Fifi has a beautiful face that belies her age. Her eyes are very sparkly and the dark, liquid brown of autumn leaves beneath water. She has strong features, with only a touch of crow's feet when she laughs. Like Lucy, she is not as tall as you might think, around 5'5", and not as tubby as she looks on video. She sashayed round the stage, acknowledging us and smiling at our enthusiasm for her dance. She gave attention to each table at the stage side, doing those wonderful, sexy breaks that come right down, so slowly and with such feeling that it almost breaks your heart.
There were the wonderfully powerful shimmies, the travelling hip dumps that are so exquisite you want to bottle them, and some breathtaking turns and spins. At one point, she whipped off the skirt to reveal her curvy figure resplendent in those skin tight leggings, not, I have to say, particularly flattering, but Fifi being Fifi she gets away with it. The skirt was replaced, and she danced for around 15 minutes, then left the stage for a change of costume.
Next came her baladi, and the famous "Sheesha" dance. She wore a white galabeya, white crocheted skull cap and black stilletto shoes. A smoking copper bowl of incense stood in the middle of the stage, and naughty Fifi raised her galabeya, stepped over the bowl, and let the smoke waft between her legs. Then a handsome Egyptian followed her around the room with a fragrant sheesha, or water pipe, which smelled of baked apples and molasses. She came right up to me, inhaled and, covering one nostril with a manicured finger, blew the smoke out sideways with a raised eyebrow. Our table fell about, so she did it again, twisting her ear this time, and exhaling at an angle. She worked the room, puffing and snorting and being very wicked with the sheesha. Then she discarded the pipe, kicked off her shoes, tied on a hip scarf and did some stickwork.
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Anybody who has ever seen Fifi work the stick, will know how awesome she is with this simple prop. She wields it like a man, and you can actually hear the air displacement as she spins it She then went into shimmy mode. Fifi's shimmies are unique in that they seem to travel all the way through her abdomen, way up to her breasts and beyond. Indeed, her whole face shook with the effort. She signalled for the tabla player to stop, and encouraged us to clap her through the shimmy finale. Another costume change saw her in a fitted black lycra number with train and wide split which showed off her lovely legs. She wore heels and did little but posture round the stage the way only she can. In fact, she hardly broke sweat for the whole performance, but that didn't matter. Fifi is often criticised for her "limited" repertoire of movements.
What one has to bear in mind is that some of the most beautiful poetry is only four lines long. She takes the time to converse with her audience, and speaks a little English. She cracked a few jokes in Arabic after making a point of speaking to us, and the subject was undoubtedly us Westerners, which made the Egyptian audience laugh. We didn't care. She could have doused us with Nile water and we'd have loved it! The final costume consisted of a very short mini dress in blood red with gold detail and snap on train. There were scarlet stiletto heels smothered in diamante to match. Fifi's spins are powerful and fast and twice the train unsnapped itself and whizzed off. On each occasion she merely scooped it up, handed it to one of the audience to pop it back on her bottom.
At last after one hour fifteen minutes, she was finished, and left amid thunderous applause. She nodded to our table and thanked us warmly - our love for her was tangible and I'm sure she knew. As a last icing on the cake touch, a few of us had our photo taken with her and got the chance to speak to and express our admiration for this very special woman.
