Leila Haddad & The Gypsy Musicians of Upper Egypt

In France, her adopted home, Leila Haddad has been dubbed "the Queen of Oriental dance." Born in Tunisia, she's hailed as one of the world's most vibrant exponents of raqs Sharqi, the traditional Arab origin of what Americans call belly dance. World Music Institute's presentation of In the Trail of the Ghawazee: Leila Haddad & the Gypsy Musicians of Upper Egypt (including members of Musicians of the Nile) marks her New York debut. This playful, colorful show--inspired by the Ghawazee, a tribe of traveling entertainers thought to be related to the Roma--concludes this evening at NYU's Skirball Center for the Performing Arts.

Haddad takes to the stage like she owns it and, of course, she does, with her glowing, billowing fabrics of fuschia, salmon, pumpkin, red, black, gold and all the sparkling, jangling trimmings, with her ringing finger cymbals and her billions of fine, gold bracelets, with Cupie doll face and huge, smiling eyes, with her slow swirls and almost demure shimmies and hands that flick or flow across the air like a stream over rocks. She is a master dancer, fully at ease and having the time of her life. It would all be perfect if everyone in her audience realized that it's customary to clap along during a high-spirited performance. In any case, clapping is one thing, but some of us dancer types in the seats really wanted to get with that sweet band and throw down!

Besides Haddad, two joyful, rababa-fiddling vocalists--Mohamed Mourad and Youssef Moubarak--are the giants of this program. Think of a summit meeting with Bono and Sting getting loose and jamming flirtatiously with Grace Slick or Tina Turner. (Feel free to substitute the dazzling trio of your choice.) Then back them up with a band that soars free and gets down in wailing cries and throbbing rhythms that weave connections among peoples of the Arabian peninsula, North Africa, Mediterranean Europe and Eastern Europe. This is my idea of heaven.

I noticed some empty seats, but there's no telling if tonight will be the same. So, hurry! Call 212-279-4200 or click here. For information on other stops on Haddad's US tour and beyond, click here.

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.