Middle Eastern dance first became popular in the Boston and New York clubs. First in the ethnic communities, then Americans, too, came out of curiosity stimulated by such things as the play, "Fanny", featuring Nejla Atesh in NY.

The Latin Quarter started featuring Belly Dancing. The New York Latin Quarter and the Variety clubs around America noticed what was happening in Paris. Then Americans also joined in. The New England night clubs had variety shows featuring bellydancers quite often. Also, in the Catskill Mountains they had regular singers, bands and dancers.

Smart people opened places for the tourists; they knew Americans would come. Greek towns sprang up (usually in run down areas with cheap rent). They didn't even fix up the places, but people came anyway, even famous people! One of the most run down places was the Egyptian Gardens in New York City. The ethnic people as well as wealthy and famous people came there.

"The Kismet", a club in Chicago was run by a Jewish man with a partner who was a woman with "The Gaslight Mailing List", which represented a prominent group of people. It opened in a trendy area, equivalent to North Beach in San Francisco. It was in the Rush street area and catered to tourists mostly. It was very much the same as it was in North Beach, before "topless/bottomless" clubs began.

What kind of people came to see Middle Eastern dance; who was in the audience?
At least one quarter of the audience was college students from the Middle East, other ethnic people, and some older people. The development of entertaiment, and the people attracted to it, were similiar to that in San Francisco.

The same thing happened in Chicago. In Chicago, Rush Street was like North Beach. They had legitimate entertainment: jazz, Dixie, singers, Vic Damone- type singers, as well as other famous singers and musicians, such as the Ama Jamal Trio, (a Chicago jazz group which was touring in San Francisco when I was there--just a few doors away)!

In San Francisco, the Middle Eastern scene started on Broadway. Italian people opened the first venues; Italians wanted to attract the tourists. At that time, North Beach was a tourist area--not a stripper area. It was hard to walk on the sidewalks in the summertime because they were so filled with tourists. The topless/bottomless craze was just coming in when I was leaving in 1965.

An agency in New York was looking for Middle Eastern dancers. They liked us because we were young and thin, while most of the good dancers were older and heavier. Princess Yasmina, and the Jamal twins worked in Europe and New York. We worked out of the same New York agency; we worked together in Chicago too.

I [Dahlena] came to San Francisco in 1962 from Los Angeles to work at "12 Adler". I went back to Southern California and gave birth to my son. From there, I went to Las Vegas, then back to San Francisco where I worked at "The Bagdad", then "Gigi's". I became pregnant again, left once more to Oregon where my daughter was born. I came back to Sam Francisco again and worked in "Gigi's". In 1965, returned on to Chicago.

Before 1962, I worked in Hollywood, with Helena Kalinotis (she did wild crazy things on stage). Jamila saw both Helena and me in Hollywood. Jamila told Yousef, who asked, "How could a blond know how to dance?" Bob Mackey and his wife, Lulu, came too. Lulu was a dancer and Bob Mackey got his start in costuming by first designing Lulu's costumes. Lulu told Jamila that I "didn't do anything on stage"! This was a compliment to my way of thinking, since the Americans were all running around the stage, "over-dancing"! We were a product of the Boston clubs. We worked in Hollywood at "The Torch Club" and "The Grecian Gardens". They played Greek, Turkish and Armeninan music there, until the Cypress war, when they refused to play Turkish music anymore. Yousef brought us both to San Francisco in 1962 to the "12 Adler".


In 1962, I worked at "12 Adler" and "Gigi's" for about thirty-five American dollars per night. The only dancer around now that was there then, on Broadway, before me was Jamila Salimpour. There were other dancers, but they aren't around now, for example, the Algerian dancers.

Perhaps Yousef opened "The Bagdad" in 1963... I remember Fadil playing on the stage there in 1964. Yousef got the musicians; his personality changed when he became a club owner! Before "The Bagdad", when he was only a musician at "12 Adler", he played the violin on stage. He would stop the music and wag his finger at me if I flirted with members of the audience!

Also there were Fadil, Vince Delgado and Lemi Pasha. Charles Shulltz (and his wife), who wrote the "Peanuts" cartoon strip was another famous fellow that hung out in the Arabic clubs, and that famous pop-artist of the day who painted little girl faces with big eyes, Walter Kean. Another lady who does artwork of dancers-Artemis Clark (I think) --made paintings of dancers; she would sketch while sitting on the balcony in "Gigi's