BellyUp & Little Egypt Present
Fifi Abdo
Summer 2010
First time ever to Toronto, Canada
Yes belly dancers and Fifi Abdo fans, you heard it here first. Today, Little Egypt & BellyUp BellyDance announced that we'll be presenting the legendary Fifi Abdo in Toronto, next Summer 2010. I'm so excited I can barely type! Plans are currently underway to give the one and only Fifi Abdo the warmest Canadian welcome she could ever imagine! This is Madame Abdo's first time to Canada...and hopefully not her last!
Little Egypt and BellyUp are planning a weekend belly dance intensive starring Fifi Abdo along with other master instructors from Egypt and around the world. There will be a wonderful variety of workshops to attend and of course the opportunity to study with the "Queen of Cairo" herself is enough to make every die-hard Fifi fan shimmy with delight.
I had the opportunity to meet and study with Madame Abdo in Dallas last year and she was every bit the Fifi Abdo that I had hoped she would be. Fifi on DVD is amazing. But Fifi in person is unequivocally larger than life. She's long been my inspiration and my most favourite Raqs Sharqi idol as I know she has been for so many, many dancers. I found Fifi a wonderfully generous teacher. She is funny and witty and loves to laugh. You quickly see how her charm and presence made her one of Egypt's national treasures. Not to mention her mezmerizing technique. In each workshop you could see how much she enjoyed the fact that so many North Americans women ... and men ... love Raqs Sharqi ... and love her! And she just kept on giving all that she could as she taught us her signature moves. Asking us "More?" and of course we all said "More Fifi, more! ". To which she laughed and happily gave us what we wanted. No wonder she is so adored! I just couldn't take my eyes off her. And those heavenly, heavenly delicious shimmies! Basically time stood still as I watched her dance (and believe me I made sure I was so close to the stage during the workshops I could practically light her cigarette). Her show on the Saturday night was nothing short of viva la Fifi! Amazing! She performed almost non-stop though there were at least 3 or 4 very fast costume changes that one barely noticed. You were just getting over the powerful effects of one performance when she'd enter again ready to blow our minds for yet another. One thing's for sure about Fifi Abdo, the woman knows how to work a room! And that she did. My ears rang with the loud cheers of people on their feet screaming "Fifi Fifi Fifi...." which only got louder once she took center stage. She stood their looking radiant in her cabaret costume, hands on hips and asked the crowd "Do you love me?". And the crowd went insane! I'll never forget that moment. She had us on our feet many times and I was sad the show came to an end. At the end of the workshop weekend Dee Dee held an auction for a life sized Fifi Poster which of course I had to bid on. Well I won the poster and Fifi gave me the biggest hug and autographed it for me in Arabic. I couldn't wait to get back to BellyUp to frame it and hang it in our new location. Fifi now sits in BellyUp's main entrance where I greet her every single day. It is my great honour and priviledge to be part of hosting Fifi's very first time in Canada. To bring Fifi Abdo to my hometown to share the incredible experience I had with her last year with so many other belly dancers in my community is a dream come true and then some.
We'll be announcing more details in the weeks and months to come about the Summer 2010 Fifi Abdo weekend! So please watch this space and our web site for more updates as we have them available.
Feel free to email me with any questions at info@bellyup.ca and you can visit both BellyUp and Little Egypt web sites for updates & information regarding weekend details and registration in the coming months ahead. So while Summer 2009 may be quickly coming to and end, you now have big plans to look forward to Summer 2010. And for many of us, it can't get here fast enough!
