Hala al Safy and Nadia Fouad (1974)

The first dancer in this clip is Egyptian born Hala al Safy performing in a scene from the 1974 Egyptian film ‘Al Abtal’ (The Heroes الأبطال) which starred Farid Shawki, Ahmed Ramzy and Mona Gabr and was described as ‘Egypt’s first kung fu movie’. Hala al Safy is followed by a very brief clip of Nadia Fouad performing in the same movie. As you probably know, in 1986 Hala al Safy, whose real name is Suhayr Hasan Abdeen, renounced dance and performing. She now considers it haram (forbidden) and describes her career as a dancer as a time “I left my life in the hands of the Devil to play with…“