Diana Tarkhan is an instructor to the stars in Cairo, with dancers who visit from all over the globe to study with her. A world-renowned performer, teacher and choreographer of Egyptian Raqs Sharqi, Diana will be bringing her unique and elegant Oriental Dance style to the U.S. this fall, with a month-long teaching and performance tour.

I had the pleasure of studying with Diana last summer while honeymooning in Cairo. I attended the Ahlan wa Sahlan festival but was overwhelmed by the class sizes, and decided I would get more out of finding a good teacher and taking private lessons instead. Diana was referred to me by a friend, Astryd Farrah, who had only great things to say about her. I called and scheduled my first lesson with her almost immediately.

I went to her apartment and we quickly started the lesson. I was very nervous, but I found Diana to be warm, funny, and very engaging, and so I gradually loosened up. What I loved most about her teaching style is that she had a very clear way of communicating to me what my body should be doing when, what muscles I should be utilizing, etc., to achieve certain moves correctly. I left feeling like I had grown several dimensions as a dancer and booked several more lessons before I flew back to New York. She was exactly what I had been looking for in a teacher.

A few months ago, Diana emailed me to say that she would be coming to the U.S. on a teaching/performing tour. I was thrilled and immediately asked her for an interview. While she has emerged as a top instructor in Egypt, I really wanted to help bring more of an awareness about her, her life, and her perspectives on dance to people here in the U.S.

We traded several e-mails over the following weeks and the result is the interview below. Enjoy!

Dameshe: Tell me about yourself: where did you grow up? When did you begin dancing?

Diana: I was borne in Martinique, and raised in a France. My family is originally from Algeria—we are berbers from an area called Kabylie. During my childhood, I often dreamt of my Arabic origin. When I was 18 years old, I began to love Arabic music because of my background in music—I was classically trained in piano from ages 8 to 18-and I was attracted to Oum Kulthoum and Mohamed Abel.

At the age of 22 I made my first trip to Cairo with some Arabic friends, and I insisted on going to an Arabic night club; in fact I wanted to go to El Leil, which was the most prestigious night club on Haram Street (Pyramids street) at that time, owned by the famous singer Sherifa Faddel. That night was magic, and I got the chance to see Nelly Fouad performing on stage. Nelly Fouad belongs to the generation of the 70s. She is from Alexandria, and has this very typical way of using her hips that I have only seen from Alexandrian dancers.

That night I felt in love with oriental dance, and for some years I flirted with the idea of becoming an oriental dancer, without really being able to make the decision. During this period I was practicing my dance in Arabic nightclubs in Paris, just for the pleasure. I got to see most of the famous singers from the Arabic world on stage, which was very educational if you want to become a dancer.

At that time in Paris, there were no oriental dance classes! Leila Haddad and Zaza Hassan, who were the pioneers, had not opened their schools yet. So I found some video tapes of Nagwa Fouad and Mona Said, and started to train at home alone. Jumping from dancing at home to dancing on stage was not very difficult in the 80s; there was a lot of work and not very many dancers. Many times the musicians approached me asking if I wanted to become a dancer, and many times I looked at the idea as if it were an unreachable dream. But… one day I said YES! YES! YES! And started working right away: I made my decision at 10 pm, at 1 am I was on stage; during those three hours I had found the job and the costume. I knew nothing about the rules of a performance, but I was young, pretty and I could follow the music.

After that I started a real career at an international level: I danced at the most prestigious nightclubs in Europe, in the Arab Emirates, in North Africa, in Africa, and I ended up in Egypt where I performed for many years.

Dameshe: Who were some of your teachers?

Diana: My first real teacher was Raqia Hassan whom I met for the first time in Cairo 18 years ago. I was bored with my dancing and I was searching for new inspiration. The first class with her was like an electroshock, a revelation to me. Now it is a bit different because she is internationally known and dancers have access to her technique through videos; In that period, no videos, no workshops abroad; I was among the first foreigners coming to take her classes.

Currently, I am still taking classes, sometimes I go for one hour with Raqia to refresh my skills. Sometimes I catch up with folklore, or if there is an interesting workshop I go for it. My selection is based on trying something far from my usual style.

Dameshe: What makes a great Oriental Dancer in your opinion?

Diana: The first thing for me is hearing the music well, and the more your way of listening to the music is refined the more the dance will be interesting.

Searching for new steps or new movements is always a good thing, but where to put them with the music so that it makes sense? This is the big question. Sometimes I see a good dancer with a great technique, but the steps do not translate the music well, I get bored quickly. Sometimes I see a dancer with a poor vocabulary, but her dancing makes sense with the music and because of that, she can catch the attention. That is why hearing the music in a proper way is one of the most important things for an oriental dancer; it can help her if she does not have a (spectacular) strong technique.

The second thing is the capacity to express emotions in the dance. When you listen to music, you feel emotions. Emotions are also physiological facts: heart beating increases, there is the production of adrenaline (in preparation for the action) or endomorphines (pleasure, happiness), etc… The dancer must transform them into physical energy to produce the movement. Sometimes, for some psychological reasons (our past), we cannot transform emotions into energy or we block the flow of energy somewhere in the body. This energy, when circulating freely, will connect with the muscles to produce a movement. Only in this case will you see a movement with the right energy and its gravity center at the right place into the body, which rivets the attention of the audience. Of course you can get the attention of the audience with great technique only, but this attention will be more intellectual than emotional. You will say, “yes, she is a great dancer!” but then you wonder, inside yourself, why you did not feel touched.

There are other things which are important, such as: capacity for improvisation, creativity, sense of humour, curiosity, humility etc., but it will be much too long to develop those points.

Dameshe: Who are some of your favorite dancers in Cairo right now?

Diana: These days I would say Randa Kamel. If you asked me the same question 10 years ago, my list would have been longer, but today, there are very few good Egyptian dancers left on stage. Why do I like Randa Kamel? Because she has found her own style. She is also what we call an “Usteza,” or Master in English. Egyptian people make a difference between a “dancer” and an “Usteza.” The “Usteza” is the one who knows exactly what she is doing with the music, has a total control and a total freedom with her body.

Of course I love Dina for her creativity. She has brought a revolution in oriental dance to the point that, for several years, most of the dancers in Cairo were trying to copy her. This period is finished, thank God! But we can say that definitively she had a big influence on oriental dance.

Among the foreign dancers in Cairo, some of them are really good and powerful. I love Asmahan and Sorayya. The Ahlan wa Sahlan Festival just finished, and I can say that they gave the best of themselves on stage. They were wonderful, as well as Randa.

The difference between them (foreign) and Egyptian dancers is just cultural: a foreigner living and dancing in Cairo needs time to catch up with the Egyptian dance. She needs to learn the language, the repertory, the culture and its codes. In my opinion, it is very interesting to watch a foreign dancer who still thinks with her own culture but has absorbed the Egyptian culture too.

Dameshe: There has been a lot of debate over whether you have to be Egyptian to have the dance "in your blood." Is this true in your opinion?

Diana: If you come from a traditional culture where dancing is still an activity of daily life, it is easier to feel connected to your body.

But my personal opinion is, as I said before, that it is all about the right energy. The human being is built on a paradox: having a body (awareness: ego) and being a body. The animals do not have this duality. To dance you must forget that you have a body, to become this body. This is how I would define having the dance “in your blood,” not by geographical or cultural origin.

Dameshe: What do you think is lacking in dancers of today?

Diana: Dancers today are very good, and they seem to put emphasis on the performance aspect of this dance. It has to be spectacular: if it is not, the audience might think that you are a weak dancer. If you look at the dancers in Egypt 20 years ago, they were not that spectacular. Their dance was more intimate, coming from inside and not trying to impress. Nowadays, Egyptian dancers tend also to be spectacular, flashy. It is quite normal, because the evolution of the dance reflects the evolution of the society. This shows also that Oriental Dance is always creative and ready for new experiences, new fusions.

To be able to perform like this (with the accent put on the performance aspect), you must present a well-prepared choreography; but sometimes choreographies become like a fixed frame, which stops spontaneous expression and freedom. This leads us to two questions: Choreography or improvisation? And which dance for which stage?

Dameshe: There seems to be a decline of Oriental Dance in Cairo. How has this affected your career?

Diana: Yes, there is a decline. When I arrived in Egypt, all the 5-star hotels had a nightclub open daily, where you could see the famous dancers. Now very few of those places are still working, and not even on a daily basis. I retired from the stage 12 years ago, so I did not really suffer from this situation.

Dameshe: Where do you see the dance scene in Cairo in the next 10 years? Do you think it will disappear?

Diana: Egyptian people seem to be losing their interest in professional oriental dance, even though they still love it as spontaneous and traditional expression. If 20 years ago it was considered normal to go to spend the night watching an entire Arabic program, today it is seen as old-fashioned or not respectable. That is why, 20 years ago, you could go to spend any week night in a cabaret on Pyramids street and find a good dancer. Today it is difficult to find this quality, except maybe on Thursday night (the week-end).

But Oriental dance has always been an attraction for Western, Eastern, and Arabic tourists. It seems that, for them, it still has the same magical appeal that it had during the last centuries. It is a part of “exotic Egypt.” Therefore, boats’ or hotels’ nightclubs will continue to employ oriental dancers.

Dameshe: Have you seen many Western dancers (from Europe or the United States)? Do you have any favorites?

Diana: Yes I have seen dancers; mostly in Europe. It is hard to say if I have a favourite dancer, because each dancer is so different; and many of them I have seen only once. To say if a dancer is good or not, you have to see her a lot, to get to know her. Sometimes we are good and sometimes not, we are human beings, not machines.

One day in Paris, I went to see a dancer who had a good reputation whom I had never seen before. It was a bad day for her. She spent only 10 minutes on stage, not really dancing, but having some troubles with her musicians. I was quite disappointed. But I did not want to stop at this first impression, so I went to see her again, on a good night, and she was amazing. 10!

Dameshe: I am working on a project taking songs from the old movies, and recreating the dance pieces. Naima Akef is my favorite. Do you have any favorite songs or dancers from that era?

Diana: I like very much the dance of this period. Again I have no favourite, I love them all. Samia Gamal is pure seduction, Naima Akef is pure precision and Tahia Carioca is pure woman. There is one whom I find quite interesting, but who is less known: Kity.

Dameshe: You are coming to the U.S. this fall. Please tell us what we can expect in your workshop.

Diana: Some dancers take the power from their abdominal muscles for hip movements more than any other muscles, and some use the muscles of the hips.

I will teach my technique which is based on taking power from the floor for hip movements, which is why my dance looks so easy going; I also insist on listening to the music in a way that you use both the rhythm and the melody.

Dameshe: Wonderful. Sounds like a great workshop, I look forward to seeing you in New York in November!

Diana: Thanks a lot. I’m looking forward to meeting more American dancers.

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If you would like to study with Diana, please see the contact info below to register for her workshops.

29 October 2006 Los Angeles – USA
Contact: Zahra Zuhair at Zahra@aol.com

05 November 2006 New-York - USA
Contact: Samiha at samihadanceprojects@gmail.com

11 November 2006 Albany, NY - USA
Contact: Habiba at habiba@popstar.com

If you will be visiting Cairo, and would like to schedule lessons, please contact Diana at: dianacairo@yahoo.com | Or visit her website

Dameshe