"every time you watch her you witness
the honest expression of the love of the dance shining through superb technique"
Sara Farouk Ahmed.

My dance career, like many, began after seeing “Rear Window” a documentary screened in the late 80”s, inspired by the Cairo footage of Soheir Saki and Fifi Abdou I found a class in Manchester with Monique, a French teacher who had trained with Nelly in Greece and Ibrahim Akeif. She was a wonderful teacher and gave me an introduction to the dance which has become such a large part of my life.

Inspired by Monique and her dedication to bringing other teachers over from Europe “Regina” and “Reza Farnoush” I began to look for more workshops, mostly in London, except for a few from Suriya Hilal in Manchester. Over the next few years I attended workshops with many different teachers, meeting Sara Farouk in Leeds in the mid 90’s , her style and teaching was a great source of new found technique and feeling for the dance, we struck a deal, I would do her some new actor profile shots and she would visit Manchester to teach, my first workshop as an organiser. From these early days I have worked towards bringing a succession of teachers, all Egyptian, to the North West. Organising the first UK teaching tour for Raqia Hassan, Khaled and this year Farida Fahmy. With now regular visits from Sara and Yasmina the diary for the North West has never looked so good.

The pivotal moment for me in my development as a dancer was in September 1997, when along with a great group of women we travelled to Cairo on Sara’s first holiday in Egypt. Wow wow and more wow, the music, the live bands, the joy of the audience not just the performers. This sparked another dream - to bring to Manchester and the UK, the first and biggest Middle Eastern event for dancers, giving them the opportunity to dance to live music as we had done ourselves in Cairo. Together with the help of Madeleine and two other local dancers the plan was hatched, with tabla player Medhat Shahine's help, I scoured the night clubs of London to find musicians, this would also prove to be the beginning of the Nile Band as we know it today. So on a winter’s night in 1998 the first Taste of Cairo event came to Manchester with women from all over the country coming together with the Middle Eastern community to have a ball. The response was amazing, over 400 people, Raqia Hassan in the audience and queues for food going on for ever.

So to the present day, I have become a regular visitor to Cairo, organising holidays with Sara who now lives and works in Cairo, oh, and is still my inspiration, friend and the drive to learn more and feel more, essential for the dance. I have worked at the Ahlan Wa Sahlan festival for the last three years as official photographer and admin, hard work but good fun.

Over the last four years I have started to teach workshops around the UK, I was originally reticent to teach, as I have never had a weekly class, juggling the time constraints of my photographic studio leaves little space, but with the help of some cajoling from Sara I launched onto an unexpecting UK scene. I love it, the opportunity to pass on all that I have learned, felt and made up myself is a huge satisfaction and drives my desire to learn even more. Recent workshops have been the JOY event in Yorkshire a fantastic weekend of dance organised by Chris and Mandy (see links page) and for Rosie in Plymouth with Maria D’Silva, great hafla, fab people, the Yorkshire Dance Centre is always special for me as I used to attend workshops there and now I am the teacher, thanks Margaret for having faith in me and organising this.This year has also seen the Taste of Cairo dance agency evolve with Madeleine. As regular event dancers we were beginning to see the need for more dancers in the area and with the next generation of dancers coming through it seemed like the right time to create this service. The aim of the agency is to support and help nurture these future performers and to offer a high quality of dancer to the ever growing dance and entertainment arena.

Jamila is available for workshops, dance events, weddings,
occasions.

CONTACT
07801 413161
or email

Jamila is available for workshops,
dance events, weddings, occasions.