Today, ‘Egyptian belly dancers are an endangered species, on the road to extinction. That is, if there isn’t a belly dance renaissance in Egypt sometime soon. This is ironic, considering that most of the international community imagines Egypt to be the “Planet of Belly Dance,” and that Egypt is the home of belly dance legends Samia Gamal, Fifi Abdo, and Soheir Zaki. There are also at least 40 million Egyptian women living here. You’d think that with those numbers, this music and dance oriented country could produce a few more belly dancers. Yet the reality is that an ugly combination of economic and socio-religious factors is robbing this country of one of its greatest artistic achievements’ explains Luna, an American Belly Dancers based in Cairo.
The majority of the top performances are now made by non-Egyptians. Foreign professional dancers come to refine their technique and end up being on the top of the scene just because there is almost no local competition. The 2011 Revolution that has driven away tourism from the country and lead to a deeper economical crisis is accelerating the death of Belly Dancing.
Myriam Abdelaziz Biography
Myriam Abdelaziz is a Egyptian born /French/American photographer. Her career started in the corporate marketing field before she decided to switch gear and pursue a profession in Photography, her long lifetime passion. Myriam graduated from the International Center of Photography in 2006 and has been based in New York City since.
She was named by the Magenta Foundation one of the 25 Emerging Photographers in the USA in 2009 and in 2011 and is a winner of the Lens Culture Emerging Talent prize, American Photography #24, La Bourse du Talent and PhotoEspana as well as being nominated for the Pictet Prize in 2016 as well as in 2017 and self published her first monograph ‘ We the People’ in 202.
Myriam work tells the stories of its participants. Her inquiry into the tales of people takes her around the globe searching for narratives that overcome physical and cultural barriers and often reveal what we have in common: glimpses of solitude, hope, insecurity, dignity. Her work captures moments where something inner is revealed.
Her photographs have been published in magazines such as American Photography, Fortune Magazine, Newsweek, Time Magazine, Smithsonian, Le Monde, Liberation, Courrier International, Marie-Claire, Eyemazing and the British Journal of Photography among others as well as featured in various solo and group exhibitions in Europe, the Middle East and the USA, including the Arab Photography Biennale at the Arab Institute of Paris. They are also included in the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, the Agence Française de Développement and the Southeast Museum of Photography.
Based in New York City
Instagram: @myriam_abdelaziz_photography
Website: www.myriamabdelaziz.com