For anyone unable to access the line, the following is my story as written for Yasmina:

Dancing has totally shaped my life. It is one thing to take up dancing, and enjoy it, and maybe even make a living from it. But how it has shaped my life has gone even further than that! I owe my life today - for better or for worse - to my dancing that started in 1974!

In 1974, I took my first lesson with an Egyptian woman who did not perform because of her cultural restraints, but was "allowed" to show the dance to other women. She was a stout, older lady, with a thick accent - quick to befriend, and compliment, and encourage. I fell in love with the dance at my very first lesson. I bought one album, George Abdo's Joy of Bellydancing, which my teacher used, and practiced for two or three hours a day.

My teacher, seeing my enthusiasm, introduced me to one of her friends, an Armenian woman, who also was allowed to teach but not perform. Again I drank it up, and practiced till I would fall into bed at night. I made my second album investment, Art of Bellydancing, and felt I was on my way. The only model I had for what a performer looked like was Julianna who was on the cover of both albums! My Armenian teacher took me to an evening of Turkish/ Greek/ Armenian music, which featured one dancer. I remember to this day saying to my teacher, "You mean you can make a living doing this?" I was in love. I wanted to do nothing else with my life.

I stepped up my practice schedule, started to learn more about the dancing community, and became a charter subscriber to many of the belly dancing newspapers and magazines that came out at the time. From these publications I learned about the dancers in New York, corresponded and talked extensively on the phone with Bobby Farrah, and made a decision to move to New York to study and perform. My teacher's cousin made my first three costumes to send me on my way. They weren't beads, but pearls - I wanted to make a statement - elegant, understated, but professional! It was also during this time that I went to a belly dancing contest where I met my friend Karen.

I landed in New York and unloaded all my possessions in a cousin's garage in New Jersey. I commuted on the express bus everyday to New York until I found an apartment I could afford and a day job that could pay the rent while I studied and performed in the evenings. However, just a few months into my move to New York, I broke my foot getting off the high step of a bus, and had to be content for several weeks to watch Karen - now the lovely Karina -- who had also moved to New York, and was actively dancing on the 8th Avenue night club circuit.

My studies in dance were magical. I studied extensively with the lovely Anahid Sofian, a study in dignity and grace. I remember my classes with her like it was yesterday: a spacious mirrored studio; fantastic warm-ups; exquisite floorwork and veil work; emphasis on posture and balletic turns - everything you could imagine, and more. I studied only a short time with Bobby Farrah, but what I took away from those studies with him was the knowledge that the profession of a Middle Eastern dancer was something to take pride in. I am eternally grateful to him for giving me the courage to leave everything conventional behind, and move to New York to become a professional dancer.

Another teacher who, at that time, was very influential for me, was Elektra in Hempstead, New York. It cost me as much for the transportation from Manhattan to Hempstead and back, as it did for the entire lesson. I also remember travelling for 2-3 hours round trip for that one hour lesson! If a teacher was ever worth that devotion, she was. What I gleaned from those lessons was all manner of stage presence and posture. I perfected my zill playing with her, and learned more about music and letting my body enhance the rhythmic qualities of a piece of music.

New York was a wonderful place to be in those days. Thanks to the tireless efforts of Bobby Farrah, Morocco, and Serena Wilson, there were dance troupe performances of monumental quality, for the asking. The education that all dancers should have was at our fingertips. I saw Bobby & Elena perform the whirling dervish; Jajouka perform the guedra; Phaedra do a Pharonic presentation; Morocco perform balady and cane; Serena's troupe with Ghawazee, Ouled Nail, and Khaleegy presentations. Whatever dance there was, it was performed authentically and brilliantly. Not only were we lucky to have such superb local performers and teachers, there was opportunity to meet other dancers of that caliber as well. For instance, I will never forget the workshop that I took with Nadia Gamal from Egypt.

With regard to the nightclub circuit in New York, I would venture to say that nothing since has rivaled the years of the 60's and 70's. Every night of the week there were several dancers at each nightclub. Dancers went from club to club in the course of one evening, and when we weren't either dancing or in transit, we sat on the stage with the musicians and played our zills. (Just an aside: I'll never forget the first time I performed at Port Saïd. I never had experience with a black light before - and don't forget my first costumes were pearls not beads. I was so incredibly startled when I looked down at myself and saw everything on my costume glowing blue, that I almost completely became out of sync with the music!)

Seeing all these dancers on stage every night was a wonderful opportunity. Some were horrible, some were great. But it didn't matter. It was thrilling - everyone had beautiful costumes, everyone had stories to tell. There was always something to learn - even from the fringe dancers, if nothing else than the fact that "the walk" could kill a lot of time and you still could look good even if you were exhausted by the second or third show of the evening! Whom we spend hundreds of dollars for in a workshop nowadays, were there for the price of a cover charge - every night! Can you imagine?

But now let me tell you how dancing, and knowing my friend Karen, truly shaped the rest of my life: At the end of December my lease was up and I sublet an apartment in Tudor City (across from the United Nations on 42nd Street). I hired movers to move my stuff from 3rd Avenue to my new apartment, and when everything was off the truck except my stereo, the guys said that they had underestimated how long it would take and I would have to pay them more money if I wanted my stereo! It was a Friday night - before the days of ATM's and banks with evening hours. Karen was with me. She said, "I'm dancing tonight at Port Saïd - let's pool your money and my money to give the movers, and whatever money I make tonight I'll split with you, and then we can get through the weekend." I got my stereo off the truck, and then worried what we would do for dinner (remember - new apartment, empty fridge, no money). Again, Karen came to the rescue, "I know the people at Cedars of Lebanon Restaurant. If we go there and sit at the family table (the one that's never set by the kitchen door - every restaurant has one!) they'll feed us and not ask for money."

We walked (well, I hobbled - broken foot and no money for the bus!) to the Cedars, and sat at the family table. A very handsome young man with a very thick accent kept coming over to me and asking if I wanted mint tea. I kept saying yes, and practically floated away from drinking so much. To this day I hate mint tea - but if I had told him I didn't want any he wouldn't have kept coming to my table - I think that was practically all he knew to say to me. The young man and I conversed briefly and I told him that I was going over to Port Saïd to see Karen dance that evening. He said that he would come over after the restaurant closed. Well, about midnight (and keep in mind things didn't start to heat up till at least midnight - clubs never closed before 4 AM) he walked in. I was so thrilled that I had met a man in New York who had kept his promise, I decided that he was the one for me!

Jawdat and I married, and opened the Sindbad Restaurant on Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. I performed there weekly, while continuing to dance for private celebrations and Arabic haflas throughout New York and New Jersey. When I became pregnant with our first child we started recruiting other dancers for our weekend shows and parties. We prided ourselves on being the one place where new dancers could get their start, both with recorded music and live bands. Although there were a dozen Arabic restaurants on Atlantic Avenue, Sindbad was the only one to receive reviews in Gourmet Magazine and make the Daily News 10 Best Restaurants in New York list consistently. Such exposure gave our fledgling dancers a good start. Many moved on to become professional dancers in New York and in Europe. I'd like to think that my life in dance, in turn, influenced the lives of our "baby belles."

What I mostly I want to leave you with right now is the understanding of why people always say that it is so obvious that I dance with joy and love. I have a wonderful husband of twenty years, two magnificent teenagers, friends whom I found through dance and have kept through friendship all these years, and now find myself healthy, and ready to dance in an environment that is so supportive to us "old-timers," that I have no fear of dancing right next to the younger dancers that are out there today. How could there not be joy and love with such a life whose path was determined by dance, paved with my dance experiences, and directed toward a rich future of learning new things and meeting new friends?

In this one teacher's opinion, it is necessary to infuse your life with the culture - the food, the music, the language, the art, the people - in order for your dance to be complete. (It is not necessary, however, to MARRY into the culture!) To learn rhythms and steps and songs is not enough. You must be infused with cultural passion in order to infuse your dance with joy and love and life.