| Renée began belly dance
lessons when she saw a photo of a San Francisco dancer named Zourna
featured in the paper of her home town of El Paso, Texas. Zourna
offered lessons twice a week at the local YWCA. Renée had never
seen authentic bellydancing before this, but she was intrigued by
Zourna's costume and the mystery surrounding the dance. Renée "had to
dance" as soon as she heard Arabic music during her first lesson, and
she never dreamed that she would dance professionally. When Zourna
left two years later, she gave her dancing job at a local hotel to Renée
and a fellow classmate.
Soon after, Renée went to live in Paris after
receiving her B.A. in French. Over a six month period, she danced
six nights a week in an Algerian nightclub, El Djazair, and regularly in
two other restaurants. She learned from the many other dancers
performing. They were from various countries: Egypt, Tunisia,
Morocco, and Algeria. She performed for and often sat with a Saudi
prince, which infuriated the Algerian dancer who wanted all his
attention. Renée also spent time performing in a London nightclub -
The Blue Angel, which later burned down. She learned a great deal
from the dancers, singers and customers in these venues.
Upon her return to the United States,
Renée moved to Los Angeles, hoping to pursue her dream of an acting
career. However, as fate would have it, she became very successful
in the Arabic nightclubs and most of her acting endeavors resulted in
dancing spots in films, television shows and music videos. She
appeared in such L.A. cable talk shows as "The John Cestaire Show", "Mr.
Hollywood and Friends" and "That's Incredible" She was also on
renewed versions of "Hollywood Squares", "Truth or Consequences" and
"The Law and Harry McGraw". She performed in Santana's music video
"The Nile" and in two films, "Warlords" (featured in costume on the
video cover) and "Omar Goes Hollywood". What? You've never heard
of these?
For thirteen years in Los Angeles, Renée
performed in over twenty Middle Eastern clubs and restaurants,
continuing to learn from co-workers and from customers who got up to
dance. She participated in workshops and took private lessons from
Bobby Farrah, Feiruz, Marie Silva, Marta Schill, Helena and Aisha Ali
and even took a class from Aida in San Francisco at Jamila Salimpour's
studio (Jamila was absent). She was lucky to perform in clubs with
Helena, Marie, Marta and Aisha Ali. Working in Ali Baba's
Restaurant on
Sunset Boulevard with Aisha lead to Renée's participation in the opening
ceremony of the 23rd Summer Olympics in Los Angeles (in a traditional
Morroccan costume, courtesy of Aisha).
In Los Angeles, Renée studied cane dance with
visiting Lebanese dancer / choreographer Viviane, Flamenco with Lupe del
Rio (a former member of Jose Greco's company) and Persian dance with
friend and performance partner, Malika.
Renée came to Honolulu in 1991 and got her
master's degree in French, and currently teaches French at Kapi'olani
Community College. Locally, she has performed at Cafe Athena,
Istanbul Restaurant and Casablanca in addition to various private
parties. Currently, she can be seen two nights a week at the
Pyramids Restaurant on Kapahulu Avenue.
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