Farida Mazhar, or as foreigners called her little Egypt, and for those who considered her to carry the whole of Egypt with her dance, movements and swaying, it is not yet known whether she is real or a myth!! The seductress who was the focus of great attraction at the Chicago World Festival in 1893, and who charmed the American public, there is no physical and tangible evidence at the present time confirming her actual existence, all we have is a description of writers and historians in whose imagination the Syrian dancer lived. Who is unique appearance? How did you turn into little egypt? Did you really exist?
her life
Farida Mazhar or Farida Mazar Spyropolis, an Egyptian dancer of Syrian origin, was born in 1871 in Syria and died on April 5, 1937 in Chicago in the United States. She called herself Fatima when she was dancing on “Muhammad Ali” Street in Cairo and admired her. American writer Mark Twain.
She traveled to the United States of America to participate in the Chicago International Festival in 1893 with her troupe and a large number of Egyptians, when she decided to settle there and not to return to Egypt, especially after the situation she created in America, and the little Egypt troupe that she founded with Aisha Wahba, and her real name Catherine Deven was born in 1871 in Montreal, Canada, and died on January 3, 1903, in New York City, in the United States. She performed striptease shows in 1896, and Fatimah Jamili died on March 14, 1921, and had performances in Chicago.
She travels to Chicago
Little Egypt was a great attraction at the Chicago International Festival in 1893 and fascinated the American public with its dancing blessings, which some Puritans considered sexual and pornographic suggestions, provocative, and soon its medium began to spread and expand, and many Egyptian arts spread with it, especially entertainment and commercial images that depict The oriental world, including the stunning scenery of the ancient pyramids, images of women, snake dance, mystical glimpses, and hookah smoke, National Geographic magazine wrote about the story of Farida’s appearance and dance.
Researcher Donna Carlton studied the personality of Little Egypt, and after research, she discovered that it is plausible that her whole story is just confusion, and a legend that has no truth. What Americans told her, like all other stories about her.For example, Mark Twain did not have a heart attack when he saw her, knowing that one of the documentaries that documented the band “Gods of Love” said that Twain almost had a heart attack when he watched the dancer sway In front of him. Not photographed by Thomas Edison. Not a single contemporary evidence, newspaper article, photograph, advertisement, or souvenir book from 1893, proves that Little Egypt danced at the World’s Fair in Chicago. It is inconceivable that she was a star The exhibition, as it was revealed to us, does not publish pictures of it and promote its display. It is remarkable that all the stories that link it to that exhibition date back to years after this global event. Accordingly, “Little Egypt” is an iconic image, according to Jean Baudrillard, that summarizes a specific fantasy about Women, Dance, Middle East and International Festivals.
Chicago World Festival
Returning to the archives of some magazines, we find an article titled “Europe’s Discovery of Belly Dance”, and this article talks about a novel entitled Nana in 1880 in which the writer talked about “belly dance”, an expression that was then translated into English, and in which he meant belly dancing, It is the name that was given to the dance of Arab women, and they decided to use the word “Little Egypt” for every woman who dances “belly dance.” These women presented their performances on a site dedicated to Sora Al Hayat Street in Cairo, and this performance had been presented four years before that date, in A world exhibition in Paris, which was a great success.
Little Egypt Band
The first video recording of a woman dancing the belly dance was recorded by Edison in 1896 for a woman named Fatima Jamil, and her first show was at the Chicago World Fair, and according to information, Fatima Jamil is an Aleppo from Syria, born in 1871, and moved to Egypt in 1890, and found herself immersed in The wide world of belly dance.
While in Cairo, Fatima got to know Farida Mazhar, and they worked on developing themselves in dancing together. Farida met a Greek man, who loved her and loved him, and they got married and bore his name, so she became “Farida the shrine of Spyropolis”, and he convinced her to go to the New World to present her passion in theatre.
The two dancers then decided to travel to Chicago, where they met a Canadian girl named Catherine Devine, who was obsessed with belly dancing, so she learned it and changed her name to Aisha Wahba.
According to the writer Shatha Yahya, the description of little Egypt in America meant “a beautiful woman of Arab features, her eyes are black and wide, her skin is the color of wheat, and she has dark gypsy hair. while swaying madly to the rhythm of oriental instruments that play a loud melody.
With the same narration, the writer says that a competition was organized to send a distinguished dancer to the Chicago exhibition, and Farida Mazhar submitted to the competition and accepted, and without providing any references and sources, the writer of Al-Hilal magazine says that Farida applied for the competition and accepted, and actually agreed to travel to Chicago, and so it is It has a team of dancers: “Fatima Al-Houri, Fatima Al-Hosarya, Hanim, Amina Ibrahim, Saida Muhammad, Siddiqa, Nabawiyya, Fahima, Zakia, Marita, Hosnia”, and the heroine of his show, Farida Mazhar, who dedicated a special dance to her entitled “Fatima the Algerian is coming to you from Morocco “.
After the success of the band, Farida separated from the band in New York after she received an offer to dance in a large casino there, but this did not last long as some conservatives revolted, and informed the police who attacked the club, so Farida was forced to leave New York back to Chicago, especially after she refused an offer from the New York Museum to perform. The Bee Dance
After a farewell party held by two wealthy New Yorkers, the Barnum Seeley brothers in 1896, the name Little Egypt occupied the fourth page in an American newspaper, and they had used the services of Catherine Devine, impersonating the title “Little Egypt”, and she performed a lewd dance, and she gained fame and expansion as she did She starred in a theatrical play titled “Little Egypt.. The Seely Dinner Party”, and she continued to dance lewdly in many places, so other women were encouraged to impersonate the name “Little Egypt”. As for Farida, she had settled in Chicago and married a Greek restaurant owner named Andreas Spiropoulos – and had to To file a lawsuit against Katherine, and to publish lies in the newspapers.
In 1908, Catherine died, suffocating with gas, and left behind a large material legacy that she had collected from lewd dancing. Meyer, the producer of the movie “The Great Ziegfeld”, in which the character “Little Egypt” appeared in a way Farida did not see fit for her. And he wrote in the lawsuit papers that the company did not obtain a permit from it as the “original Little Egypt” from the 1893 exhibition, and that it never wore the clothes that the actress who played the role wore or did the movements that she did, but the lawsuit was not completed due to the death of Farida in 1937. And with her death The door was opened wide to entrench the stereotype of belly dancing in the American collective mind, and her name made headlines, and it is said that she was buried in a silent funeral in which no sound was made.
A movie about her story
In 1951, the first movie about the life story of Farida Mazhar was produced, and it bore the name “Little Egypt”, and its events revolve in the form of a drama about an oriental dancer, who causes a great scandal as a result of her dancing that provokes instincts and incites immorality, in an international exhibition.
The film was directed by Frederic de Cordova, written by Oscar Brodney, and stars Rhonda Fleming, Harold Miller, Charles Drake, Bridget Carr, Stephen Geary and Midge Weir.
