Would the Franco-Tunisian choreographer Leila Haddad have found the solution to get Oriental dance out of the apathy from which it has been lingering on for more than a quarter century? Blending Oum Kalsoum's voice to dance is perhaps the way to find again the true emotions of a feminine art that together with the body knew since the dawn of time how to invent Tarab (ecstatic state) so dear to Arabic music. In order to see her reasoning through, Leila Haddad who has been fighting for more than twenty years for a recognition of the Oriental dance chose the song Zikrayat ("memories") to mark the occasion with a double approach. By choosing a text allowing to blend popular and classical music, in order to demonstrate that dance is evident at every level of the Arab society, but also by paying a tribute to Oum Kalsoum and Ahmed Rami who wrote the song, when today's Oriental stars sign by the dozen works they have never written (so that they can get the royalties).

The dancer Leila Haddad asserts it with conviction: “The Star of the East” was always content with her role of singer, leaving writing to the poets of genius of her country.

Nidam Abdi