East to search for these musicians and dancers in order to photograph and film them and to make highquality recordings of their music . My driving motivation was to find the Ghawazee because I believe them to be the oldest surviving exponents of the dance which had not yet been influenced and diluted by Western culture .
Let ’ s talk a bit about Ghawazee history and how you began your search once you arrived in the Middle East : The term “ Ghawazee ” is the 19th-century plural spelling for the name “ Ghazee ” ( m . sing .) which translates as “ invader ” as well as the act of making a raid . ( Ghawazi is the plural spelling used today ) In an interview with a British Journalist , one of the Mazin sisters suggested that they were called “ Ghawazee ” because they invaded men ’ s hearts . When I first went to Egypt and began to inquire into the whereabouts of the Ghawazee , no one seemed to have heard
Aisha performing in desert tent at Giza , 1973 Photo by Alu Ashur El-Gabry of them . I sometimes came across musicians and dancers performing in the street but they were not the group I was seeking . I knew that the Ghawazee were public dancing women , but because I was going by early descriptions of them taken from Edward Lane ’ s 19th century book , “ The Manners and Customs of the Modern Egyptians ”, I had been lead to believe they were not Gypsies . Lane described them as being a tribe and mentions that some people did associate the Ghawazee with Gypsies , however , he believed they were merely a special people who kept separate from the general population . It was only later that I confirmed the Ghawazee to be Domari people .
When I first arrived in Egypt in 1971 , I met Mahmoud Reda and Farida Fahmy , who were the directors of the Reda Troupe , which was Egypt ’ s first national folkloric dance company . They allowed me to attend their rehearsals every
Rajat , Touha , and Khayria Mazin Dancing on the Ferry Boat , 1973 - Photo by Aisha Ali
18 The Belly Dance Chronicles � January 2017