Jalilah Zamora

Jalilah was led by her passion for Raqs Sharki, commonly known as "Belly Dance", to thoroughly investigate the many aspects of this art. By traveling to various Middle Eastern and North African countries, particularly Egypt, and through research, observation and practice, she has assimilated many different styles of traditional Middle Eastern Dance that are closely related to Raqs Sharki. She has been a professional dancer since 1985 performing at all types of venues from dining establishments, elaborate birthday parties and traditional wedding celebrations to glamorous nightclubs in world-renowned five-star hotels, theater productions, and world music festivals.

During a 10-year period starting in 1985, Jalilah visited Egypt over a dozen times, finally staying almost a year to study and perfect her dancing. During this period she befriended the "Saidi Nawar" (Egyptian Gypsies) and was invited to visit them regularly in Luxor to learn about their particular style of dancing known as "Ghawazee". This new-found knowledge gained her the honor of touring and performing at least twice a year from 1990-1996 with the celebrated Egyptian "gypsy" group, "The Musicians of the Nile" (Real World Label) at various world music festivals in Italy, Spain, France, Holland, Slovenia, Austria, Sweden, Denmark and Germany.

Jalilah founded and was the principal choreographer of the dance-theater project "Karawane" (Caravans) in which she performed a wide array of dance styles along with three other members at various dance and theater festivals throughout Germany from 1987 to 1995.

While Jalilah was working in Egypt she was featured in two documentaries produced by German television on the state of dance in Egypt. In Spain she performed on the talk show "El Dia del Delante". She also had cameo roles as a dancer in three German feature films.

Her extensive experience in working with a variety of musicians and performing with live music enabled Jalilah to produce a series of six CDs of belly dance music entitled Jalilah's Raks Sharki for the recording label Piranha of Berlin, Germany. This entailed selecting a combination of traditional songs and new compositions, arranging them for dance routines, and then hiring and working with highly reputed musicians in Cairo and Beirut in the recording studios. The Jalilah's Raks Sharki series is held in high esteem by dancers worldwide.

In 2000 Jalilah relocated to Canada. First residing in Montreal, then in Vancouver, she has been living in Ottawa since 2005 where she has several ongoing weekly classes. She is frequently hired all over Canada, Europe and the United States to conduct advanced dance seminars and diverse specialized workshops that focus on the rhythms found in Middle Eastern music, music interpretation, choreographies, as well as the Egyptian gypsy and folkloric styles of the dance. 

Press Quotes

"Jalilah has done us all a favor by re-recording classic bellydance songs like Mashaal, Tamra henna, Zeina, Lissa Fakir and so many others. The production and sound is excellent, as they were recorded with a full, traditional orchestra with an exceptional rhythm section led by Moktar Al Said. They have a very full sound with tracks suitable for both nightclub performing and more traditional venues."
www.raks-sharki.com

"The lovely "Jalilah" we're talking about here is the lovely and talented Lorain Zamora, who just so happens to have a knack for coming out with "the" most wonderful collection of Egyptian Raks music."
Geocities.com