Amina Goodyear

Dancer and Teacher

Artistic Director and Choreographer for The Aswan Dancers

Enjoy the video below (click on the red dress)

Click above to see dance at PenaPachamama with the Georges Lammam Ensemble

Amina began dancing professionally in 1966 at San Francisco's famous Bagdad Cabaret

where she was the principal nightly dancer for twenty years.

In 1976 she founded the Aswan Dancers, the premiere Egyptian Dance Company

now celebrating 30 years of continuous performing.

In 1986 she founded and played percussion with The Cairo Cats Band,

directed by her daughter, Susu Pampanin.

Susu later went on to produce the very popular cassette and now CD -Tabelli ya Susu -Live at the Giza Club with Susu and The Cairo Cats.

Ten years later she co-founded The Arabian Knights Band with Jacques al Asmar.

The Arabian Knights Band enjoyed a ten year run of continuously working every week in clubs as well as other venues.

Amina played backup percussion for the musicians playing in and with The Arabian Knights Band. Some of these musicians includedSusu Pampanin, Reda Darwish, Fouad Marzouk, and Georges, Elias and Tony Lammam. Other members of the Arabian Knights Band included Jacques al Asmar, Loay Dahbour, Husain Dixon, Issa Sweidan, Raed alKawaja, Khader and vocalists Fadi Hanani and Jamal Kassab.

In 1991, Amina created the Giza Club, an Arabic cultural organization that sponsors dancers and musicians, cultural lectures and performances. Giza Club members are worldwide and guide the Giza Academy of Music and Legends of Middle Eastern Dance Videos (The Giza Awards).

Amina produced two videos:

the documentary"Hizz ya Wiz," and "Nadia in America," with the Egyptian star Nadia Hamdi.

Amina's teaching career began in 1971. As a master Dance teacher, Amina Also teaches Percussion and Arabic Song Translation, pointing out that understanding the rhythms and the meaning of the music and song is key tounderstanding the dance.

Besides her five regular Dance classes a week, she also teaches a weekly drum class.

In addition, she has a full schedule of private classes,

.

focusing on training dancers for professional performance

Amina continues to study here and abroad, and is still active teaching daily classes and performing dance and percussion at least once a week, if not more.

Amina also sings with ASWAT, the only Arabic choir in the San Francisco Bay Area. ASWAT specializes in classical Arabic music and performs biannually with the best local Arabic musicians and visiting international stars.The next performance is December 1, 2007. ASWAT will appear on Al Jazeera August 23 on the show, "Maw'id fi-l Mahjar", at 7:30 a.m. and 8:30 p.m. (PDT) with Nabila Mango, Founder of Zawaya and ASWAT. 

She still dances with and choreographs for The Aswan Dancers. Most recently they performed weekly at an Egyptian Club until it closed. As a favorite of the Arabic community, she always has a venue at Middle Eastern nightclubs where she dances and performs percussion with the Band while spotlighting her students as well as local favorite professional dancers.

With more than forty years of Middle Eastern Dance experience, Amina feels that she has just now reached her full teaching potential.

In 1994 Amina was inducted into the Middle Eastern Hall of Fame in New York.

Will be adding lots more photos and also other interesting information.