A Dancer’s Dancer — Interview, September 2007
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Hadia, an internationally acclaimed Oriental dancer and is known by those in business as a dancer’s dancer. Although she focused on performance during the first 25 years of her career, she is now primarily devoted to teaching and passing on a lifetime of learning to HER students. This gives her the opportunity to work and dance for dancers – her favorite audience: “That’s when all the stops come out and something magical happens.”
Growing up in Saskatchewan, Hadia danced because she loved it, but dance classes were neither available nor an option. Later she moved out to Vancouver with her family and as soon as she started university, she immediately signed up for jazz and modern dance classes as extra curricular activities after seeing the sister of one of her friends performing at a concert and consequently being informed that “anyone” could attend the classes. Shortly afterward, a friend of hers invited her to join a belly dance class. Although she had not the slightest idea what that might entail, she was immediately intrigued by the round, smooth quality of the movement. She happily traded in her modern classes for a variety of belly dance classes with local teachers. After about 2 years of classes, she went to a workshop by the legendary Badawia of Jordan, and underwent a radical and inspirational quantum jump and became in her words “an instant belly dance addict”. She never had any plans to BECOME a dancer, but felt that she had not choice BUT to dance and to Learn to dance, every free moment that she could find. She never hesitated to pursue her teachers anywhere in the world.
She made frequent study trips to Oregon and California. During one such trip she had the good fortune attend a workshop taught by Ahmed Jarjour, a Lebanese Canadian dancer from Montreal.
Hadia had another life altering moment during this workshop while following his “wonderful, luscious diagonal undulation” for about 15 minutes. It was really a “physical, emotional and even cellular experience.” Her previous West Coast mentality was transformed with her first taste of Egyptian Oriental Dance and she went off to Montreal to study with him as well as the legendary Bobby Farrah in New York. Fueled by an insatiable desire to discover the roots of this beautiful and life altering dance, Hadia left for Turkey, Egypt ad North Africa to begin a lifelong journey.
The only dance classes in Egypt at the time were through the two national dance companies. The only way to study with most dancers at that time was to go out and to watch them perform. Ironically, she absorbed the music, dance, and culture of the Middle East by studying with Nadia Gamal, Mona al Said, Ibrahim Akef, Farideh Fahmy, Dina, and many others afterwards in her career.
When I asked her how she could manage to travel so extensively to pursue her dance training, she explained “It was a different time – a time of plenty,” Hadia says, “We could just quit our jobs and leave for adventure, knowing that there were many more jobs to be had when we returned. It was also much more affordable to travel through and live in many of the oriental and Mediterranean countries. Today we live in a much more difficult and limiting economic reality.” She also worked in the Middle East, but found it to be extremely difficult. She quickly discovered that it was hard to maintain ones integrity and dignity in a culture that automatically considers a dancer to be a prostitute. But, there were wonderful artists and a large Arabic population in Europe so she refocused her performance career there, as she had a chance to work with good artists and still have a normal life.”
While living in Spain for several years, Hadia studied with many of Spain’s Flamenco masters – for 5 to 6 hours a day – 5 days a week. Although she worked as professional flamenco dancer for many years, she eventually began to explore oriental flamenco fusion. Although she believes that the evolution of all dance is essentially the result of successful “fusion that works”, she also feels that it is important to understand and study the forms being fused to avoid “confusion”. Fusion blends elements to the appropriate music and explores connections and contrasts. Fusion is not something that is simply made up without respect to cultural context or artistic integrity of the elements fused. Hadia will bring that philosophy to her Oriental and Flamenco fusion workshop at Cassandra’s College. It’s substantial, she admits, but students will get a good understanding of how it’s done through her skillful teaching: she will “tone it down,” use repetition, and show us how to use our bodies. But, she says, “We have a whole day to work with choreography.” She assures us that it’s okay to learn fusion without knowing Flamenco.
As dancers who have chosen to be involved in an art form with a cultural context, we have a responsibility to the culture as well as to the art. “It’s up to us to demand excellence and accuracy of information from our teachers as well as our performers” Hadia believes that playing dress up and doing whatever we like is not the way to attempt to have Middle Eastern dance recognized as a legitimate art form, nor is it a viable approach to establishing a reliable and repeat audience.
Near the end of her time in Europe, the economy was shifting. Fewer performance opportunities in all fields of the arts, combined with a rapidly increasing interest in Oriental dance combined to create a degenerating situation with more competition, undercutting and challenges and less respect. She decided that she preferred to start a new career before loosing track of all the reasons why she loved the dance so much. She returned to Canada to begin an intensive three year program of study to become a Registered Massage Therapist which included anatomy, kinesiology, physiology, and osteopathy. It was truly amazing to learn how the movements that she had done for so many years were actually created. This awareness inspired her to rework many of the basics of her own dancing and also created an entire new dimension to her teaching, as she was able to explain to them much more clearly HOW to find and do the movements. She also discovered that if one is aware of exactly which muscles do what action, we don’t use all the muscles in the general area. Our dance becomes not only much simpler, but more relaxed and energy efficient, which is a really an important key to understanding the quality of Egyptian oriental “total relaxation with specific.
Also as a therapist, Hadia understands the amazing healing power (physically and emotionally) of this art form. Unlike many other dance forms that she has practiced, such as jazz, ballet, Flamenco and African dance, oriental dance has almost no potential for injury if practiced correctly from a position of optimal alignment (posture). She has actually been able to “undo” many of the injuries that she acquired after decades. No pain – no gain is definitely not a wise approach to body care and she advises “If it hurts, don’t do it!” Pain is there to warn us that we are actually injuring our bodies.
Hadia loves creating and teaching choreographies, as they are such wonderful tools to transmit the instructors understanding of the musical components (rhythms, instrument, phrasing, and dynamics) to the student in an accessible manner. However, they are not particularly useful unless the students are able to do the necessary techniques and movements and to understand how these are relevant to the music. She believes it is far more important for the students to really understand and to be able to perform a section of choreography well, than to just follow a complete choreography without really understanding the elements and techniques involved. She admits that she teaches “pretty meaty stuff,” and won’t move on until the majority of students have learned the movements properly. This will then give them very valuable tools which they can use to build their own choreographies or even apply in improvisation. In the words of one of her much loved teachers, “Do you want to learn how to dance, or do you just want to learn another dance?”
Hadia and Cassandra met in 1989 in Vancouver when Cassandra was teaching a workshop. “Cassandra’s a vanguard in this industry,” Hadia says, “She pursues and presents this dance as it should be. To be recognized and invited by Cassandra is an honor.” The respect is mutual. After seeing one of Hadia’s performances, Cassandra told her how moved she was, which brought tears to Hadia’s eyes.
Hadia now lives in Montreal, teaching dance and post-graduate seminars in massage and manual therapy techniques. Reflecting on how dance has become big business in the past few years, she reminds us what it’s all about. “If you love to dance with all your heart and soul, and do it because you have to do it, then it will provide a way for you.” A dancer’s dancer, indeed.