Quick-witted, quick-footed, and dancing to survive You can call it passion Profile by Yasmine El-Rashidi Click to view caption It would be hard not to describe Karima Mansour as striking. It is not just her looks -- she is petite, somewhat modest in demeanor. Nor is it the way she carries herself, though she carries herself as dancers do, two inches taller than she is, with fluidity and grace. It is not jet black eyes, or hair, that mark her out amongst the crowd. Rather, it is a seeming glow from within, a passion for her profession so strong that it comes across as slightly aggressive. It is Wednesday afternoon, one of the few free slots in the dancer's schedule. "It's been crazy," she says, flipping through the menu at a local coffee shop. She scrolls up and down the drinks section and opts for a café latté. "But please make sure it's decaf," she urges the waiter. "The last thing I need is to be more jittery." Draped in a burgundy T-shirt and matching Capri pants, Mansour's contrasting black hair and eyes cause several heads to turn. But she sits quietly, modestly, almost apologetic for the attention she is attracting. Her face looks drawn since we met several weeks ago. "I have been continually on the go," she says. "Back and forth between performance locations and practice, running around trying to organise dancers, theatres, distribute flyers. It's been hectic." Not that she is complaining. "Anything that interests me I do with passion. I'm a great believer in doing what you love. Otherwise," she continues, "you end up like those people you see who are miserable. It breaks my heart because they once had dreams but they gave up and let go; too distracted by society and those around them." "It's the focus." She leans forward, removing her hands from her lap for emphasis. "You need to stop trying to please everyone because you never will. If you try, you'll find that you will fail, and you start hating yourself, and that reflects on those around you, and it all becomes a living hell." She takes a break for air. "Society will always have something to say. Nothing you do will ever be enough," she says sternly. "I'm not saying don't listen to what is being said -- it's very important to listen and take advice. But not from everyone, and not all the time." Her face relaxes, she returns her hands to her lap, and leans back. "You need to follow your gut," she says firmly. And perhaps it is this that makes the 33-year-old contemporary Egyptian dancer unique: the drive, the focus, and the desire to pursue a childhood dream regardless of what society thinks. "I knew I wanted to dance when I was five. Or rather, my mother recognised that I expressed myself through movement, and she encouraged, and pushed me, in a positive way, to try a number of activities." While the horse riding and theatre were things she enjoyed, her mother noticed a spark when it came to dance. "She saw something in me when I was five or six and walking in her clothes and shoes and dancing in her mirror." Others, of course, insist it began many years later, when she was receiving structured training and performing in shows. But Mansour is clear on the point. "Anne Hicks was how it all started," she recalls of her dance teacher in Kuwait. "By the time we returned to Egypt I had become used to daily classes, recitals, end of year shows, Oliver Twist. The first thing I did when we came back was ask my mother to enroll me in a dance studio." There was just one at the time -- the Inji Solh dance studio -- and Mansour quickly fell in love. "Foreigners used to come there. We had instructors from the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, we had Fran Spector, Isabelle Guillot the choreographer. They were the first ones to introduce me to floor ballet -- a technique like classical ballet but on the floor, like Pilates -- and classical ballet." Again, she takes a long pause, a slight gasp. "It was incredible!" Mansour's drive and enthusiasm, her unyielding energy, are infectious. "I was constantly hungry for more," she says. "So I asked my parents to send me to the London Contemporary Dance School (LCDS) for summer courses." That gave her at least a month of rigorous daily dance instruction, and brought her back home walking, she says, on cloud nine. "It was fantastic. I was taught by great dancers like Jane Dudley and Marion Lane. Jane Dudley --she was very strong, and frightening. But you really learnt from these people. Quality time, quality practice, quality learning." Mansour articulates every word. Her natural intonation, maybe, but one definitely accentuated by the fervor with which she tackles the subject. Her summers at LCDS were enough to tip the scales of desire, and by 16 Mansour was sure she'd had enough. "I needed to get out of the country," she says matter- of-factly. "I had seen it was possible to pursue a career in dance, I was sure it was what I wanted to do, and I wanted to study. So I contacted several schools in the States." She was very serious about the whole affair. Her parents, however, were hesitant. "They felt it was risky. A dancing career is very fragile, and they said I needed something to fall back on." She raises her eyebrows and cocks her head slightly to one side. "I was too young to pack my bags and leave," she laughs. "So I stayed!" Reluctantly, she enrolled at both the Film Institute and Cairo University's department of English and Comparative Literature. Much to her surprise, the Film Institute proved to be stimulating. "It was very interesting, there was a very high standard of teaching, and the variety of subjects we studied was vast." Nevertheless, she admits that she never enjoyed studying and never liked school. "It was hell, hell, hell," she laughs. Except, that is, when she travelled to Italy in 1991, and later England, to study dance. After graduating from the Film Institute Mansour took a job in the Public Relations department of the Opera House. It was worse than unstimulating. Mansour would abandon her office and go and take classes with visiting dance companies. One Italian company, led by Renatto Greco, captivated her, and she them. She was determined to become a student of the Renatto Greco Dance School in Rome. She set about getting a scholarship, from the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Egyptian Ministry of Culture, to study Italian and stay at the Egyptian Academy in Rome. Once successful, she informed her parents that she was leaving. "I arrived in Italy, started my studies, auditioned at the Renatto Greco School, and was offered a scholarship there too. It was a two-year professional formation course, dancing six hours a day, everything from ballet and jazz to contemporary dance and performance." Any thoughts of a holiday were out of the question. "Never," she laughs. "I had to dance." Instead of vacationing to see her parents -- who were informed of her evolving plans by telephone -- she traveled to attend a summer course given by the LCDS. "I saw my parents once in the two years," she says. "I felt I didn't have time, that I needed to catch up on the years I spent without this intensity. I love my parents, but I needed to live my life." The summer course proved to be the ideal choice. "I found they were auditioning for students, and I thought I might as well apply given that my scholarship would be running out in a few months." Her acceptance came soon after her return to the Academy, and her reaction was just as prompt. "In 20 days I packed up two years of my life, got my visa and was in London." Her parents were once again informed by phone. Mansour has been talking continually for almost two hours. Yet after taking a sip from her café latte, she begins again, with renewed ardour. "It was such a thrill, because when I was 14, 15, 16, I would see the main company of LCDS rehearsing with Robert Cohan. I would be standing at the window thinking wow, am I really here." Her smile widens. "When I arrived at LCDS it was an incredible feeling. It was the feeling that dreams really do come true." She completed her BA in just two years, dancing six hours a day, studying theory, choreography, and operating the school's camera during performances in order to make money. "It was fantastic exposure, and because I was the only Middle Easterner, everyone was very intrigued by me. The response was very positive." The BA led to the MA, and with that she auditioned, and was accepted, by the school's second -- known as the 4D --dance company, a shadow of the main, Richard Olsten-led troupe. "We toured the UK, Spain, Europe in general," she says. After presenting her dissertation on the dynamics of rhythm and musicality in dance, and auditioning for numerous jobs thereafter, Mansour was suddenly faced with a shocking reality. "I have an Egyptian passport," she says, "and I realised that I was going to have to pack my bags and come home." That was in 1997, seven years after she had first left for Italy. It was not something she looked forward to. "After spending seven years dancing six hours a day and learning every single minute I felt I had suddenly stopped," she says, remembering her return and immediate employment as a trainer at the Opera Dance Theatre Company. "I was just teaching and felt I was being emptied. What was coming out wasn't being replenished or fed." She quit nine months later to become freelance. Despite being frustrated and not quite able to understand why culture moves in the slow manner it does, her passion and determination to learn, improve and excel did not waver. "I get scared of people who think they have reached the top, the point where they 'know'," she says, signaling quotation marks in the air. "As a dancer you need continuous fine-tuning. It is an endless process." "I started working with theatre directors, and constantly, in the back of my mind, I kept asking myself what I was doing here. By 1999 I realised that if I wanted to dance I would have to choreograph." Not something Mansour was keen on. She sits up in her chair, stares straight into my eyes, and announces: "It scares the hell out of me." "It is so easy to fall into the trap of copying or doing work that looks stuck together or fake. It is a struggle to be real, to be innovative and original. You can get away with murder here because contemporary dance is so new." Then there is the struggle to find funding, and dancers, and space in which to rehearse and perform. And it has been a struggle, of course, to retain the discipline instilled in her abroad, and to pass it onto the people she works with. "Now," she says, "if I have time, I choreograph and dance. Otherwise I'm running around." Running about doing a job, she says, which the government should be doing. "It would be to their advantage to sponsor someone who might act as a representative of the country," she begins. "Or just come and take a look, at least. I don't think the minister of culture has ever come to one of my performances. It is his duty as the minister of culture to come because I'm in the field. What if I'm doing something outrageous?" she asks, exasperated. "They can continue to ignore me as long as they like. It is far from a smooth ride, but I'm not going anywhere. If they think I'm going to disappear they are in for a big surprise." "I don't say this because I want the minister of culture to come to my performances, or because I have anything against him," she says calmly. "I just put myself in his shoes, and think, 'but this is your job'!" It is also his job, she believes, to drill into young artists and performers the necessity of constantly learning. "The attitude here is 'I know it all, I've seen it all, I don't need to improve'. But the minute you start thinking this you're finished. And here we have a lot of 'what will people think if?' We need to start working as a team, something we Arabs don't seem to know how to do. There is a deep-rooted mistrust -- historically, sociologically, psychologically. It's a major drawback." It is almost as major a drawback, she thinks, as age. "It's one way we're killing talent in the country -- that you have to wait until you're 50, or 60, to get your due. Abroad, people in their 30s are theatre and festival managers and directors. But we keep talking about 'our youth'. Why do we wait until people are dead to recognise them. Do you have to be old or foreign?" "People tell me not to speak," she continues without a pause. "They say they worry that I sound negative and aggressive. But when we have a problem we should address it. I don't say this because I'm bitter and angry, but because I see so much potential, so much talent not being used. We have a problem and we cannot ignore it. Here, you are frequently judged not on how good you are, but on how good you are at promoting yourself. Yes, your PR is important, but if there is nothing behind it what's the point?" She shakes her head. "It makes me sad," she says quietly, staring blankly at the TV screen propped in one ceiling-corner of the café. "I'm doing what I'm doing, and I'm accomplishing, slowly. But I'm accomplishing. I'm lucky -- I get to travel to perform. Not everyone has been as lucky as me. Many have given up. They don't have the stamina to fight as long. When people pack their bags and leave the country they are asked why. Well this is why. And this is why they're not coming back. You tie them up, blindfold them, shatter their dreams and kill their talent. And it's not fair." Which is why Mansour broke free. "I'm lucky in that I had parents who encouraged me and didn't try to stand in my way. They let me nurture my talents and pursue my dreams in the ways I needed. They're proud and I feel it, and it helps in pushing me forward." She stops and smiles." And it makes me feel good." So she continues with the struggle, knowing in her gut that it is what she is meant to do. And when the public slams her, or those around her jeer, or turn their noses up and question her style of life and choice of focus, she turns away. "The minute I finish one performance I am asked when the next one is," she says, explaining the lack of appreciation for contemporary dance. "It's not a kitchen. You don't just throw in a bit of this and a bit of that. I need to really feel what I'm doing. My pieces are very personal. They stem from me. If I only produce one piece a year I don't care. I have nothing to prove to anyone." "You feel emptied once you've finished a performance," she says. "It's not an answer to a question. It never is. It's a dialogue, a language you develop." "I once read in a book by Merce Cunningham that 'to be a dancer, you need to be a bit stupid to do what you are doing'." She laughs again. "You can call it stupid," she says, and pauses. "Or you can call it passion."
