{"id":1003,"date":"2025-07-07T17:37:34","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T15:37:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.trantrandance.com\/meeting-the-legendary-dalilah\/"},"modified":"2025-11-13T10:06:47","modified_gmt":"2025-11-13T09:06:47","slug":"meeting-the-legendary-dalilah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.trantrandance.com\/en\/meeting-the-legendary-dalilah\/","title":{"rendered":"Women who inspire. The legendary Dalilah and her legacy in oriental dance."},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Today the legendary Dalilah, queen of oriental dance<\/strong>, would be 89 years old, it is the perfect day to remember her.<\/p>

Anyone fond of oriental dance has heard of the \u201cgolden age\u201d, that time when the dancers who dazzled in the casinos were called to the most important events to dance in front of kings and personalities of all kinds.<\/p>

They elevated this ancient dance to another level. There are many names, all of them shining stars: Samia Gamal, Naima Akef, Badia Masabni? but the one we are talking about today is a Spanish dancer, elected in 1959 the best dancer in Cairo no less, and whose life deserves to be told on the big screen. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Dalilah\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Thank you for being part of the beginning of our history.Adelaida Angulo Agramunt (that was her name) was born in Madrid in 1936 and since she was a child she studied different disciplines such as classical ballet, bolero school and flamenco.
She trained with the most prestigious teachers of the time and began a promising career as a Spanish dancer. It was 1954 when she traveled for the first time to Cairo for a three-year tour of the Middle East and how important that trip was! One day, the owner of the place where she was working needed an oriental dancer and asked her to dance. Soon the newspapers were already publishing the news: \u201cA new Samia Gamal was born\u201d. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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<\/p>

During the following years she traveled, already as Dalilah, to Persia, Syria, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon… ending again in Cairo. There she performed at the grand opening of the Nile Hilton Hotel together with Nagwa Fouad, in the presence of President Gamal Abdel Nasser and Marshal Tito, where the hotelier Conrad Hilton invited countless artists from Hollywood for the occasion. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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He had a resounding and unprecedented success. She also had the honor of performing for such notables as the Shah of Persia, King Hussein of Jordan, King Farouk of Egypt, King Saud of Saudi Arabia, President Chamoun of Lebanon and President Nasser of Egypt. She came to be considered \u201cthe queen of oriental dance\u201d and was so popular even among the Middle Eastern aristocracy that she aroused the professional jealousy of the Egyptian dancers (fortunately she had the protection of a friend, the mythical dancer Tahia Carioca). <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t

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He also toured all over Europe and wherever he went, success was assured.<\/p>

She was in demand for events of all kinds. In Italy, for example, she was hired to make a private performance at Marcelo Mastroiani’s party at the end of the shooting of the film \u201cLa Dolce Vita\u201d. She shared the stage with great artists such as Tom Jones, Edith Piaf and Johny Halliday, among others, and close friendships arose, such as the one with Josephine Baker (as a curiosity, some say that she is the \u201cDelilah\u201d of the famous Tom Jones song). <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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On her return from the European tour, destiny had another nice surprise in store for her. Her path crossed that of Paul King, a popular London singer who would become her great love and lifelong companion. It was a real crush, just a few days after they met they were already husband and wife. It is said that her mother was so upset by the suddenness of the marriage that in a fit of rage she burned some of the dresses. <\/p>

Dalilah fij\u00f3 su residencia en el L\u00edbano durante un tiempo y adoraba la vida all\u00ed, pero cuando comenzaron los problemas pol\u00edticos lo abandon\u00f3 para establecerse en M\u00e9xico y unos a\u00f1os m\u00e1s tarde (1974) en Estados Unidos, donde la danza oriental se estaba poniendo de moda.
Se instal\u00f3 en Las Vegas y abri\u00f3 una tienda de vestuario oriental y un estudio de danza destacando como una de las principales maestras. Desde all\u00ed realiz\u00f3 una labor divulgativa sin precedentes y organiz\u00f3 los primeros viajes de estudio a El Cairo para que las bailarinas americanas pudieran formarse con los maestros y bailarinas de la \u00e9poca (Fifi Abdou, Hala Sofi, Sohair Zaki o incluso Nagwa Fuad). Introdujo tambi\u00e9n al renombrado Mahmoud Reda en Estados Unidos y juntos recorrieron el pa\u00eds impartiendo seminarios de danza y folclore \u00e1rabe. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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They even had a television program where they spread the technique of oriental dance. Her teaching method was very simple and at the same time preserved all the authenticity of this art, which made her the \u201cAmbassador of modern Egyptian dance\u201d. <\/p>

Back in 1984 she returned to Spain to discover that unfortunately this type of dance was only found in bad restaurants and with a sense far removed from its essence, which discouraged her to the point of leaving the stage. Luckily (among others for us) her love for dance and Arabic culture soon made her return to theaters and schools to try to improve the situation. In the days of Gloria the Lebanese media published “an angel has fallen in the cabaret” and coincidence of life, that angel ended up right here in Colmenar Viejo (Madrid), in the school of dance Line and Movement<\/g>. There a small group of girls excited and eager to dance we were dazzled by that lady and the exotic world of glamor that opened before us. That’s how my sister Paloma and I fell madly in love with oriental dance (not belly dance, as she taught us), but that’s another story. <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Dalilah\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t
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Dalilah did choreographic work for the film Juana la Loca and returned to the stage with a show at the Sala Galileo Galilei in Madrid and the Teatro Goya in Barcelona, where she performed for two consecutive weeks.<\/p>

Most of us were unaware, but in the meantime she was fighting a battle with the disease. The news of her passing that summer of 2001 came as a complete surprise. She left us too soon, but it gave her time to change our lives. <\/p>

In my case, she transformed a secretary into an oriental dancer at heart and everything changed color since then. I would not be where I am today if it were not for her, I will always be grateful. <\/p>

Fascinating character, isn’t she? Were you, like me, lucky enough to meet her, to see her dance perhaps? <\/strong><\/p>

References:<\/em><\/p>

Zuel. (2006). Ha ca\u00eddo un \u00e1ngel en el cabaret: Dalilah. from A\u00f1il danza: http:\/\/www.anildanza.com\/dalilah-reina-danza-oriental\/. <\/em><\/p>

Pamela Sloan (2012) Revisiting \u201cA Belly Dancer\u2019s Dream Come True\u201d, (\u2026) from Gilded Serpent: Tribute to Dalilah for the readers of the Gilded Serpent<\/em><\/p>

Mabel Amado “La reina de la danza oriental”, Diario ABC, (2014)<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Today the legendary Dalilah would be 88 years old, it is the perfect day to remember her. A Madrilenian elected in 1959 the best dancer in Cairo no less and whose life deserves to be told on the big screen. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":966,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1003","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trantrandance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trantrandance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trantrandance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trantrandance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trantrandance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1003"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.trantrandance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4779,"href":"https:\/\/www.trantrandance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1003\/revisions\/4779"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trantrandance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.trantrandance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1003"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trantrandance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1003"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.trantrandance.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1003"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}