Articles - Dina, 2004

Some of the biggest stars of the American bellydance scene congregated at the Los Angeles Radisson Hotel on May 14 - 16 to take workshops with the fabulous, incomparable Dina and to see her perform. I was also there, a humble little dancer who was way over her head in the workshops but nonetheless unwilling to pass up a chance to have the Dina Experience!

Dina is, of course, the current Queen Bee of the bellydance scene in Cairo - very controversial for her risque costumes and just-this-side-of-decent moves. People either seem to love or hate her -- I'm squarely in the former camp, even more so now that I've gotten the chance to see her live. Up until that weekend, I had only seen Dina on video, and I can now say that her style, personality and charisma are not captured on tape. To truly appreciate her, you must see her live.

To start the weekend off right, we were entertained on Friday night by a lineup of great and perhaps soon-to-be great American dancers, including Shoshanna, Fahteim, Shareen el Safy, Jasmin Jahal, Angelika Nemeth, Rania, Bahaia of Texas, and the lovely Belladonna troupe, also out of Texas, who did a wonderful, light and flirtatious melaya leff. Keep an eye on Belladonna - you'll be hearing about them again, I'm sure.

When Dina came into the show on Friday night (just to watch), you could feel the change in the energy in the room -- her pull is just enormous. She is also incredibly, incredibly beautiful, which doesn't come across in pictures or even video. Individually, her features aren't really remarkable - but she has this indescribable something that transforms her and makes her absolutely ravishingly beautiful. I've heard her described as an Egyptian Marilyn Monroe, and I think that's a fair description. She has an amazing body and mature sexuality, but it's very light and innocent. On anybody else, her dance could come across as vulgar - on her, it's perfect.

On Saturday, Dina taught a choreography to Beddala Aleyk by Nancy Ajram. It was during this class that I had my first revelation about Dina and her style - her steps are very difficult! Something may look like a throwaway step on her, but when you try to do it, you discover that it's actually very difficult and complex. The timing, in particular, is difficult to capture. I would have felt like a complete klutz the entire weekend (especially when she made all of us perform the choreography for her on Saturday afternoon - every workshop attendant's worst nightmare!) except there were many Big Name dancers in the room who couldn't do them either. Actually, it was pretty funny - she pulled the Big Names up on stage with her at one point, and the comparison between Dina and the Big Names was not flattering to the latter! Dina noted at the end of the weekend that there were very few people who could keep up with her, Shoshanna among them.

Saturday night brought the moment we had all been waiting for - Dina's live performance! The i ndividual members of Belladonna performed as her opening act, to the live music of Husam Adullah. The dancers and the musicians were both marvelous, but we were all anxiously awaiting Dina's arrival. At last, she appeared, and she did not disappoint. Every moment of her performance was a revelation for me; I realized how completely videos fail to capture the magic of live performances. More on my revelations later.

We finished off the weekend on Sunday with another full day of learning choreography, this time to Sabri Aleel by Shereen. Dina has claimed in interviews I've read that she interprets the music differently because she's Egyptian and it's in her blood. I don't know where the genesis of her interpretation lies, but it is true - when we were dancing the choreography in the workshops, everybody in the workshop ended up ahead of her - she obviously just hears the music differently. She says she never counts either, which is apparent since she would try to count off a step so we could learn it, but then when she'd put it to the music, the steps would end up in totally different places relative to the music.

So what did I learn?

First, Dina has an enormous amount of raw power and energy behind every move. If you see her on video, everything looks very light - but I was sitting ten feet away from the stage during her show on Saturday night and I can tell you that the woman is a hurricane. However, she's a controlled hurricane - if it weren't for the fact that she's in total, complete control of every move, she'd look like she was flinging herself around the stage. But she's definitely in charge.

She also uses her full weight a lot. By that I mean, she isn't trying to be light and airy - she often throws her full weight into a step and actually thunks on stage. She uses her heels as accents more than I realized (which she said she learned from tap dance! who knew? She actually told us that we should take tap lessons - it would help us with bellydance!). She also throws her body full tilt into rapid weight changes/changes of direction, which is something I don't think most western dancers do. I think we anticipate our next moves much more, which prohibits us from really putting energy into any one move.

For the first time, I saw how many subtle touches are in her dance. Little weight changes, or shivers, and locks - and her expressions. She IS the music in a way that's indescribable - not so much a physical incarnation of the music but an emotional incarnation of it. She dances from the heart, and it's obvious. I've seen people try to mimic her expressions, but they do it without the heart that's behind the expressions so they seem false.

Anyone who has ever claimed that bellydance isn't a "real" art form obviously hasn't seen her dance live - she is absolutely an artist, and at the top of her game. Watching her put me in mind of Baryshnikov or Pavarotti -- she is obviously one of the great dancers of all time. Her performance of the choreography she'd been teaching us at 5 p.m. on Sunday - at the end of the workshops, after five hours of teaching, sweaty, no makeup and in workout clothes - was the most amazing thing I've ever seen, even topping her performance on Saturday night. I bought the Sunday workshop video on the basis of that performance alone (and it wasn't cheap).

Little Egypt is bringing Dina back to the U.S. next May - this time to Miami. If you can come, I highly, highly recommend that you do so. It will change the way you see bellydance. In the meantime, if you want to see a video of Dina, my personal favorite is Saut wa Soora's Dina - Best of Vareity (sic) in Concerts - Tape #1228.