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[personal profile] ellenkushner
Back when I was doing a world music radio show at WGBH in Boston ("Caravan" - Greer Gilman picked out the name for me!), I got to know Kay Hardy Campbell, an American who studied Arabic in college (and, yes, probably because she watched the same hot Peter O'Toole movie we all did at an impressionable age) and, when her husband's business took him to Saudi Arabia, got to know a lot of Saudi women, was invited to their private parties, danced & played music with them as few foreigners have been able to. She brought some terrific Arab women's music onto my show, from tapes friends had given her, and showed me a verrry cool novel she was writing (which she has finally finished! yay!). (Kay was also the person who gave me the Egyptian Tourist Office LP containing the notorious "Take Me Back to Cairo," which I used to such good effect in my "Festival of Liberation: the Passover Story in World Music" radio special, for when the Hebrews in the Desert decided they'd justabout had enough....)

I just found her website, which includes lots of cool stuff - including upcoming workshops (and a reminder that she throws one heck of a Henna Party) . . . and this link to a video that will make you wish you had never cut your hair:
Hair Toss Extravaganza - Azizah Jalal singing "Sidi Ya Sayyid Saadatee"
This is filmed out in the desert - she sings at the end of two lines of young ladies with long hair...they toss it the entire song, occasionally going into the tricky 'figure eight' pattern of the Gulf.

Date: 2009-02-05 04:54 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] wintersweet.livejournal.com
Ah! See, most women I know haven't even seen that movie. (I know guys my age who've seen it, but very few women.) I've always felt a bit weird for having gone through That Stage. Not that I took Arabic or anything, but still: Phew!

Watching the video now. :)

Date: 2009-02-05 05:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sartorias.livejournal.com
I can't find the link to a fantastic duel from an Indian film in which the woman's hair is down to her knees, but this Korean sword dance is fantastic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUdkQQQnOXA

For something very different, and amazing, this Georgian sword dance fit into a fantasy story setting . . .http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-AqwY9XLAZA

Date: 2009-02-05 05:57 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tamago.livejournal.com
Would that be the sexual tension fight scene from Jodhaa Ackbar? Here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZFnME5l8WA

Date: 2009-02-05 02:24 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sartorias.livejournal.com
That's the one. I've been working to that soundtrack for several months without realizing it was the same film!

Thanks!

Date: 2009-02-05 08:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tamago.livejournal.com
I got the film on dvd for my birthday and got a bunch of friends over to watch and eat take-away with me. My husband bought something off iTunes for the first time ever so he could have this song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dx6T4EAlvCA). Pomp. We can haz.

Date: 2009-02-05 09:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] sartorias.livejournal.com
That's the song I've been using.

Film: must see!

Take Me Back to Cairo

Date: 2009-02-05 04:13 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Ellen - thanks for the mention.
Here's a great YouTube version of "Take Me Back to Cairo". The original singer (featured here) is Karim Shukry. I believe his daughter put this music video together - lots of great shots from the 60's as well as today. What a song!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6DIbQhFrGM
- Kay C.

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