The interaction between the dancers and musicians was beautiful. There were impromptu jam sessions late night by the pool and even on the bus coming from the camp. On the last night, people were hugging each other and crying because they didn’t want it to end. Conversations and classes flowed from Arabic to Russian to English and dancers would jump in to translate.
Some dancers were crying in the tarab class. It was the first time (with a song they had danced to many times) that they understood the power of the voice and the meaning of the words in conjunction with the music. This is a different level. So many amazing things happened that were not planned-- Like when we gave the staff of the camp the ok to dance for a few songs at the last party. These young guys were dancing in a circle with no inhibition and all the dancers ran to get their video cameras. Also when Yasmin, who had footage for Azza Sherif dancing at a wedding 30 years earlier, played it for Azza. She had never seen this recording of herself and she told us all about her memories of that time in her career. |
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Dancers were having so much fun performing to live music and the other students at the camp made a warm and enthusiastic audience.