www.bellydance.be

Meetings with remarkable women.

Hadia, a true belly dance diva

The first time I met Hadia was during a show she did in a Turkish dance hall. Immediately I was impressed. Not only with her skills as belly dancer but also with her strong personality.
And besides english she spoke fluent french and spanish. Before she came to Belgium, she danced in Lagos, Nigeria and had a difficult time there as you could imagine as a white woman alone. The management in Lagos didn't want to pay her on top of that.

Hadia's carreer embraces more than 30 years as an artist of Middle Eastern, Flamenco, Jazz, African/Afro-Brazilian, Polynesian and Salsa dance.

Her long career as a professional dancer included studies of classical, modern dance, jazz, flamenco and Polynesian and of course oriental dancing. She took a theatre degree at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. There she debuted oriental dance career in the Frederick Wood Theatre. Soon after she began teaching oriental dance classes.
She studied with Ibrahim Akef, Ibrahim Farrah, Mona Said, Dina, Farida Fahmy, Soheir Zaki, Fif Abdo, Jamila Salimpour, the late Ibrahim Farah, Ahmed Jarjour, Nadia Gamal, Raquia Hassan, Lala Hakim and the National Folkloric Company of Egypt.

It was at her appartment where I first met Natasha Atlas who then danced under the name Chariba in Brussels. Hadia did some shows for the Belgian television as lead singer of the female trio HAREM. She sang the live version of "Waiting", "Long time no see" and the song "Top secret".

Where did you perform until now?

I did shows in North America, Western Africa, Mexico, South America, Europe, The Middle East, The Far East, New Zealand and Australia.