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After a two-week tour of Egypt in 2004 as a student and troupe member of Morocco and the Kasbah Dance Experience in Manhattan, Fifi Ztaoui decided to make a major move.
The next year, Ztaoui relocated from the Passyunk area to Alexandria, Egypt, to further her studies in Oriental Dance, the moniker given this art form from the Middle, East and Far East.
While teaching at Tamarin Dance and Fitness Center there, owner Colette Frege encouraged her to open an academy dedicated to the art when she returned to her native South Philly.
"I was the only Oriental Dance teacher in Alexandria, the only one. This was not a dance that was taught classically, it was taught at the house.
"Here I was, an American teaching Egyptian women and their daughters Oriental Dance — the classical dance of Egypt," the 36-year-old from the 2300 block of Sheridan Street said, adding pupils came to learn more polished steps for weddings and special occasions, building on their teachings at home.
Three years spent living by the Red Sea and teaching English to refugees to supplement her income — putting her Temple University double major of English and Japanese to good use — Ztaoui returned home and opened the American Academy of Oriental Dance specializing in American belly dance (a fusion of Egyptian and Moroccan styles performed to American and Middle Eastern music), classical and folkloric Egyptian dance and classical and modern Moroccan dance.
"My speciality is the high art. I do this dance to preserve the culture and as a diplomatic effort. This is my way of contributing to global peace. I believe dance and music are global peacemakers. They are a universal language," Ztaoui said.
Founded in May 2007 and based out of her home, Ztaoui has 19 adult students; in time she would like to add children. Things start off with a formal interview, at which time a student’s interests are gauged. American belly dancing is taught at gyms and rec centers citywide since that has more mass appeal and has been somewhat of a recent craze, unlike the other two "high art" forms in which Ztaoui teaches exclusively at her academy.
Next year, she’s returning to Hawthorne Recreation Center, 12th and Wharton streets — the same place she took belly dancing in 1995 before studying with Morocco in the Big Apple. The Arts Parlor at Broad and Federal streets is another local spot Ztaoui uses. She makes sure to have all the proper licenses to teach at such places, including CPR and group exercise certification, as well as insurance.
Most of her students hail from the suburbs and New Jersey, though some are from South, Southwest and West Philly. She selects her best and brightest to perform at area restaurants in authentic costumes. In addition to recitals, her group has performed at weddings, cultural events like the annual Odunde Festival, this year’s AIDS Walk and charity events like the Fur Ball. Last year the group participated in the Rakkasah Festival, an annual, three-day dance showcase in Somerset, N.J.
"We do any festival as long as there is a stage. We are not dancing in the street. This is stage dancing, art, not MTV. I always try to represent the dance in a positive light," she said.
A newly minted Mummer, Jan. 1 Ztaoui will perform with the Golden Sunrise Fancy Brigade.
Not a bad resumé for a woman whose first-generation Cuban mother Deborah, 58, and first-generation Moroccan father Olo, 56, discouraged public performance; the couple resides in Southwest. Coming from a strict military family with Olo being a retired Marine with two decades of service, Ztaoui was one of four children. Sisters Cherenne, 33, and Danielle, 25, still live in South Philly, while 35-year-old brother Donald is a Marine stationed in Baghdad. Ztaoui also married into the military, but lost her Moroccan husband Ahmed Belarbi, a Navy officer, in a 2003 convoy blast in Afghanistan — the couple having been married only a year at the time.
At home, the girls learned the dances related to their heritage and got to show their skills at home and at family functions only.
"I came from a strict family where you don’t dance in public or swim because it wasn’t ladylike. It wasn’t proper. They had lots of rules," Ztaoui recalled, adding she is grateful for her solid upbringing.
While studying English at Elizabethtown College in Lancaster County, Ztaoui went to Japan as a foreign exchange student. There, she got her first taste of the exotic with kabuki and Noh theater, which is classic Japanese musical drama.
"Dancing was high art. I knew it could be beautiful, elegant and dignified," Ztaoui said.
Inspired by the culture and language, she decided to study Japanese upon her return a year later. Since Elizabethtown did not offer a conducive curriculum, Ztaoui transferred to Temple where she pursued dreams of becoming a literature professor. While there, she took her first formal dance classes at various local studios.
"I took every dance class I could: contemporary, modern, ballroom," she said.
But with no local academies offering Oriental Dance, a form Ztaoui was drawn to, she commuted to Manhattan for three years to study.
And it all started with Middle Eastern steps learned at home.
"I didn’t know the ethnic dances we did at home, at weddings, were done by people outside of family functions. On TV, all you saw was American dancing, but there’s a whole art form beyond that," she said.
