About Yasmina Ramzy Arts

Profile

‘The dance of joy,’ ‘the body smiling,’ and ‘the power to heal’; are the ways “Raqs Sharqi” is described by those who witness and those who perform the ancient dance form. “Raqs Sharqi,” known in the West as ”Bellydance,” has withstood relentless persecution and oppression. Its innate beauty and organic expression of joy can never be extinguished.

Yasmina Ramzy Arts (formerly Arabesque), established in 1987, attracts students from around the world. They are drawn because of witnessing a YRA company performance or meeting director, Yasmina Ramzy, teaching in their home country. In both cases, students are attracted to the high quality of artistry and YRA’s contagious joyful spirit. Yasmina Ramzy began her Raqs Sharqi career performing for royalty and heads of state in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, and Egypt. She teaches as she learned in the Middle East, full of soul and free of Western constructs.

YRA Company has toured to United States, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan and extensively across Canada. The company has presented productions with as many as 45 musicians and dancers in one production, created films and is funded by all three levels of government arts councils. Performance highlights include Int’l Conference on Middle Eastern Dance, Cirque du Soleil. the Rolling Stones, Alabina, Rageb Alema, Bijan Mortezavi and more. Since 2020, YRA has created several dance films presetnted in international film festivals..

Director Yasmina Ramzy has taught and performed in over 70 cities around the world and commissioned to create choreography for 25 other dance companies in Canada and the USA. Since 1981, while studying and performing dance in Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, and Syria, Yasmina Ramzy became mesmerized by the beauty, spirituality and profound emotion of Arab art. She found it difficult to comprehend why it wasn’t sharing the stage with ballet and the symphony. For over 40 years it has been her foremost goal to recreate for Western audiences, the joy and inspiration she found in the Middle East.

The purpose of creating YRA is to promote awareness of and further the artistry of Middle Eastern dance and music arts as well as explore its connection to mystical philosophy from the area. Through this endeavour, it also strives to shed light and understanding on a culture often misrepresented.

The company’s international reputation for artistic excellence and integrity has attracted highly talented dance artists from England, France, Brazil, Mexico and across United States and Canada to move to Toronto in order to join the company. Because YRA is unique in the world, audience members travel every year to attend its newest production at Fleck Dance Theatre from as far away as Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Windsor, Kingston, London, Ottawa, Montreal, Halifax, New York City, Oregon, Michigan, Massachusetts, Los Angeles and much more.

“Arresting imagery…intelligent and innovative choreography…seduces completely” The Globe and Mail

Media Reviews

 

“Scorching… Virtuoso”

— The Globe and Mail

“Arresting imagery…Seduces Completely”

— The Globe and Mail

“Hypnotic… Artistry and Passion”

— Dance International

Testimonials

 

“Mahmoud Reda and Yasmina Ramzy have presented a counter-discourse that has had an impact on the global dance form’s reception … What makes Arabesque distinctive is the sophistication of the choreography, in which the dances are an intricate visual revelation of the music … ability to choreograph this visual and aural integration is the result of her discovery of Tarab.”

—Barbara Sellers-Young, USA. Author, Bellydance, Pilgrimage and Identity

“… will go down in history as having redeemed Bellydancing… scorching solo of virtuoso body isolations…”

—Rebecca Todd. The Globe and Mail

“…a Jungian wonder, studded with arresting archetypal imagery and symbolic power…intelligent and inventive choreography…seduces completely”

—Deidre Kelly, Toronto, ON.The Globe and Mail

“…consummate professionalism…hypnotic to the eye and ear…well-appreciated by the audience for its artistry and passion…”

—Paula Citron. Dance International

“Brilliant, creative and forward thinking. Yasmina has the capacity to engage, empower and inspire everyone around her”

—Jerry Pergolesi, Palm Springs. Director, Contact Contemporary Music

Commitment To Community

Through Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion

The main impetus to open Arabesque Academy in 1987 was to shine a light on the dance and music arts of Middle Eastern cultures in an effort to correct misrepresentation, appropriation and orientalism.

Since then, there have been many generations of dance schools and dance companies with an outreach to 70 cities around the world under the name Arabesque and more recently Yasmina Ramzy Arts.

The office staff, dancers, musicians and students have always been a reflection of Toronto’s cultural diversity. Arabesque was referred to by media and the public as the United Nations of dance companies.

Yasmina Ramzy often responds to those that are seeking more representation by creating Allspice Dance Company celebrating mature ages, Earthshaker Dance Company celebrating diversity of size and Righteous Rogues of Raqs Sharqi challenging stereotypes. As Well, Yasmina facilitated discussion and debate at her conferences concerning such topics as Arab Women in Dance, Men in Bellydance, Cultural Appropriation, Aging In Dance, etc.

Although YRA diversity happened organically, a conscious awareness through education is now being implemented to address possible inequalities that were previously overlooked. It is an ongoing effort that YRA strives to embed into all of its activities.

This includes recognizing that the studio and most of YRA working areas take place on traditional Indigenous territory across what is now called Ontario. YRA wish to gives thanks and honour all the original peoples starting with the Anishinaabe, and the Wendat, and including, in more recent times, the Haudenosaunee, Métis and Inuit people who have been living on these lands since time immemorial.

In September 2020 Yasmina Ramzy founded and is the chairperson of the Justice, Equity, Diversity & Inclusion (JEDI) Committee of Dance Ontario.