ballroom was packed and our lovely audience seemed to appreciate the fabulous variety of our show from the Dance Schools to the Artist in Residence
The evening began with students of the Melissa Abraham School of Egyptian Oriental Dance; they did brilliantly well with beginners, improvers and intermediate dances and their wonderful costumes were designed by group member Barrat Sayed – a talented group!
Next it was the turn of Charlotte Desorgher’s HIP SINC SCHOOL
and despite depleted numbers due to sickness, they delivered a fabulous Saidi stick dance and a very brave debut of solo dancer Sarif whose dance partner was injured - a huge thank you to you and your teachers – we know its not easy dancing in front of an audience especially with Hossam and Serena Ramzy in the front row so well done!
The professional part of the show was opened by the stunning ASAKI & SHAZA in a Lebanese pop number; they later returned with a Baba Karam showing their mastery of Arabian and Persian styles
Melissa Abraham’s performance to ‘Tales of the Sahara’ showed her consummate skills and wonderful engagement with her audience as did her dance to melodic pop track by George Wassouf later in the show .
Charlotte excelled in her gorgeous Egyptian Oriental ‘ Mahasin Essodaf and then to Batwanes Beek with delightful musical phrasing and elegance of movement
Valerie Romanin is always a pleasure to watch and Sunday night was no exception as she performed her unique ‘barefoot flamenco’ first to Spanish/Argentinean music and then, as our spotlight for December was India , in her second appearance to a track by Titi Robin with Rajastani Kalbelia tones. Exceptional and witty.
Fleur Estelle and her 4 dancers also followed the Indian theme and were an absolute treat to watch in a high energy fusion of ‘Belly and Bolly’ in Jai Ho which had us all wanted to jangle our bangles! Gorgeous!
Bellyworld organiser and Spirit of the East troupe member Michelle was joined by Kuldip of the Baharan Punjab Diyan Bhangra group in a lively yet elegant rendition of Bora Bora - they made it look so easy but we know it isn’t!
Finally, our beautiful Artist in Residence SHEMA, closed the show with a delicately lovely performance to the classic Inta Omri , orchestration by her own Arabesque Dance Company of Toronto. We have been so fortunate to have Shema as our Artist in Residence whose versatility and musicality have been an absolute joy to behold.
