Thread: signature moves from golden era dancers

suhair zaki has the downward hip thingy...fifi has her shimmies...what about tahiya, samia etc? what were their signature moves? or what would you associate with them when thinking of these different dancers and their styles?

Samia's "soft Shoulder". I don't really know how you'd call it. She sort of does a soft shoulder pop forward with her head turned toward that shoulder. Very flirty with her big smile.

Doesn't Tahaia do kind of a constant shimmy with a little bit of a pelvic undulation? It's been awhile since I watched Tahaia.

it posted twice...

Samias shoulder pops, I love'em! She has a few variations on them too, she'll drop both shoulders fwd slightly and pop them back. She also does that great downward fwd figure 8 with her hips, rather fast and big, I like that too.
Tahaia's my first true love though, I feel one of her absolute signature moves is her fluidity when she dances. When I was a new baby dancer I would watch footage of her constantly to figure out how she transitioned sooo smoooothly, she also does the most wonderful cross-leg lower body undulations, and those leaned-back, slow gooey hip circles....mmmm lovely to watch!

Suhair also did a lot of waist crunch movements with her arms above her head. And Tahaia did what I call a booty walk with a shimmy overlay.

Here's Dandash impersonating them!

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wXEmnnTNAs"]YouTube- Dandesh performing her El Raksat Routine[/ame]

For Fifi I think always of the hipdrops with the "waving hand" and the figure eight with the shimmy.

Fifi I think of the hipdrops with the waving hand, figure 8s with the foot tap, giant chest pops, big shoulder shimmies, that half-maya on one hip with a level change. a step-lift with almost a weight shift and a hip pop up, low arabesques where the foot stays on the floor.

And tugging/straightening her costume between songs!

Bummer, I can't watch the Dandash until I get home...along the line of famous dancer impersonations, there is a cute little moment in the Lucy Saiidi & Kahleegy video where Lucy is dancing in front of the table where Tahaia Karioka is sitting and does a little mini-tribute mimic of Tahaias dance style. It's a priceless shot, too bad the video guy was all distracted and cutting all over the place.
Another classic Tahaia move (can you tell I love her madly?) is her lean-back single-hip drops, she leans her upper body back a little and points her hip and does these sweet, sharp little drops.

Originally Posted by Lauren_

Here's Dandash impersonating them!

Luckily for me, the video of me performing to Dandash's song is too dark for me to post it because I would only embarrass myself next to her but I will say, working on that piece of music was a really excellent way to *get* the differences between these dancers and pick out their signature moves for myself. Though I had to completely ignore half my training (most particularly "your thighs love each other!") to do the Sahar Hamdi bit ..g.:,r:;..g.:

Here are my gals dancing to Dandesh's song. Some of them LOVED the Sahar Hamdy part. ..l;,

YouTube - bintbeled's Channel

Loving this thread! My intermediate students are learning 'signature moves from the stars' this session.. So far we had samia, taheya and soheir, in the coming weeks we'll be 'doing' fifi, nagua, and dina.. and for the next session we'll throw in bits of randa, aziza and orit, my big heroes of the current times ;)

Originally Posted by bintbeled

Here are my gals dancing to Dandesh's song. Some of them LOVED the Sahar Hamdy part. ..l;,

I cannot deny it's fun to be Sahar Hamdi once in a while

nice input! post more videos if you like! i'd like to see everyone's favorites

YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.

i love her costume! and she's super cute

i cant figure out how to make it show as a video instead of a link...sorry

A while ago I borrowed a DVD/Video of Shareen El Safy teaching a whole bunch of different signature moves (I think it was Saidi for the stage? or something like that). It was very interesting!

I had to respond to your thread. My favorite legendary dancer is Tahia Karioka. I think for me one of the signature characteristic of her style is where she places her arms. If you watch any old video of her, her arms are above her head and she brings them down in front of her. Another move she did was a gorgeous hip circle (similar to Dina's) with lots of feeling. And of course, her expression when she dances was always so Egyptian.