Leila Haddad to debut in New York City

The Queen of Oriental dance--Le Parisien

Leila Haddad (France) and The Gypsy Musicians of Upper Egypt will perform at Skirball Center for the Performing Arts, New York University, March 6-7, in a program presented by World Music Institute.

Haddad, one of the world's premier Oriental dancers, performs traditional dances of the little-known Ghawazee (Gypsies) of southern Egypt in the popular style. Born in Djerba, Tunisia to a Berber family, and now living in France, Haddad has studied many of the Arab world's dance forms by traveling from village to village. With her performances she has revived the dignity and tradition of Oriental dance and conveyed its latent sensuality as a tribute to femininity rather than subjugation to male images of women.

Her performances have taken her to major festivals and cultural institutions in Europe and the US. A highly respected teacher, she opened her first Paris Oriental dance class in the mid-1980s--a bold move at a time when the dance form was unknown or poorly understood.

Today she travels widely to teach dance and train new teachers. She was the first Oriental dancer to perform at the Salon de la Danse festival in Paris (1988). Her works include Dance of the Seven Veils, Rouh, A la Recherche de Tanit, Aquarelles, L'Orient d'une Danseuse - Rêveries sur le Nil, Nomades, and Zikrayat, her work in homage to Oum Khalsoum which premiered at the Théâtre Mogador in Paris (2000).

In the Trail of the Ghawazee was first shown in its current form in February 2006 at the Theatre du Trianon in Paris; it was later presented at the Images of Middle East Festival in Denmark, the Middle East Festival at the National Museum in Singapore, the Mediterranean Festival in Hong Kong, and many cities in France.

For tickets and further information on this program, call 212-545-7536 or click here.

For information on all Skirball Center events, click here.