Looking back upon when you were first exposed to the art and watched your first show...did you realize that who you were watching was or would be "famous"?
And/or have you had a "coming full circle" moment with said "famous" dancer?
SUHAILA SALIMPOUR
I was 11 years old, living in AZ at the time. My mom forced the whole family to go to a huge belly dance production at a resort hotel. Suhaila Salimpour was 17 years old and I saw her perform. I don't even remember what she looked like but I remember enjoying her numbers. Little did I know that 7 years later I would voraciously absorb everything in her "Suhaila 10 Dances" Tape and 15 years after THAT I would be studying with her for the next 3 years.
DELILAH (Seattle) + KHAJIRAH DJOUMANA
When I started studying this dance at age 17 I had a bellydance video that contained Raja's music (remember Raja?! OMG, what awesome music back in the day!) and several dancers, my favorite of which was Delilah, who I did not know at the time was an established dancer. I was captured by her light eyes, Am Cab style, and that thing she did with her hip that caused the fringe to go in these perfect circles!
17 years after, I was attending a tantra workshop in Maui with my then husband. He was wearing
Lurainya & D'Lang's "My Girl's a Bellydancer" T-shirt and one of the vegetarian chefs noticed his T-shirt and mentioned there would be a BD show very close to where we were staying.
I didn't know till we got there that performing would be Delilah, as well as Khajirah Djoumana (who's style I like to call "happy tribal": all smiles, bright colours), who had relocated to Maui. Watching both was a real treat. It was amazing to me to see Delilah live b'c I had only seen her in videos. She was absolutely captivating! I dropped off a card to be given to Delilah thanking her for the inspiration she gave me to continue studying dance.
Side "small world" story: ALSO at that show, on the island of Maui, I spotted a dance student who I had just seen at one of my workshops (in Warminster, PA!) not weeks before, in the lobby. I confirmed it was her and we ended up sitting next to each other. What're the odds??