Star Maker of Cairo
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| BADIA MASABNY |
In 1926 a woman of Levantine
origin named Badia Masabny opened a nightclub in Cairo in the fashion of
European cabarets. This nightclub, known as “Casino Badia”, and another club
later established by Masabny, “Casino Opera”, was to have a profound influence
on Middle Eastern Dance as we know it today. Many dancers have perhaps never
even heard the name of this woman to whom we owe so much. Who was Badia
Masabny?
According to her autobiography,
which appeared in the book “Bauchtanz” by Dietlinde Karkutli, Badia Masabny was
born in Damascus in 1894. At age of seven, Badia was raped by a cafe owner.
After serving only 4 weeks in jail, the man’s life returned to normal. Badia's
life, however, was changed forever, as she was no longer a virgin. To avoid the
gossip and shame of it all, the Masabny family immigrated to Argentina. In
school there, Badia was happy and discovered her love for acting, singing and
dancing.
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| People 3000 years back already danced |
The Masabny’s moved back to Syria
when Badia was in her teens, and therefore of marriageable age, the events of
the past were, however, not forgotten and the family had a hard time finding a
husband for her. When Badia finally did get engaged, the neighbor informed the
groom’s family about the rape and the groom broke off the engagement.
Feeling she had no chance in a
place where everyone knew of her past, Badia decided to run away to Beirut. On
the train, she met a nice woman who offered to take her in. Only in Beirut did
Badia realize that this "nice woman" was the madam of a brothel! At
this time, even women in the West had few opportunities for employment and so
much the less in the Middle East. With no one to support her and no real
skills, Badia tried to think of something she could do without having to sell
her body. She turned to the two things she most loved: singing and dancing.
When her mother arrived in Beirut to take her home, Badia persuaded her to
accompany her to Cairo instead.
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| BADIA |
Even then, Cairo was already
famous for its culture, music and theatre. Badia found work playing small roles
with the famous George Abiad Theatre Ensemble. She lied to her mother, telling
her she had a night job as a seamstress. When the ensemble’s summer break
arrived, Badia was offered a bigger role with a traveling theater troupe that
was leaving for Said, Upper Egypt. When Badia’s mother learned the truth about
her daughter’s employment, she insisted they return home to Syria. As the train
that was to take them to Alexandria, where they would board a ship for Beirut,
pulled into the station, Badia jumped to the other side of the tracks and ran
away as fast as she could. She caught up with the traveling theater troupe just
the day before they went on tour.
In 1914 Masabny went to Beirut to
perform in the well-known theater of Madame Jeanette, a French woman who
employed exclusively European artists to perform for a mostly upper-class
Lebanese clientele. Badia convinced Madam Jeanette to let her sing and dance in
Arabic. For her debut on September 14, 1914, accompanied by two Austrian women
playing oud and qanoon, Badia performed a Syrian folksong, singing, dancing and
playing cymbals all at the same time! At this time the female entertainers
called Awalim were expected to be able to sing, dance, recite poetry and play
musical instruments. Masabny continued this tradition and the audience was
delighted. Badia was a big hit and became the feature act.
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| Summer Casino & Cabaret Badia |
Masabny continued to work in
Lebanon and Syria. While performing in Damascus, she was attacked and almost
killed by her brother who believed he was defending the family honour. Badia
eventually began working with the Egyptian comedian, actor, playwright and
director, Nagib El Rihany, and his ensemble. Returning with them to Cairo in
1921, she became the star of the company. A passionate, but turbulent love
story developed between Masabny and El Rihany and they eventually married.
Although it was a troubled marriage, Badia was able to learn a lot about the
theatre from her husband. After numerous breakups and reconciliations, Badia
left him in 1926 and opened her own nightclub, called Casino Badia, on Emad El
Din Street. (It should be noted that the term “cabaret” was never used in the
Middle East except to describe a very low class establishment. Nightclubs were at that time known as
"sala".)
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| Naguib El Rihany |
The nightclub was a huge success.
Masabny created a program with both European and Arab artists performing short
acts that appealed to European and upper class Egyptian tastes. Badia danced
and sang several numbers herself. She and El Rihany got back together for a
brief time, but then split again, this time for good. Badia moved her nightclub
to a better location and named it "Casino Badia".
A diverse entertainment program
featured local dancers, singers, musicians and comedians, as well as various
European acts. There was even a matinee in the afternoon for women only. It was
at this time that the traditional "Raqs Baladi" began to undergo
significant changes.
The term Raqs Sharqi first came
about when Egypt was occupied by foreign powers. "Raqs Sharqi", which
actually translates as "Oriental Dance” or “Eastern Dance”, was used to
distinguish the dance from European, or western, dances. ("Orient” as
opposed to “occident”.) In the same way, “Raqs Baladi” was used to
differentiate between "native" or "local" dance and foreign
dances. At the time of Badia Masabny, the nightclub version of these dances was
referred to as "Raqs El Hawanim" or "Dance of the Ladies".
The late master instructor Nelly Mazloom once described “Raqs el Hawanim” as
being the style that upper class women danced when amongst themselves at
weddings and other gatherings.
She went on to describe how young
girls sought the attention of potential mothers-in-law by dancing at weddings
that were at that time still segregated. The girl sought to dance gracefully
and elegantly while appearing refined and modest. Due to the fact that Masabny’s
clientele were upper class Egyptians as well as foreigners, dancers
deliberately tried to imitate the style of the upper class women. For this
reason the dancing appears to be very restrained and subtle.
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| Old Casino Badia in Opera square - Cairo |
Up to the 1920’s, dancers had
performed mostly in private homes, in coffee houses or at outdoor religious
festivals known as "mawalid" (plural of "mulid").Originally characterized by mostly hip and torso movements, the dance had
usually been performed in small spaces. The dance, therefore, had to be adapted
for the stage. Masabny employed western choreographers such as Isaac Dixon,
Robbie Robinson and Christo, who added elements from other dance traditions,
for example, the turns and traveling steps from western dance forms such as
ballet and ballroom dance. The late master instructor and choreograph Ibrahim Akif,
who also worked with Masabny, identified “shimmies”, undulating movements
(including what we sometimes refer to as “camals”), circles and “eights”, as
well as various hip thrusts and drops as being the original “Sharqi” or
oriental movements. Ibrahim Akef also told me personally that, although the
group dances were choreographed, most of the solo artists improvised. According
to him, it was his first cousin, the dancer and actress Naima Akef, who was the
first to completely choreograph her solo performances. As we all know,
choreographing the opening number later on became a stand practice among the
better-known Egyptian dancers.
The two-piece costume with beads
and sequins, which we now associate inseparably with Oriental Dance, first
appeared during this period, inspired by Hollywood films and European
nightclubs such as the "Moulin Rouge". It might be added that the
costumes were partially created to suit the tastes of European colonists, who
didn’t find the original costumes revealing enough!
All went well, both professionally
and privately, until Badia's nephew, Antoine, who had become her theater
director and was married to her adoptive daughter, Julia, fell in love with
Beba Azzadine, a dancer in Badia's ensemble. He and Beba left to open their own
nightclub in the same style as "Casino Badia". In spite of this setback,
Badia remained successful, constantly working to improve her program and always
recruiting new talents.
Badia Masabny was a tough woman.
According to Karin van Nieuwkerk in her book, "A Trade Like any
Other", journalists wrote that Badia had no need for a bodyguard as she
herself was one, even going so far as to threaten intrusive journalists with a
gun. Perhaps her childhood had forced her to become tough.
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| Tahea Carrioca |
In 1937 Masabny
invested and lost all her money in a film project that flopped. She declared
bankruptcy and left Cairo to tour Upper Egypt with her troupe. A young Tahia
Carioca, still in her teens, was part of the entourage. In debt, Badia borrowed
money to open up her biggest project yet: a nightclub with a movie theater,
restaurant, cafe and an American-style bar. "Casino Opera" opened in
1940 and was extremely successful. World War II had broken out and the streets
of Cairo were filled with English and French soldiers wanting to be
entertained. This, of course, was a great opportunity for “Casino Opera"
and the program was adapted to suit the soldiers’ tastes.
Due to the performance of a Hitler
parody, however, Masabny was placed on Hitler's list of people to be executed
once he took over Egypt. Fortunately, the Germans never made it to Cairo!
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| Farid El Atrash |
The Egyptian film industry was
flourishing at this time, producing countless musicals requiring singers and
dancers. Many of the nightclub scenes in the films of this era were actually
filmed in "Casino Opera" and many dancers were discovered there. The
program in both "Casino Badia" and "Casino Opera" featured
group dances. The more talented dancers were allowed to dance in front of the
others and, if one of them went over well with the public, she earned the
chance to be featured as a solo artist. Many dancers who started out as chorus
girls ended up as soloists and many soloists ended up in films. Through
exposure in these films, as well as in Masabny’s nightclubs, dancers achieved a
celebrity status that could never have been achieved in the past.
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| Naima Akef |
The most famous of these dancers were Tahia
Carioca and Samia Gamal, who became popular movie stars in Egypt, and Nadia
Gamal, who later became a star in Lebanon. All these dancers and many others,
including Ketty, Hoda Shamsadine, Hagar Hamdy and Naima Akef (although,
according to Ibrahim Akef, Naima actually started in the nightclub of Masabny’s
rival, Beba Azzadine), credited Masabny for helping them get started and for
teaching them what they needed to know in the beginning of their careers.
According to an interview with Nadia Gamal in Arabesque magazine, Masabny
trained her dancers every afternoon at the Casino. She was an expert at
"zaggat" (finger cymbals) and played them herself on stage. Not only
dancers, but also many well-known singers and musicians, including Farid El
Atrache and Mohamad Abdel Wahab, got their start with Masabny.
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| Nagwa Fouad |
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| Samia Gamal |
Samia Gamal While no one denies that
Badia Masabny had a profound influence in the development of modern Raqs
Sharqi, not everyone agrees if this influence was positive or negative. One
school of thought maintains that her changes elevated the dance to a performing
art for the stage. The other maintains that she degraded the original dance
form by making the dance more sexually suggestive and by moving the dance into
a nightclub setting to begin with. In any case, one can hardly imagine how the
dance might have evolved without Badia Masabny!
Article written by Jalilah on
Gilded Serpent.
