Egypt’s Arthur Murray studio takes top honors at a global dance competition in Manhattan
By Jessica Olien
LAST YEAR, RIHAM El-Hawary was a high-powered professional. Returning home from work late each night, she would pass by signs for Arthur Murray Dance Studio in Cairo. They became a daily reminder of what her busy life was lacking: An outlet for her creative energies. After finally summoning the courage to sign up for a lesson, she has spent the past year finding herself through dancing.
In fact, she took so much pleasure in her newfound hobby that she flew to New York City to compete this year in the fifteenth annual Empire State Dance Sport Championship (ESDSC) in August.
At this year’s gathering, some 400 professional and amateur dancers gathered to salsa, foxtrot and rumba their way to the top. El-Hawary was one of a team of five students, two teachers and one dedicated observer from Arthur Murray in Cairo. In New York they joined nearly a hundred studios from all over the world to vie for group and individual awards.
At the end of the competition, little Arthur Murray Egypt took home the tile of best dance studio overall.
As I step into the modest studio in Maadi’s Midan El-Mahata, a couple is twirling around the dance floor to a song from the musical Phantom of the Opera. Confidently, they glide and spin across the floor. Smiling and laughing, they completing increasingly complicated footwork and dips. Suddenly, I am very aware of my own awkwardness.
“There came a time when I was so stressed, and I thought I needed to do something to at least cheer me up, and I wanted exercise. So I called them and told them I want to come and at least move. At the beginning I couldn’t come to the group classes — I was too shy about it,” El-Hawary tells me.
From the looks of it, it is obvious that she has since reformed: El-Hawary is now a vivacious and confident dancer.
The amazing thing about Arthur Murray in Egypt is the lack of ego. People go to Arthur Murray studios around the world to become good dancers. The dancing franchise has a reputation for being one of the best and has trained actors such as Richard Gere for dancing roles on the silver screen. But aside from just getting into shape and learning to glide across the dance floor, dancing can be an escape from the harsher realities of work and home, a way of building confidence and a mood-booster to rival Prozac.
For the Arthur Murray team from Egypt, August 10-13 was a blur of costume changes and intense dancing competitions. As one of only two studios competing from the Middle East (the other was from Lebanon) and the largest group from Egypt ever to participate in the event, they had a lot to prove in New York.
El-Hawary doesn’t get too caught up in the competitive aspect of dancing. She enjoys the finer things in life and is just happy to have participated. “It’s the elegance!” she tells me, remembering the championship. “Even if you are not a professional at the end of the day, you’ve been there [dancing in New York], you’ve put on the costume, and you’ve gone out on the dance floor. I was on top of the world — the best three days of my life!”
“I love Manhattan,” says Fouad Barsoum, a youthful and energetic instructor at Arthur Murray Egypt. “I don’t know — you feel as though you could do anything you want. You can walk down the street wearing a suit and sneakers — nobody’s going to look at you.” He participated for the third time as a professional at the ESDSC this year and took home an award for his teaching.
Meriem Bouricha, who also competed in New York, hasn’t lived in Egypt long; her husband’s job brought her here just two-and-a-half years ago. Trained in ballet when she was young, Bouricha was something of a prodigy at Arthur Murray. She climbed the ranks from dancer to professional teacher in less than one year.
“I love to dance,” she says. “It’s a very old passion for me.”
“She is an inspiration,” El-Hawary raves about the delicate French-Algerian. “Being a student like us [and becoming a teacher] that fast — it gives us hope. You see her teach someone, and the information passes to them so fluidly.” Bouricha loves her new work so much that when her husband was relocated to Tunisia, she stayed in Egypt to dance. Her husband encourages her, though, and even flew to New York to participate in the competition as her student.
Though many members of the Egyptian team placed individually, the most rewarding prize came when, out of almost 100 studios from all over the world, Arthur Murray Egypt was named as the best of the bunch. “The best part was when they called our name, and we were awarded best studio,” El-Hawary gushes, “and all eight people from the Egyptian group, we just walked through the dance floor [to receive the award], and all the competitors were clapping and cheering.”
What dances did they participate in? Barsoum takes a deep breath before firing off, “Foxtrot, waltz, tango, swing, rumba, cha-cha, samba, salsa, mambo, meringue, pasa doble, hustle.” Laughing and winded, he explains, “There is what we call ‘international’ and ‘American.’ There is ‘American ballroom’ with the equivalent of international standard.” It is all much too complicated for me to understand, so Barsoum brings out a pen and sketches a detailed diagram of each dance and what category it falls under. I’m no closer to getting it when he finishes, but one thing is very clear: Nothing in dance is as easy as it looks.
The Cairo team may have won best studio, but that doesn’t mean that everyone in New York really understood where they came from. During the Latin dances, the skimpy costumes that the women from Egypt wore raised some eyebrows, and the general understanding of what life is really like in Egypt was minimal. Barsoum seemed more amused than upset by this. “[People asked,] ‘How come the ladies are wearing short skirts?’ People say, ‘What — you have camels and things?’ They really want to know!”
He looks at me in theatrical astonishment, “[I say,] no, we are driving cars! Do we have houses in the shape of pyramids? No!”
Cultural misunderstandings aside, the dancers insist that there was a real familial feeling among participants. El-Hawary says, “Everybody [was] helping everybody. We were just competing and learning together. [Everyone was] helping each other be at their best.”
Even after their success at the ESDSC, El-Hawary is not about to quit her day job and start taking it too seriously. “I’m not taking it as a profession. I’m just enjoying dancing.”
That is the sort of attitude that Barsoum encourages in his students. “An amateur is spending the money and going overseas for what? Fun. One student is thinking that she had a bad experience because she didn’t place. If you’re going just to win, forget about it. If you’re having fun, you have a better chance to win anyway. If you’re not having fun, the judges — they know. That’s the first thing they want to see, and then after that they start looking at style and technique. If they see [the dancer] is not having fun it is a very negative point for them. If you are not having fun, it’s not worth it, and you will never win.”
“For a professional it’s something else,” Barsoum muses. “Even if you’re not having fun it’s fine because they look at your technique first.”
While still not considered a sport by most Egyptians, ballroom dancing is gaining momentum throughout Cairo, with classes at Arthur Murray as well as Samia Allouba Creative Dance and Fitness Center’s Mohandiseen and Maadi outlets. Latin dance has become particularly popular — the Nile Hilton holds classes in salsa and has regular Argentinean tango nights.
Every sport has its inspirational moments. While, to those participating in the championship, little Egypt’s big win may have been moving, Borsoum has his own tale of inspiration. “There was a lady [participating in the competition] in front of me when I was in line for my number — an old lady, maybe 80 years old. She was saying [Borsoum does his best shaky old woman voice], ‘Excuuuuse meeee. Can I ask a queestionnn?’
“I’m behind her and I’m like, ‘I need my number. I’m on in ten minutes.’ She has this snow-white hair, she can barely talk, and I’m thinking, ‘She’s gonna die [if she dances].’ Later, I see her in the competition, and she’s doing everything [beautifully]—not just the smooth dances like the foxtrot and waltz—[she’s dancing] the samba, salsa, rumba, the cha-cha. She’s smiling, and I’m like, ‘That was the lady that was going to make me late, that was the lady who cannot speak’.”
Barsoum smiles. “People need dance in their lives. It keeps them alive.” et
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