Hi Miles,

Can you tell me what happened with the other performers with IBDC? I had heard that Amani was detained due to problems with visas. Was I misinformed?

I'm interested to know, as I live in Vegas and was excited that a big event was happening here, but it seems that a lot of things have gone awry at the last minute. Some aspects of the convention were well attended while others seemed very sparse.

Thanks
Inara

It is very unfortunate that this happened. The organizers sound as though they were very well intentioned, but they either lack the experience to bring this together, including the Visa requirements as well as the meeting of contractual obligations, or the means, which is completely possible. Most endevours loss money the first few years while they build their reputations.

I would love to see this event happen again, hopefully without the glitches it sounds as though it fell prey to.

{{{HUGS}}}

www.tahirabellydancer.com

Miles,

I have not heard that the organizers, or anyone else for that matter, are "blaming" Saad, Amani, Dina, etc for whatever happened. I'm a bit surprised that you would publically add to the rumor mill and conspiracy theories surrounding what may or may not have happened at the IBDC. If you have some facts to present I'm sure the community wouldn't mind hearing them. However if you are just supposing or giving hypotheticals to add to the gossip, then I must say I am very disappointed in you.

You for one, know how difficult it can be starting a new project and taking the gamble that everything will go well and as planned. I do not believe that the organizers had an ill intentions of false advertising bigs names to get a draw. Just as I do not want to believe that you are intentionally bad mouthing these organizers. Obviously this was a huge undertaking for them. They seemed to be a bit inexperienced. And things do go wrong, and I'm sure you are familar with that. What went wrong and why, I do not know the facts so I will not add to the rumor mill. I would hope you would be professional and not do so as well, until the dust settles and the facts are known.

Thanks for the info Miles. You're saved me a long drive out there today.
The IBDC site just has a message that they're at the South Point.
It'd be nice if there's been a change to the schedule, if they'd post that info in places that they previously used to advertise.

I loved your Las Vegas shows! I've been to 3 of them!

This post was brought to my attention by Amani, she's a tribe girl as well, Miles your posts about the IDC and how you want to support it are way different than what you are saying here, what's with that? Yes we had visa's for Amani and Dina, I was holding them in my hand it was our American embassy in the ME that wouldn't stamp their papers. Dina went there and stood in line with her musicians more than once, and they gave her a hard time. We had one of the best attorneys in LA Roman Mosqueda, handling the visa, and it was our country that made it impossible, the INS in the US was actually very helpful, and contacted the embassy on our behalf, so we kept being hopeful throughout the event that they would give them the stamp to board the plane at least in time for the concert.

Shareen el Safy even jumped in at the last minute to get the embassy to accept the documents, but they said 'no' Shareen was great, she had this problem when she brought Mona to the US, and had to fly to Cairo to force the paperwork through, they got her papers OK'd the day before her event! It's crazy that artists have to jump through so many hoops, we just want to dance. We spent $25,000 on Visas that were all approved, and useless to us!


Amani emailed me and was so upset, she really wanted to come to the US again, it's been 12 years since she was last here and was ready to be reintroduced to the American dancers,she was so sad, and told me not to pay any attention to what Miles said on tribe. If you were tactful and helpful Miles that would be one thing, but you are a very angry person, I love BDSS, but have lost a lot of respect for you judged on your behavior

Raqia was a whole other thing, she asked to be brought on after her event in Egypt finishe, we agreed, then she broke her contract, her visa was fine, she was just a no show, I've heard this is not uncommon.

This is what I posted on Bhuz about Miles' role:
As for Miles, he has been against us from day one, and approached many of our teachers to incourage them not to sign on and teach at our event, vendors as well. Supposedly he recruited a local dancer in Vegas to get him inside information?? Whatever! He had a strange obsession over our event and put a lot of negative energy to hurt us. He needs to put his energy into something positive and get a good therapist! Taking the high road is the key, There is enough for everyone.

Miles we know Saad's visa was through Samia at the Nile Restaurant, we also know he played for Farag Issa which was against the visa, we applied for our own visa and it was approved, so why did you say on bhuz that you had a large hand in Saad not performing in Vegas? We had our visa, why did you put energy into stopping it?

I want to thank all the people who came to support, we are going to do this again next year, and plan to find a different hotel, more condensed, and work out the bugs for next year. For a first year event it went very well, and as a vendor, I started with 37 costumes, I came home with 13, so I'm pretty excited about that, Jehan said the same thing, that she sold a lot. We can't make everybody happy, but we worked hard and always had the best intention. Amani is still in our future plans, this was NOT the biggest belly dance disaster and shame on you Miles for being such a hateful person, like I said on Bhuz, you need a therapist!

So next year people we will have an improved event, live and learn, we are always open to constructive criticism, but not nasty rumors and attacks on our intentions or integrity, I've been a belly dancer for 30 years, I put my heart into it, and a few artists out of a huge cast of talent not showing is not a disaster, unfortunate yes, but not a disaster.
We sold 92 booths in vending I think that's a pretty good number for a first year. It's also not unreasonable to exect dancers to come to Vegas, there are more than just 10,000 dancer in the US, it's a matter of reaching them, and getting them involved in dance events in general. We have the same problem in our own town that some dancers and groups won't come to community events, we are trying to change this.

This is the first time belly dance has had an actual trade show, we need to start thinking bigger people, we are not a flea market art, we deserve all the respect and prestige of ballet and jazz. We should expect to be paid more, and we should expect to pay out more for the talent, people drop $300 on a ticket to see the rolling stones, we need to get to that level! That is our mission statement at the IBDC, we want dancers to open their minds to the bigger picture, we need to become active in making our art grander, we are worthy of it, and we need to start behaving that way as well.

This was posted at the Dina Egyptian Belly Dance Star tribe, supposedly written by (but not posted by) Noora of Little Egypt, who of course has a working relationship with Dina:

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I really think this topic has been discussed enough but Dina feels that everyone should know the truth. She is also in the process of letting the arab community know and will have something aired on ART- the arab satellite channel that had commercials advertising her and Saad's performances.

My mom (Dee Dee) spoke to Dina today and she told her exactly why she didn't come. Dina never had a plane ticket to come, none of her band members had tickets, no one had a ticket. Yes, they all had visas, that was not the issue.
The problem was Alex broke the contract he and Dina had together. The deal was that he would pay half of the agreed upon amount upfront before she came and the other half when she arrived. She never got a penny.

The agreement was that she would fly straight from Monte Carlo- where she had a special party she was dancing at- to Las Vegas.

She told my mom "I never went to the airport or waited in any line, why would I go to the airport without even having a ticket?"


About the cost of the visas... Dina had 10 members of her orchestra coming with her and Saad had about 10 from his group... say 22 or 23 total. Each visa application costs 600 LE, Egyptian pounds, roughly $100 dollars.
$100 x 23 = $2,300....
At most, the total cost for the visas would have been $2,500.

Dina wants everyone to know that it was not a visa, a government, or an immigration issue, it was just that the terms of the contract were not meet and the sponsors broke their promises.

She does not plan to keep quiet about this because she feels it makes her look bad and hurts her image.

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BTW, it does look like the organizer had something lined up with ART.