How it all began...

Samasem's first exposure to Oriental Dance was in 1979 when she, while working as a sales representative in Cairo, was invited on her last night there to El-Leil Night Club on Pyramid Street where she saw two of the best dancers ever. Suheir Zaki and Aza Sherif. She was mesmerized by their strong stage presence, sensual movements while moving gracefully and elegant without losing their sense of humor or warmth towards the audience.

Back home in Sweden she found an American dance teacher, Lisa Jorgensen, a student to Jamila Salimpour, who tought her format with excellent isolation and shimmies. Samasem though had never had any dance classes before. She then went on to San Fransisco to study for Jamila herself. When she returned to Sweden she "brainwashed" herself with Egyptian dance videos and tried to figure our what the dancers where doing. Thus prepared, Samasem set out for Egypt the dance that had impressed her so much a couple of years before.

In Egypt she was introduced to Mme Raqia Hassan and became one of her first forgein students. This was in 1982 and she returned every year to continue studying with Raqia and being inspired by att hte great Egyptian dancers she was able to see preforming. Such as Mona Said, Nagwa Fuad, Suheir Zaki, Shou-Shou Amin, Fifi Abdou and of course Aza Sherif.

Samasem went to London in 1986 and worked for a while in a night club there and happened to meet an impressario who sent her to dance in Sheraton, New Delhi. She went to India to work on three occations and then followed other contracts in Sri Lanka and Oman.

In 1988, Samasem organizde the first Scandinavian dance tour to Egypt, where the students took classes with Raqia Hassan, Nelly Fuad and Aida Nour while in the evening watching stars like Lucy, Dina, Suheir Zaki and Nadia Hamdi. On that dance tour it was Aida Nour that captured the hearts of the stidents. Samasem decided to stay in Cairo, and after an audition got a contract in Safir Dokki in early 1989. She stayed there 1 1/2 years and started to build her name.

At that time there was no other foreigners working in Egypt, so it was quite a hassle to get the legal documents to work there. Samasem moved on to other five star hotels like Nile Hilton, Mena House, Meridien Cairo, Marriot, Semiramis and the Sheratons. During her second year in Cairo Samasem started to work in the Cabarets as well, like Cave de Roi, Sun-set, Tivoli and the clubs on Pyramid Street. At most up to seven shows a night. It was there, in the lesser prestigious night clubs that Samasem considers her real dance personality starting to develope.

In the cabarets it was important to interact with the audience and be confident, relaxed and warm towards them, not only as a dancer, but like a "hostess" on the stage, inviting guests up to dance with her and being able to control the situation. The French dancer and choreographer Diana commented after seing Samasem's show that she was "motherly" towards the guests. It was with that experience combined with continuous dance training and choreographies from Mme Raqia Hassan and Ibrahim Akef that Samasem started to get famous as a Egyptian dancer.

During the more tha twelve years Samasem has been dancing in Egypt, she occationally accepted contracts in other countried such as the Arab Emirates, Yemen, Tunisia and Morocco.

In Egypt, Samasem has throughout her yearsbeen a very successful wedding dancer. For example the weddings of the last two presidents of Egypt and also done private parties for the Royal families of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries, as well as gala shows with famous singers like Ehab Tawfiq, Mohammed el-Helw, Ahmed Adawiya and Khaled Agag. She has also preformed at gala partied in Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta.

Having experienced the richness of the Oriental dance in Egypt for over 20 years, Samasem's main concern now is to persevere this beautiful dance. She has developed a system based on Jamila Salimpour's technology to describe every step and movement, in a logical way, that she has seen and liked.

Samasem's ability to break down the movements, understand the technical aspect, while being able to execute it with an Egyptian feeling & meaning to the melody – not only the rythem – has now made Samasem a sought-after masterclass teacher in Europe and USA. She is known for her warm, down-to-earth personality combined with a wicked sense of humor. Samasem has a degree in dress-making and design that she has great use for, in creating her own stage costumes and training outfits.