'Daughter of Egypt'
by Marjorie A. Franken


The inspiring story of Farida Fahmy, her life as a Dance artist in Egypt and the evolution of the Reda Troupe.

About the Book, by the author:

My friendship with Farida Fahmy began during her first semester as an M.A. student at the University of California Los Angles in the Dance Ethnology Department. I had just returned from my field work in Kenya, where I studied Swahili community dancing. I had been inspired to study dancing instead of more traditional anthropological topics such as kinship by my belly-dance teacher Carolee "Sahra" Kent. She started the M.A. program at UCLA at the same time as Farida and had arranged for me to participate in a class discussion on field methods. Farida and Carolee had been studying and socializing together and I sometimes joined them, although I was enrolled 60 miles away at UC Riverside.

When Farida began to write her M.A. thesis she asked me to read it and make suggestions. I did, and was bowled over by what a tremendous story she was telling. Not only did it have a plot line like a movie - amateurs rise to worldwide acclaim - but it also had fascinating details about Egyptian history, the nationalist and feminist movements, the passing of colonialism, and the flowering of modern Egyptian arts. This last topic, especially as the unique and utterly original Reda movement style and repertoire were developed, were Farida's focus and purpose in her thesis.

Still finishing my own Ph.D. thesis, I began to dream of one day finding out more about the Reda story and Farida's role in it. Years later I finally had my chance when in 1992 I got the first of two small research grants to go to Egypt and work with Farida, who had returned home after completing her degree at UCLA. Through her extraordinary generosity and patience, tireless efforts to help me interview friends, family and former troupe members, plus the generous assistance of Carolee, also in Egypt at that time, I was able to get the book started.

My goal in writing this book was to focus on Farida - how she came to be a "dancer" when that was a disreputable profession, how she redefined what female public dancing could mean, and how beloved she became among the Egyptian people. My anthropological training prompted me to look for influences and shaping forces in her immediate family situation, in the political and social atmosphere of the post-colonial Nasser era, and in the traditions of dance itself in Egyptian life and entertainment. I came to see Farida as an icon, an embodiment of all the hopes and aspirations of Egyptians as they entered a new age of independence, confidence and a great flowering of the arts. When Egyptians look back on these great early days of the Reda troupe, they see her this way still, more than forty years later.

Marjorie A. Franken, 2008