00:00I started belly dancing in 2003, 20 years ago, and I came to Dubai 15 years ago.
00:15When I just arrived in Dubai, I had the chance to be exclusive for Atlantis Hotel.
00:22So since the opening, I was working for them for three years.
00:32I was doing modeling in Brazil, and I wanted to be a fashion model.
00:39And in my city, in Sao Paulo, you have to be very skinny, especially I wanted to go,
00:45my dream was to work in Milan or New York, but you have to be very skinny.
00:49So I tried to be more skinny and more in a level that I had anorexia.
00:53I was 10 kilos less than now, and the agency still telling me that I have to lose 3 kilos.
00:59So that time I was very depressed, very down, and I decided to do something for fun, just
01:05to relax, and I chose belly dancing.
01:07The moment I started, I felt something like, I felt happy, I felt like, when I was like,
01:14because when you have anorexia, you always see yourself not beautiful, and I was in the
01:18cover of many magazines, but I was not feeling myself beautiful or attractive.
01:24And with the belly dancing, I start to feel again that, you know, when I move, and my
01:30teacher was amazing, it was a Lebanese lady, older, and she was not in a model look at
01:38all, but she was very confident and very happy with herself, and this was my inspiration
01:43to keep going.
01:44I get very emotional, because it was like the medicine of my depression, and until now,
01:52for me, belly dancing is like, it's a blessing.
01:57My teacher was telling me, you are a model, if you start to do professionally, you'll
02:03be like, you'll be very special, because your profile is completely different than
02:09a lot of belly dancers, so you'll be very unique if you decide to do this.
02:14But I was not convinced.
02:15I was like, no, no, it's not a job, I'm doing it for fun, and I went to a psychologist
02:21that time, and I said, I want to find something that I do and I love, and she said, you should
02:27be a dancer, and I was laughing, I was like, no, no, a dancer, because my father, his dream
02:33was me to work in a bank, you know, to be like a businesswoman, not a dancer, I think.
02:41He never thought about this for me.
02:44But everything I do related to dance works very well.
02:49Everything I do in my life that's related to dance, the doors open like this, so that's
02:53why I realized that it's for me, it was in my journey.
03:01Since the corona time that I couldn't perform, so I decided to come back to teach, and I
03:08started to teach celebrities.
03:10My students, I have students with 20 million followers, 5 million followers, 7 million,
03:17and I have very high-profile students, they are very private.
03:21I'm very happy to teach now, especially because I want to move more to this way.
03:26I start to teach online as well, I'm launching very soon my online classes, so I can teach
03:33also ladies, they don't live in Dubai.
03:35So usually I wake up 6.30 in the morning, I prepare my son to go to the school, and
03:40then I start teaching my classes.
03:42I also take classes, yoga, in the afternoon I always try to focus on my company, to see
03:49what's going on, which events we have, if we need choreography, like I want to make
03:54sure that everything is really well, and in the evening I perform.
03:58I perform in one restaurant four times per week, and I perform also in a lounge, in GIFC,
04:05that is only on Saturdays.
04:07I also do a lot of private events, like corporate events, weddings, hand-apart, sometimes birthday.
04:17When I dance, I want people to be like in a dream, you know, I want this, that's what
04:30I look for.
04:31We are there to make the environment magical, bring happiness.
04:47One thing that I want to make very clear, that belly dancers, a proper professional
04:52belly dancer, is not there to seduce anyone, or to be teasing around.
04:57This is not a professional belly dancer.
04:59If you see someone doing this, it means she's not professional, she's not doing what she
05:04needs to do.
05:05We come to show an art, a culture, bring happiness, change the environment, like change the ambience
05:12for something happy, beauty.
05:14We should give the beauty of life, the art, the music, the movement, the technique, the
05:20things that people see and say, I wish I knew how to do it, but I cannot do it.
05:26This is a professional dancer, technique.
05:28You see, you know, she trained so much to be able to do this.
05:32This is very professional.
05:43I can see that belly dancing is something that you need to develop also yourself a lot
05:51to become like a professional belly dancer.
05:53It's like not all the other dancers, of course, you need to be very professional, but I feel
05:58like a belly dancer, there is something that also works a lot, your self-confidence, your
06:07emotions, it's more, it's something like very deep, it's a very deep dancing, it's not something
06:13like you learn your choreography and you can do it.
06:17Belly dancing is like, you need to develop a lot of things on you to become a belly dancer.
06:24You need to understand the whole culture.
06:27Inside belly dancer, we have Haliji, that's the golf dance.
06:31Inside belly dancer, we have the Egyptian style, the Lebanese style, the Iraq style,
06:36and everything is completely different.
06:39The rhythms represent different things.
06:42So to be able to be a professional belly dancer, if you don't understand the culture, you cannot
06:47work in an Arabic country, because it's very tricky, you know, like the way you dance Haliji
06:54is completely different than the way you dance the Egyptian style.
07:11One door that opened for me that I loved so much was my work in Cannes.
07:18I loved to work in the south of France.
07:20It was like a real blessing to have this connection there.
07:24I perform every evening with another group of artists from all around the world.
07:31It's amazing.
07:33I stay the summer there, I meet very interesting people.
07:36The perspective of people is very nice.
07:39Also, one show I did for Louis Vuitton, I think was one of the best shows.
07:44The show I felt more, I mean, I felt very, very happy to do this.
07:49What makes me very happy also, I performed for president of some countries.
07:53This was really nice for me to perform.
07:57The Qatar World Cup also I performed.
07:59I didn't perform in the main event, but I was there for a few events.
08:03It was really, really nice.
08:05And one show that I, for me also, I'll never forget, I did in Los Angeles, in Beverly Hills.
08:13I performed for Etihad.
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