PHOTO CREDIT: Above photo by John Rickman Photography, San Jose, California.

According to the newspaper Sawt el Oma, the performing artist Dina was put into an embarassing position when she went to perform and dance raqs sharqi at the wedding of Yasser Hosni the [football] player for the Arabic Constructors Team. The father of the groom intervened and prevented her from entering the reception hall. She had reached an agreement with the groom to perform at the wedding for a fee of 20 thousand Egyptian pounds. However, she was surprised when the groom's father said to her, "There will be no dancing or haram or forbidden things at my son's wedding. I have my friends from the [Muslim] Brotherhood inside."

Dina became angry at this situation and demanded that she be paid in full. When the groom learned what had happened, he told the party organizer, Walid Mansour, to give her half of her fee in the amount of ten thousand pounds. She then left the hotel with her band.

[Translator's note: 20,000 pounds was equal to about $3,200 U.S. dollars at the time this article was written in 2012.]

An English-language version of this news story can be found on the Al Bawaba web site.

ABOUT THE PHOTO: This photo shows Dina performing at the Semiramis in Cairo on February 10, 2017. Photo by Shira.

Priscilla is a dancer of Lebanese heritage who enjoys researching the Golden Era of Egyptian dance. She owns a collection of more than one hundred classic black and white Egyptian films which is continually expanding.

Priscilla has also gathered a large library of dance related articles and clippings from Middle Eastern magazines and newspapers, many of which she has translated from the original Arabic to both English and Spanish.

Priscilla currently resides in Central America where she is a dance instructor.