Fifi Abdou, Queen of Oriental dance
Text: Hilde Lund
Fifi Abdou is a living legend. She is a household name in Egypt and in big parts of the Arab world. If an Egyptian understands that you dance belly dance, the first question he or she will ask is: "Do you know Fifi Abdou?" Their eyes sparkle a little when they ask this question. To know who Fifi Abdou is, means that you don't only know Fifi Abdou the dancer, but that you also know of all the intriguing and exciting scandals that surround her.
The life of Fifi Abdou is a real life Cinderella story. In true Diva style, she keeps her background a little mysterious, with different versions given at different times.
She was born in Embaba, a poor Cairo neighbourhood, in April 1953. She was named Atiyat Abdul Fattah Ibrahim. At 10?, 12?, 14? years of age, she started dancing in a neighbour's folklore troupe, against her parents will. However, her parents eventually understood that she wanted to become a dancer, and gave her their support. Her rise to fame started in the 1970s, when she became the main attraction at Arizona Night Club.
Today Fifi Abdou is one of the richest women in Cairo. She charged huge sums to perform. At her peak, she would reputedly earn US$10,000 per belly dance show. For her movie Al Hakika wa al sarab, she was paid 1 million Egyptian pounds. According to the Moroccan newspaper La Vie Eco (2004), she owns 5,000 costumes with the most expensive being valued at US$40,000.
There was a rumor circulating in the Cairo gossip magazines a while ago, claiming that Fifi Abdou had bought a flat with a view of the Nile, for a whopping US$14.5 million. She has denied this, but at one point she has supposedly said "If you stacked all my money in a pile, and I stood on top of it, I could shake hands with God". She has gone all the way from being 'Bint el Balad', to becoming the undisputed Queen of Egyptian belly dance.
Fifi Abdou has no formal education, but has taught herself to read and write, and to speak English. In spite of the lack of formal education, she is a very skilled businesswoman, who has made herself a remarkable career .
Fifi Abdou is my big heroine in the world of dance. I have had the pleasure of seeing her perform on several occasions, and she is one of the very few dancers in the world that can make me cry, just by standing still and doing shimmies. Her signature move is her strong shimmy, that just keeps going, going and going. She is also famous for her shisha dance. She walks around in the audience, smokes her shisha and blows smoke rings in the air, while looking ever so sexy.
Her shows are huge productions. She often has a 30 piece orchestra with her, and she dances, sings and tells jokes. In her opinion a performer must master different disciplines of artistry to be a complete artist. In her shows, in addition to dancing, she does a fair bit of stand up comedy. I suspect that she is very rude. My Arabic is not fluent enough to understand all her jokes. Yet I do know, painfully well, that the entire audience has laughed at me and all the foreigners at my table when she has made jokes at our expense. But then, that is OK! She is after all, Fifi Abdou! It feels way worse to be pulled up onto the stage with her. I suspect she does that to embarrass her victims. One time she dragged me up on stage, and stole my glasses off my nose. I couldn't see very much without them, so I couldn't just leave the stage and return to my table. I was stuck on the stage, and danced and danced while I waited to get my glasses back. Suddenly she shoved a microphone in my face and started to interview me. I said that I found it to be very embarrassing to have to dance next to the great Fifi Abdou. She must have very much liked to hear that, because she made me repeat it 5 times in the microphone, to make sure that EVERYBODY in the audience heard what I said.
Fifi Abdou is a very tough lady. She speaks her mind, and she has opinions. She is not very taken with the foreign dancers in Cairo, because, as she says, "We have the dance in our blood. They don't. They can never dance like us."
Fifi Abdou is a superstar in Egypt. She has graced belly dance stages for decades, and has made herself a career as an actress in theatres and in movies. She is the subject of lots of gossip in the tabloids of Cairo. She is loved, yet at the same time deeply despised. She brakes all the rules in the conservative Egyptian society, with her sassy and somewhat arrogant behaviour, and with her line of work. Good girls don't dance in public in Egypt, end of discussion. It is said that the belly dance business brings in the third largest tax revenue for the Egyptian state, after cotton production and tourism. Yet the dancers have a lower social status than rubbish collectors. That also goes for a wealthy, celebrated super star like Fifi Abdou.
Fifi Abdou has been criticised by religious groups who see her dancing as contrary to the tenets of Islam. In 1991, she was charged with "depraved movements" by a Cairo court and sentenced to three months in jail. In 1999, Grand Mufti Sheik Nasr Farid Wasil issued an edict against her going to Mecca for hajj, but eventually retracted it.
During Ramadan, rich people give food to the poor, by hosting Rahma tables. They are long tables, abundant with food, that are set up in the streets every day. Poor people can have their iftar, the meal that breaks the fast, for free at these tables. Fifi Abdou is renowned for her support of the poor, and hosts 5 Rahma tables every day during Ramadan. This is, however, not without problems. Religious authorities have declared it haram (forbidden) to eat from Fifi Abdou's tables, because her money is made from dirty and indecent work. A dancer is a bad person, after all. However, Fifi Abdou isn't one to let authorities hold her down. She replied to the accusations about her Rahma table being haram "My money is halal (allowed) because I make them out of hard work." The conflict between Fifi Abdou and the religious authorities even reached Western media, and was covered by CNN.
Fifi Abdou is a super star, and she knows it. I saw her on Norwegian news years ago. The journalist had gotten permission to film her at a show, but he was very surprised when she danced wearing a galabiya (a whole dress) rather than a badla (two piece costume).When he asked her why she was dressed in a full dress, she said;
"If I dance wearing a badla, the men in your home country, they will be so excited that they can't breathe. That's why I wear this costume, so they can better handle seeing me. The men here in Cairo are used to me, so I can dance in a badla for them".
Those are the words of a true Diva!
