A special file written by: Rana Raafat - Samia Sayed - Yasmine Abbas
The movie star, performance artist, and successful administrator, the first nucleus of the Reda Band, she is the example and model, which has elevated the performing arts to the point that her creative experience is a social and cultural transformation that has given the movement arts a decent and distinguished position among the various arts. She is an exceptional and unique case that illuminates the way for you. Like a star that shines, she is a fine talent who sets an example for us in conscious will...a voice that sings alone and has the ability to penetrate a wide space to find a true echo for itself. She is the great artist Farida Fahmy, the legend of folk dance. Milda Hassan Fahmy, or Farida Fahmy, was born on June 29, 1940. She graduated from the Faculty of Arts and worked on establishing the Reda Band with her husband, Ali Reda, and his brother, Mahmoud Reda. Farida Fahmy obtained a master’s degree in anthropology or anthropology from the United States. In the 1980s, the star Farida Fahmy obtained a doctorate in rhythmic dancing from the United States of America, and became one of the most famous Egyptian folklore dancers.
Farida Fahmy participated in many artistic experiments in cinema, starting with the movie “The Boy of My Dreams,” opposite the late Nightingale Abdel Halim Hafez, in 1957, directed by Helmy Rafla, with a story by Oscar Wilde, and a screenplay and dialogue by Youssef Gohar and Abu Al-Saud Al-Ibari. Farida Fahmy achieved her fame after participating in the film “Ismail Yassin in the Military Police,” which was shown in 1958, directed by Fateen Abdel Wahab, and written by Ali Al-Zarqani. She also achieved public success and wide spread, through her participation in starring in three cinematic films with the Reda Band, which are “Half-Year Vacation,” “Gram in Karnak,” and “Thieves of the Paper.” Among Farida Fahmy’s participation in cinema is “Ghariba”, which was shown in 1958. She also participated in the same year in the films “The Magician of Women”, “Gamila”, and “Big Brother”. The last work in which Farida Fahmy participated was “Masters and Slaves”, in 1978, in which she embodied the character “Souad”, with the stars of Egyptian art, including Mahmoud Yassin, Hussein Fahmy, Mervat Amin, Hoda Sultan, and others. Farida Fahmy retired from acting and dancing at the age of 43. President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi honored her during Mother’s Day 2022 activities for her artistic career.
Farida Fahmy... giving without limits
Musician Maher Kamal
My first meeting was with the popular artist, Farida Fahmy, in 1997. She had been chosen to perform an integrated program for the Ismailia Band, consisting of 12 show panels. At that time, I was the leader of the band’s orchestra, and I aspired to compose even one tune from this great program, and after I got to know her, I asked her to listen. One of my melodies, so she invited me to Cairo, Ali Reda’s villa, 2 Beirut Street, and I actually heard it...a tune I had prepared specifically for the program. I called it Al-Thalathini, which is one of the streets of the city of Ismailia. The great artist Farida Fahmy was surprised by the melody and during my performance she performed some movements and when I finished she said: “I am very happy. I imagined that you would hear me play a simple melody on Al-Semsimiya. If Ali Reda Ayesh had been alive, you would have had another matter, but you, Maher, will compose the entire program with 12 melodies.”
Then she gave me the oud of the great artist Ali Reda, which I still have until now, and I actually composed the various tableaux for the program, as she herself designed four of them: the thalateen, the hawiyah, the spoons, the bahri, and it was her first time designing dances because she always danced choreographed by an artist. Al-Shaab Mahmoud Reda also supervised the implementation of all the other dances and designed the costumes for the entire program, and the artistic show achieved great success and traveled around the world.
The distinguished artist Farida Fahmy is a unique example of a creative woman who gives without limits. The most important thing in what I narrated is that by her decision to choose me, she put me on the path, supported my talent, and introduced me to the world of music. Even after completing the program, she introduced me through her first production, the record “Umm Al-Khalkhal,” which achieved great success in Europe, which led to my introduction to major... Music production companies in Spain to produce my CD (The People of Andalusia).
The butterfly and the status of popular art
Enas Abdel Aziz
Director of Reda Folklore Band
The artist Farida Fahmy is one of the most beautiful artists of the beautiful era. Since I was a little girl, I knew her as a film actress and performance artist. I loved her and kept imitating her every day so that I could dance like her. I did not expect that I would meet her one day to teach me this fine art herself and be my coach, my manager, and even my spiritual mother..
The beginning was when I saw an advertisement in Al-Ahram newspaper for the Reda Band seeking girls and boys to train in the band, and my first meeting with it was there in this great edifice (the Balloon Theater), which has remained my second home from then until now. I took the test and was surprised that the one sitting on the testing committee was Farida Fahmy herself, who chooses the girls. I was chosen and I was first in the order of success. She asked me at the time what year I was studying in. I was in high school at the Higher Institute of Concert Fattoire and I played the piano. She asked me again if I would be able to. Balancing the three tasks of playing, learning to dance, and also studying, I said to her excitedly: Yes, I can, and when I went home and told my mother, I was very happy, and she told me about her, “A great lady,” and I felt that her heart was reassured after worry, and this really shows the greatness of this lady and that she cares greatly about all the members of the band. Firstly, to be educated, secondly to preserve their future
She was the band director at the time I joined the band, and I was training with her personally, and a program of one of the greatest repertoires of the Reda Band in 1992 appeared to the audience, and I appeared with him as a young dancer in the band, but she saw that I was a woman coming to the band, and she was always keen to encourage us with words of flattery and sometimes even pampering, as if she were A mother comforts her children, and this is the aspect that I wanted to talk about because she was a very successful manager administratively, educated, and aware of her role in bringing the members together and not separating them.
During one of the performances, my foot slipped and I fell on the stage, and I saw on her face how she was afraid for us and running to check on what had happened to any of us who had something bad happen to him, not just me. The truth was that she was seeking the interests of the dancers within the group, and therefore the members were appointed as state employees during her time as director of the group, and she said. At that time, I had a sentence that I will never forget as I was signing the appointment papers and receiving the job. She said to me, “I am appointing you so that you will have security in the future, because dancing is a short-lived profession.” She made the first prophecy to me. She had a very high level of transparency. She explained to me the reason for her appointing me as an employee. I will be in her place one day, and it happened, and I am now the director of Band No. 15, after my teachers are among its students. She had previously predicted to me that I would be the band’s assistant, and she encouraged me and also nominated me to star in the last work of the late Mahmoud Reda, may God have mercy on him. It was the operetta “Qalb Fi Al-Roubakya” and Farida Fahmy was the costume designer in this operetta..
The truth is that Farida Fahmy was the first nucleus of the Reda Band, and her father, the engineer Dr. Hassan Fahmy, and her mother, and she loved this band and this art, so she elevated it to the ranks of the highest and most sophisticated arts, such as hers, and gave folk art an important place among the arts, and gave folk dance a place among the many types of dance that exist in the world. that time,
She is a human being before she was a director and first dancer. She was a caring mother from the time I met her as the head of a committee testing me to enter the troupe until now. She encourages me while I am a director of the troupe and treats me as her daughter who has succeeded and is proud of her. In fact, we are the ones who are proud of her in every forum and every place and we are very proud to honor Mr. President. Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to her and how happy she was with this honor. She is a true artist who loves her country, her art, and her band.
Farida Fahmy, the human being
Artist Mohamed Gaddafi - member of Reda Band
Farida Fahmy is a true name. She is truly unique. She is unique in her qualities, spirit, energy, and aura. She is unique in everything. Everyone who meets Farida Fahmy touches this thing. She has positive energy and rare charisma. She loves helping others and loves doing good to others. She has a rare spirit and personality. I was living in Libya, and ever since I saw the movie Love in Karnak, when I was 6 years old at the time, I drew a dream for myself that I would return to Egypt, join Reda’s band, and meet Farida Fahmy, as it is the dream of my life. As fate would have it, my dream came true when I was 13 years old. I joined Reda’s band and finally met the unique Butterfly. We had a strong chemistry and great harmony. She adopted me artistically and brought me closer to her artistically and in life. She was close to me in every detail of my life. I discovered that Farida the human being is inseparable from Farida the artist. Internationally, I traveled outside Egypt a lot and discovered that Farida has dance schools in most parts of the world and has steps in her name, and this indicates their love for Farida Fahmy. They follow her constantly and derive high artistic inspiration from Farida Fahmy. Farida Fahmy, in short...a living Egyptian legend with all the details.
When the butterfly speaks
Dialogue between Samia Sayed and Rana Raafat
Farida Fahmy:
Reda Band's first performance was at the Metropole Theater
My love for theater was much greater than my love for cinema
We went dancing at the front to comfort our heroes there
We have to accept change, as every time has its own art and circumstances
Every person has a share of his name, and in the case of the great artist Farida Fahmy, we are faced with a situation that has taken from the name its various connotations. She is truly Farida, the lover of her art. She speaks in the language of the body through a very special and intense presence. She dialogues with the recipient through her popular dancing art, and her distinctive sense of color, movement, and smile. She is... She is unique in her work, which has spanned decades with strength, sophistication and distinction, with awareness, understanding and awareness of the value of dance, which with Farida Fahmy has turned into a life that is practiced and lived. It is fun to sit and dialogue with artistic figures and learn about their unique experiences. Let alone an artistic stature of the size and value of the great performing artist, the able artist Farida Fahmy. ? Who fans of her art called her the crowned showman butterfly. Over the course of an hour and a half, it was fun to meet this exceptional artistic summit, which told many things about its beginning, and about the founding of the Reda Band. We had that conversation with her; Let's get closer to this unique and rich experience.
First...Milda or Farida?
“Milda” is a Muslim and Turkish name. It is basically my name and has several meanings, including “bright moon.” In 1956 AD, when I began my experience in cinema, there was a “Khawajati” crisis, and they said about my name “Milda” that some might think it was the name of “Khawajati.” The great director and screenwriter Kamel Al-Tilmisani chose for me a unique name with which I would later enter the world of cinema and the band.
What about the beginnings and who supported you there?
My father was not an ordinary man. He was an engineering professor and the founder of the “Production Engineering Department” at the College of Engineering, and an elite group of senior professors and engineers from all over the world graduated from him. He was an open-minded man who loved order and precision. He was ahead of his time, a patriotic Egyptian, but sophisticated and advanced. We were members of the “Heliolido” Club in Heliopolis, which included the elite of Egyptian families at that time. I was then on the swimming team, and the club had an amateur dancing and singing troupe. We used to throw parties for our families to watch, and there we met Reda’s family. Mahmoud and Ali Reda. Ali Reda was six years older than Mahmoud Reda, and a love story arose between my two sisters, “Wadeeda” and Mahmoud Reda, and they got married. The Reda family and the Fahmy family became linked, and at this time the idea of establishing a popular arts group grew, and as the years passed, I married Ali Reda..
How was the first start of Reda Band?
My father was open-minded and always encouraged me, and the idea of a girl or woman becoming a dancer was unacceptable in society at that time. Ali Reda had extensive experience due to his years of work in the artistic community, so he had the ability to found the band, and the band’s first performances were at the Metropole Theater in downtown and continued. Ali Reda with the press; He had extensive relationships with many journalists, and indeed we presented our first presentations and achieved great fame, and great writers and writers such as Ihsan Abdel Quddus, Ali Amin, Youssef Idris and others wrote about us..
How did the band then manage to provide a stage for it?
Most of the theaters were “nationalized,” so my father contacted the Engineers Syndicate, as they had a large theater on Ramses Street, and they agreed to rent the theater to us, and from here was the start of the Reda Band. The Reda Band performed there for nearly two years or more, and it was difficult, as usual. Therefore, any theater group has a producer, a director, and a group of actors who present their performances, and some of them leave the group and are replaced, but Reda Kayan’s group includes a group of young people; Mahmoud Reda, Ali Reda, and I practice every day. Likewise, musicians must practice playing every day. They must provide means of living. There must be a continuous income for the band members, not intermittent like plays. Even if we do not give concerts, the dancer must have a salary. Fixed monthly, as well as setting up a program for a band that requires various elements, including clothing, composition, etc. So the matter requires a budget and a large amount, and indeed an opportunity came to us and the artist Ali Reda seized it well when we saw the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser, and he actually ordered the implementation of all our requirements as a band, and we met with the Minister of Culture Abdel Qader Hatem during the era of President Gamal Abdel Nasser and he offered us to become An independent band, where we are supported financially, all our requirements are provided, and we continue without any bureaucratic complications. This matter has two aspects: The first part increased the number of the troupe and we began to give the troupe members good salaries. We began our tours in many countries, and we launched artistically and our influence became widespread. We presented special opera performances for the late President Gamal Abdel Nasser and his guests, and we traveled around the world. I remember the year 1964 AD when the Arab-African Summit was held in Egypt and we presented our performances. In front of 50 heads of state, kings, emperors, princes, and prime ministers, we were an international band, and we remained that way until the setback of 1967 AD and our salaries decreased, then the opening up, where the salaries decreased and froze, and the band members began to withdraw, some of whom traveled to Canada and Australia, and some of them worked in Kuwait and did not remain in the Reda Band. Only a few dancers.
What about the Heliopolis Villa, which was a place for Reda Band to hold rehearsals?
Mahmoud Reda agreed with the Ministry and with the Minister of Culture, Fathi Radwan, to present the band’s performances. Rehearsals were held in my father’s villa. The villa became a school before the Reda Band was founded, and my father modified some things in it to suit that matter. The villa remained the headquarters of the Reda Band, and after 1973 AD prices rose. Salaries decreased and became fossilized, in addition to the high prices, so we rented our apartment to the Canadian embassy, and the Heliopolis Villa remained a place for residence and rehearsals. That villa was left to us by my father to be a headquarters for the band’s rehearsals, and it was sold after the death of Ali Reda, who died in 1993 AD, and the villa was sold in In 1997 AD, and since then I have been currently living from its price.
What about cinema in Farida Fahmy’s life?
I was 17 years old and I had not yet married Ali Reda. One day he asked me, “Milda, would you like to act with me?” I agreed and my father agreed. It represented a new experience for me to learn about the world of cinema and what is done in it. Indeed, I acted, but I had a tendency to dance inside me, so my desire was to... Dancing is great, and there is something very important that made me love theater more than cinema. When I dance on stage, I am in a state of freshness and ecstasy, and I feel the energy of the spectators, and after my dance is over, I receive reactions from the audiences quickly, and while I am on stage there is a different feeling than when I am inside the studio, and it is a feeling Compared to being in a studio filming a movie, my love for theater was much greater than my love for cinema, and I would like to point out that we loved art for art’s sake.
What about the multiple roles that you played in Reda Band at the administrative and artistic levels?
I would like to point out that I did not have any interference with regard to the administrative affairs of the band, as that was Ali Reda’s job. I also had no interference in designing the dances that belonged to Mahmoud Reda, or the musician, as the great artist Ali Ismail was doing them. Each of them has his own work and I have to do it. practical. Mahmoud Reda played the largest and most important role in establishing the band, selecting its members, and designing its dances. He was the mastermind and the engine, while Ali efficiently handled management issues and solved problems and had magical solutions using his experience and connections within the artistic community.
You performed many popular dances. How were these dances collected and worked on?
We had a unique experience in collecting Egyptian folk dances, which required us to tour the governorates of Egypt and write down the folklore of Egyptian dance, then develop it and turn it into dances performed by the Reda Band, which dazzled the world. Mahmoud Reda and the band traveled to several governorates to learn about the Tahtib dance in Sohag, Assiut, Luxor, and Beni Suef, for example. He watched them all record what they call a “dance match,” which is the well-known dance method, but each governorate has its own way. Mahmoud Reda had to take the dance, which differs in form from one governorate to another, and present it on the stage, but in a dazzling way to the audience, where he presents his idea, vision, art, and creativity. And his imagination transforms the dance to be presented on stage in a dazzling manner, in what is known as “theatricalization of the dance.” Here you find the flexibility that makes the dance and creativity continue for years, because every time it was added to for years after that, Mahmoud Reda would say, “I offer inspiration,” so that was the basic dance, and some would object, saying that Reda’s band was not a popular arts band!!
Reda's band performed several dances on the front in 1967. Tell us about that experience on the front?
In 1967 AD, we used to go to dance at the front to relieve the heroic officers and soldiers, in a desert area next to Fayed. The place was like a “boxing ring” and three or four times larger, and the heroes were waiting for the dance standing, and the floor on which I would dance was like tent fabric with a layer of wax on top of it. My dance was the “Dahiya” dance, and they asked me to take off my shoes so that I would not slip. I was writhing like a “chick” as I danced from the intense heat of the earth. The dance had many “twists,” which burned my feet, but despite this, I continued the dance and did not apologize. The soldiers were excited and happy that day, and after the dance ended, I went to the military hospital due to an injury to my foot.
What is the difference, in your view, between folklore and popular art?
The term folklore is divided into two parts: “Folk,” which means the common people, the people, or the people, and the second part, “Lore,” which means knowledge or science. Thus, the literal meaning of the term is “common knowledge” or the science of peoples. Therefore, it is called popular folklore, which is a group of customs, traditions, and beliefs that are transmitted orally. Among people, such as songs, folk stories, and stories, such as biographical stories; Abu Zaid Al-Hilali, Adham Al-Sharqawi, and others. Therefore, folklore has nothing to do except with traditions, which is everything that is verbal in the mouth, and the Reda Band was called the Reda Folk Arts Band, meaning everything related to the folk arts and not just dance, but also clothing, decoration, and other popular songs and folk dance. Therefore, calling the institute the word “folklore” is incorrect. The Reda Band is called the Reda Folklore Band, meaning everything that includes folklore, not just folklore, which relies on everything that is spoken by the mouth.
What about your studies in America?
I studied at the University of Los Angeles in America, in the Department of dance department AndIncludes More than one sub-department, as I studied in the department dance ethnology It is the science of dancing of different nationalities, and it is generally used to refer to all forms of folk dance performed by races and breeds of peoples of the world. In general, there are things that must be known that concern all people. Within my studies, I conduct research as theories and take what we have studied theoretically and apply it practically. This study was after... I traveled to America after my mother underwent treatment there.
Did you have an important position with Kawkab Al Sharq or Umm Kulthum that we would like to talk about?
I was suffering from some pain in my back due to some roughness in it. This happened during the band’s trips to Bangkok and Thailand where the humidity was high. When I went to Russia and the Minister of Culture in Russia was informed of my condition, she agreed to treat me immediately. In the meantime, we went to one of the ministers in Egypt who decided to work on... “Consalto” and they decided that the condition had no cure and accordingly my travel to treatment in Russia was refused. However, my husband, Ali Reda, called Mrs. Umm Kulthum, who immediately spoke to the governor of Cairo at the time, Hamdi Ashoub. I actually obtained approval on my own because I was over 21 years old, knowing that. The patient must have an accompanying person. I visited her at her home and thanked her for her noble stance.
What are your greatest hopes for folk dance in the current period?
Times are changing, and we must accept everything that is new, and every change that occurs, and not object all the time to what is new. In America, when “Elvis Presley” appeared and began to introduce rock and roll, people objected to them, but he became famous and people accepted him after that, so we have to To accept change, as every time has its own art and circumstances.
