Thread: Sohair Zaki Tribute

A few months ago, we had several discussions about Leilet Hob and Souhair Zaki. I was participating because at the time I was putting together a tribute piece. I so appreciate all the discussions here, people who found the youtube videos I had lost, talking about the music she was known to dance to, discussions on costuming, talking about her in general. So I felt it was only right to share the results here.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WSAmOYEu6fk]YouTube - Tribute to Souhair Zaki[/ame]

Overall, I'm glad I did it but I'm glad to be released, in a way. I can now focus on other things, and I can dance in my own style. Like an actor preparing for a role, I tried to immerse myself in Souhair Zaki for a few months, only watching videos of HER, only dancing to HER music, envisioning her when I danced - still love her, but also glad to be ME at the end of the day.

Feedback and critique is welcome, if you are so inclined. I can always learn from it.

Lovely tribute! Thanks for posting

HI Nepenthe! You are the bomb! XXXXXXX

Thank you.
- there should be a "blush" smiley face but it's in place I use this one:Aembarassed:

I'm so glad you posted a follow up video. I always wonder what happened after the question!

Fabulous job. I could totally see Soheir Zaki.

Now my question is: Can you ever dance to that song as yourself or will you always dance it like Soheir?

Completely charming!

I like it! This piece would have screamed "Suheir" even if you hadn't done such a nice job with the costume.
0:45-0:58 was right on, and many other parts too.

I have to say though, the sound seems to be slightly out of sync with the dancing. This is only obvious during quick, sharp moves (like hip drops) and not throughout the whole piece in which you are mostly doing slower and smoother moves. Do you think you were dancing slightly ahead of those beats, or do you think the sound somehow got un-sync'ed? If it's the latter, it could be fixed, and I think that would make the video even more enjoyable.

Nice job! I am working on/ panicking about the same piece and it's lovely to see different interpretations - very interesting and inspirational.

I agree with yameyameyame that the music is slightly out of sync. In fact my inner geek took over and I watched with the sound off while playing the track on my computer. If the dancing was off-beat it would only have fixed it in patches, but no, everything fell perfectly into place.

Originally Posted by yameyameyame

I like it! This piece would have screamed "Suheir" even if you hadn't done such a nice job with the costume.
0:45-0:58 was right on, and many other parts too.

I have to say though, the sound seems to be slightly out of sync with the dancing. This is only obvious during quick, sharp moves (like hip drops) and not throughout the whole piece in which you are mostly doing slower and smoother moves. Do you think you were dancing slightly ahead of those beats, or do you think the sound somehow got un-sync'ed? If it's the latter, it could be fixed, and I think that would make the video even more enjoyable.

It may be the latter (hard to know) - but typically the mp3 encoding speeds it up slightly. It's been explained to me that when you convert the video, it also converts the sound, and compresses it, and sometimes it gets out of synch. I'm just not sure how _not_ to do that because it happens on all my videos that I upload to youtube.

Originally Posted by Aniseteph

Nice job! I am working on/ panicking about the same piece and it's lovely to see different interpretations - very interesting and inspirational.

I agree with yameyameyame that the music is slightly out of sync. In fact my inner geek took over and I watched with the sound off while playing the track on my computer. If the dancing was off-beat it would only have fixed it in patches, but no, everything fell perfectly into place.

Thank you for reassuring me - I always pride myself for being "on the beat" at the very least.

Originally Posted by norma

Now my question is: Can you ever dance to that song as yourself or will you always dance it like Soheir?

Right now, I'm not sure if I'll dance to it again, because after working with something for a big performance, I get so sick of the song. I do have another youtube video where I'm dancing to this same song, a year before - it would be interesting to see how much that has changed. It might be a while until I do this again - hopefully I would have forgotten some of those combos by then - .. or not, as DaVid once posted, it's good to make references to famous dancers when performing to certain Umm Kolthoum songs.

I loved it! Very beautiful. <3

Beautiful! The costume is also amazing!