Nile Group Festival- opening night June 2008.

I was working last night- but headed along to the Pyramisa afterwards to catch the end of the gala dinner night.

I had missed Nour (unfortunatly because I think she is one of the most elegant and graceful dancers around) and Tito (always a fun show) and m ost unfortunatly (since I have never seen him preform) Saad el Sugyher (the shabbi singer of the popular 'el Enab'- the grape song!). He seemingly sang all his well known hits and had EVERYONE in the audience up dancing - really wish I had seen that!

However I did see Leyla perform. Technically- she has really outdone herself (in my opinion) A opening dance very reminisant of Rhanda Kamel style in a beautiful pink Eman Zaki costume (In fact- I think all her costumes were Eman's). Rather than the usual Saaidi or Alexandrian set that most dancers do- she came out in a STUNNING trouser costume doing the Lebanese Debka. It was a great idea- and the costume breathtakingly simple and effective. Her final costume was a short skirt with lots of gold 'coins' hanging from it. Very original- a bit strange. I enjoyed her show, the only thing that annoyed me is that she was forever fixing her face........... wish she could find a way of keeping it off her face without it interupting the ance all the time. But its a small critisim!

Then Shams ( the Egyptian element of the night) performed. She came out in a white bedla with red roses on it- which was lovely, but very high waisted, which I felt hid some of her moves. Her entrance with red metallic Isis wings could have been spectacular- but she forgot that we couldn't see through them- so we missed her opening moves!!! Her next costume was a black wet look trouser costume- but no one had warned her that we would be able to see her black G string through the material under the lights. Very unfortunate! Shams did some impressive head flicks with a mass of black curly locks- and chose some lovely music to dance on... but I felt (personal opinion!) that she danced over a lot of the music rather than representing it. Very pretty though- and maintained a huge smile throughout.

A fun night and still really gutted I missed Saad !!!