Rania Khallaf is carried away by a dance paying tribute to Michael Jackson with a hint of Latin passion Last week's show Take the Floor left Egyptian audience spellbound. In one week the specially-convened Qalubi company gave seven two-hour modern dance performances at the Cairo Opera House and two more in Alexandria. The nine performances attracting a total audience of 11,000 and earning the Opera House company LE1.2 million is the highest revenue in the last two seasons. The 16 dances varied from classical dance to Latin and samba. The most interesting dances of the show included The Best is Yet to Come and Blues before Sunrise. The second part of the show was more carefree, with the audience clapping to the beat, screaming and whistling for joy. The first dance of the second part was a tribute to Michael Jackson performed by six dancers, including Max Kapitannikov and Michael Choi. One of the most dramatic dances was Espana Cani, a brilliant tango. The freshness and joy of the dances reverberated round the hall, empowering the audience and lifting care and stress. Designer Jennifer Anderson's costumes were perfectly designed to suit the different styles, tastes and ages of the dances, and the colours were bright enough to make the dancers look like butterflies in a field of flowers. Anderson is an original Broadway company member of Disney's The Lion King and the designer of several performances for the Los Angeles Music Center and the Lincoln Center Art Community. She has also designed costumes for a number of films, among them Woody Allen's Whatever Works. American dance companies such as the Broadway Dance Company and Momix chave had smashing successes in Egypt in the past few months. The Qalubi company and Take the Floor were put together for this tour. "This is the first time the show has toured the Middle East, but the company has been to Israel and Jordan before with another show," the show's artistic director and choreographer Gary Pierce told Al-Ahram Weekly. "Our dancers are very talented." The dancers are of various nationalities, including Ukrainians, Bulgarians, Americans and Germans. The theme of the show is bringing together multi- generational music that ranges from Frank Sinatra, Broadway music, Michael Jackson and Latin American music. "All these dances originated in relatively one country, and they came from a similar social background. Putting them all on stage, the dancers, on different levels, would reflect the emotional and social ideas of the places they came from, be it tango from Argentina, or the Mambo from Cuba," Pierce says. "The show is about a human relationship. All dances from Latin America are about a man and a woman together and everything they go through," he expounds. "I think the thing that binds all dances together is the idea of people dancing and communicating together." The show's choreography is minimal. "Unlike Broadway shows, which can travel with huge sets and decors, I only focussed on the dancing part of it. It makes it easier for us to travel to different countries around the world," Pierce says. Take the Floor is the brainchild of Tharwat Qalubi, an Egyptian-American professional dance trainer and the director of World Master, the show's producer. In 1993 Qalubi established his first school for teaching modern dance in Florida. Two other schools were established later under the name Qalubi Dance Schools. The schools organise annual dance competitions. "The company started by bringing couples together, and then created the show. The idea started with me and Gary [Pierce], as we both thought of creating a special show for Egypt. "The idea started about last year, when Gary started choreographing several dances." "I immigrated to the States about 32 years ago, and presenting a show in Egypt has always been my dream. But now is a perfect timing to bring this style of dance to Egypt, because of the increasing popularity of this kind of dance all over the world, not only in Egypt, where several modern dance schools have opened in the last decade. It feels great to come back home and feel the success of the show." The final dance of the show was a surprise to the audience: it was a dance using Hisham Abbas's latest popular song Nar, Nar (Fire, fire). The audience clapped to the beat, applauded, sang and whistled to the rhythmic song. And the dancers were happy, hopeful; they deflected to the audience an incomparable joy. "The choice of the song came randomly," Qalubi says. "I was lost in one of the new shopping malls in Orlando when I came across an Egyptian store, and it was there that I found this creative new record. "I did not have a clue who the singer was when I bought the CDs. I drove back home, and I put one of the CDs on my car CD player, and it was this song, and I loved it. I called Gary immediately and told him I found our finale. "We had a back up for costumes, because most of the dresses are very short and backless, but it went fine and we didn't change any of the dancers' costumes," Qalubi says. For Pierce, the audience was great. "I didn't expect this warm welcome and cheerful reaction to the dances." He said Egyptian music was very rhythmic and was popular in the United States. He is certain that the company will come back to Egypt soon. Take the Floor is scheduled to tour in other parts of the Arab world, including Dubai and Bahrain. Still the title of the show stirs unexplained allusions. "By 'Take the Floor' I mean a dance couple who walk across the dance floor and take control. In other words, take control of your life before it takes control of you," Pierce concludes with a smile.
