Introduction by Zaina Hart
Walking into a workshop with her as the teacher assures you will have FUN - a rich and rewarding experience. Don't get me wrong, she is going to WORK YOU, you will LEARN - - her technique and skill is just passed on to the student in a different way. When we learn while having fun - - movement seems to stick with us longer - a much more pleasant experience (and her name is "Pleasant" so very fitting). She has a quick wit and over the top sense of humor that should be bottled and sold - someone could get rich from it.
I have thoroughly enjoyed getting to know this passionate and completely outragious woman and am equally honored to have her as a staff writer at iShimmy.com. It is long over due that we bring you this exciting glimpse of Princess Farhana, her experience and passion for our dance art and LIFE.
Internationally acclaimed dancer
Princess Farhana (Pleasant Gehman) has performed, taught and written about
Oriental Dance for nineteen years. Based in Los Angeles, she has appeared in
Egypt, France, Switzerland, Belgium, Portugal, Mexico and Canada, as well as
all over the United Kingdom and across the USA. She has danced at concerts with Arabic superstars Amr Diab,
Hakim, Rageb Alama, Natacha Atlas, and Alabina. In June 2009 she had the honor
of teaching and performing in Cairo, Egypt at the world’s largest belly dance
event, the Ahlan Wa Sahlan Festival, which was conceived and is produced by the
legendary Egyptian Oriental dance choreographer, Raqia Hassan.
The Princess began belly dancing in 1990 at the age of thirty-two, just for fun, with no prior dance experience. Her early teachers were Zahra Zuhair and the late male dancer Zein Abdul Al- Malik, who had performed early on with Jamilla Salimpour in Northern California.
Within four months of starting classes, it seemed she had a natural aptitude for belly dance. About that same time, after her first trip to Egypt, she decided she wanted to devote her life to Oriental Dance. At the behest of Zein Abdul Al-Malik, she auditioned for- and got- a job at Moun Of Tunis Restaurant, where she still works nearly twenty years later.
After many months of intensified
classes, workshops, private lessons and restaurant work, she began performing
with live bands at the numerous Arabic clubs in the Los Angeles area, such as
Layalina, The Middle East Connection, Anoush, The Casbah, Byblos and most
frequently at Al Andalus, where she worked with acclaimed drummer Issam
Houshan. She began developing
specialties, including her well-known abdominal technique and the balancing
skills (sword and shamadan) for which she is noted.
Soon, she began teaching classes in the
Los Angeles area; by the Millenium, she was teaching and performing nationally,
and in 2003, she released her first two instructional DVD’s (VHS back in those
days!) “Belly Dance Basics” and “Belly Dance And Balance: The Art Of Sword And
Shamadan”.
Since then, she was voted “Oriental Dancer Of The Year 2006 and 2008” by Zaghareet Magazine, and in 2007 was nominated for “Best Instructor” and “Best Interpretive Artist. She has been featured on the cover of the belly dance publications The Chronicles, Zaghareet and Jareeda Magazine.
Though primarily trained in Egyptian
Raqs Sharqi, she is well-rounded as a performer, and is proficient in many
styles, including American cabaret, folkloric dances such as Tunisian, Egyptian
raqs assaya, guedra, khaligee, raqs shamadan, sword and sabre dancing and is
also well-known as a high-concept fusion and theatrical performer. Though she
doesn’t perform ATS or Tribal style, she is regularly featured at alternative and
tribal festivals because of her diverse dance skill-set.
Though there has been some controversy in the belly dance world over Princess Farhana’s involvement in burlesque, she does not fuse burlesque with Oriental dance, as many people believe. She does, however, recognize both genres as valid art forms, and performs both styles. In 2005, by the time she ‘came out’ to the belly dance community about her burlesque career, she had already been performing burlesque for ten years. The time seemed right to speak up about the her involvement in this dance style, and now, with the growing popularity of burlesque, many belly dance performers have either fused the genres or perform both side-by-side.
For twelve years, since the troupe’s debut in 1995, The Princess was a featured soloist in America’s premiere burlesque troupe, the Los Angeles-based Velvet Hammer Burlesque, and starred in two documentary films on the troupe, as well as in A &E’s ‘This Is Burlesque”. She also appeared the cover of the London Sunday Review’s feature on American Burlesque.
Additionally, she’s acted and danced in numerous motion pictures; music videos (for Madonna, Ricky Martin and many others) television shows; and in documentary films on belly dance and burlesque both performing and as an interview subject. In 2007, she worked as the belly dance coach for the dance sequence in the box office hit “Charlie Wilson’s War” starring Tom hanks and Julia Roberts. From 2006-2008 the featured dancer in comedian Margaret Cho’s touring variety show, The Sensuous Woman, which did a sold-out eight-week Off Broadway run in Manhattan in 2007. She also appears dancing and being interviewed in a special segment on Margaret Cho’s VH1 reality series, “The Cho show” and on her DVD, “Assassin”.
A full-length feature documentary on Princess Farhana’s dance career, titled “Underbelly”, (directed by award-winning film maker Steve Balderson) was released theatrically and on DVD in 2008.
In 2007 The Princess was the recipient
of an award from the City of Los Angeles for her artistic contributions to the
community. Author of six books
under her given name Pleasant Gehman, her “Underground Guide To Los Angeles”
spent nine weeks on the Los Angeles Times best-seller list. A professional journalist for 25
years, she is also author of literally thousands of magazine articles, many of
which are on-line. She is a regular contributor to the
belly dance publications Jareeda, Zaghareet, The Chronicles, ISHIMMY.COM,
LARAQS.COM, Gilded Serpent and BHUZ.com and has written about Oriental Dance in
many mainstream publications as well.
Her work over the years also includes many other artistic endeavors. She fronted three rock and roll bands and spent most of the 1980’s and 1990’s recording and touring with them. She has also written and performed musical scores for the feature films “The Running Kind” (MGM) and “Bar Girls”. Additionally, painting, graphics, and acting. She has appeared in numerous films in dramatic roles, most recently in Steve Balderson’s black and white homage to cinema noir women-in-prison film, “Stuck!” due for release in 2010.
She has written and directed many stage productions, including “Common Threads: Women And Oriental Dance” which was staged in many sold-out performances in the late 1990’s in the Los Angeles area. “Common Threads” starred Zahra Zuhair, Halla Moustafa, and Jillina, who was then and up and coming local performer.
The Princess has also produced a number of dance events, many for charities and social organizations such as The United Way, The American Red Cross, Food Not Bombs, Hollygrove Orphanage, and Caring for babies With Aids, Project Angel Food and many women’s shelters.
She has also produced eleven instruction / performance DVD’s, and can be seen on many belly dance performance DVD’s, most recently Michelle Joyce’s “By Dancers, For Dancers Volume Five” and “Combo-Nation”; and Hollywood Music Center’s “Tribal Revolution” and “Tales Of Desire 2”.
Live onstage, she is known for her
high-concept, innovative performances, dazzling stage presence, impeccable
technique and glittering custom hand crafted costumes. Her warmth, enthusiasm
and adventurous spirit - on and off stage- captivate audiences and students
alike.
Currently, the Princess enjoys a full touring schedule of workshops and shows, and is finishing up working on a book about Oriental Dance, which will be published in Summer 2010.
Contact Princess
Farhana:
Email: pgehman@earthlink.net
* WWW.PRINCESSFARHANA.COM