Writer: Maram Mohammed
Casually scrolling through my Instagram feed, I was blessed to stumble upon an anonymous girl’s dancing video. Of course, I was quick to assume that it was another European girl throwing some fire moves until I checked the comments and I realized: She. Was. Egyptian. I obviously immediately checked her account out and fell in love with her as a dancer, influencer and a character. The beautiful Amira Adeeb invaded every social media platform in grace, and I honestly couldn’t help but contact her for a chat and help you all (including myself, of course) learn more about her.
Because my interviewing skills are SO strong – note the sarcasm- I had to ask her the so-not-basic question: “How would you usually introduce yourself”. She says: “Strong, I do what I want, I’m stubborn, friendly, social, persistent, and don’t care what anyone thinks.”.
If you all didn’t know this, she is currently majoring in Filming and is an aspiring actress. She says that one of the main things that influenced her decision was that growing up she was always surrounded by art.
“My whole family is in the profession; I also used to go with my mom to sets and stuff like that, so I think I grew up seeing these things and wanting to be a part of it so much. My dad also told me that I used to make all these little videos when I was younger and go show it to him. And like, all my teachers growing up would say “She has to be in this business”. So, I just grew up hearing it, seeing it and wanting to do it.”
Fun fact, even though her parents’ profession influenced her decision so much, yet they didn’t really want her to pursue acting.
“We had a lot of fights about it too, but I was very persistent until they just let me be. My mom wanted me to do architecture. But I didn’t want to be at a 9 to 5 job, I wanted to be free. It took me from sophomore to senior year to convince them. Finally, they caved in. My dad was okay with it from the beginning, so it really was just my mom. I think it was mainly because she was an actress, so she just didn’t want me to be one”.
Then, the conversation led us into her childhood and how it felt like growing up in a family that is so exposed to the media all the time. She had a lot to say about it too. “It had its ups and downs I feel like, when I was younger I had these teachers who would tell me that my family was going to hell and stuff like that. I was a child, so of course it affected me. I would go to my mom crying. Also, a lot of people would assume that I am stuck up or egotistical because I come from that family or when they know my last name. They just make assumptions and have pre-conceived ideas that weren’t true. In school it was a bit hard because some teachers wouldn’t like my uncle’s things or my mom/dad, so they would just treat me like shit sometimes.” She says. When she said that, I was truly surprised since her family are very respectful figures. It is quite unfair that a child would be treated differently just because of a certain profession their parents decide to pursue.
“But at the same time, there were many ups. I was exposed to a lot of art which was great. I was exposed to a lot of communities; my parents were very open minded and by open minded I don’t mean the “Egyptian open minded” as in clothing or whatever. By open minded I mean that they respect other peoples’ cultures and communities. They respect people in general even if they have different ideas and opinions, stuff like that. They saw things from different perspectives and they were very creative as well. They gave me that, I feel like. “
A big struggle she goes through though, is the constant comparison between her and her mother, Manal Salama.
“Mom is well known as the very respectful actress who doesn’t wear revealing clothes, etc. That is a struggle of mine, because every time I post a dancing video for example I always get compared to my mom. My mom gets a lot of messages saying: “how is that your daughter, she is dancing, she wears shorts, etc.” But, I don’t really care what people think. The whole situation is about how you perceive it and I have tough skin so, to me, my family has done nothing wrong and I have nothing to be ashamed of.” Ps: Her self-confidence is very admirable, and I hope that all teenagers out there would reach a similar stage in their life where they are able to only hear constructive criticism and cut all the negativity out.
Oh yeah when people hate you, my brother always told me that, it means you’re doing something right
Since Amira is well known for her amazing dancing skills, I had to ask her all about it. She told me a funny story of how everything started. Amira was basically enjoying herself in her friend’s party as a kid, jamming to Umbrella by Rihanna, when her friend’s mom came up to her and started asking where she learned how to dance. Little Amira was obviously baffled and told her that she didn’t ‘learn’ how to dance anywhere.
I just felt like everyone could do what I was doing
The mother later insisted on calling her mom and telling her to enroll Amira in some dancing classes because obviously our girl had all the talent needed. Amira was enrolled in dancing classes in her school, but later started branching out to different classes as well.
I think it just started with high school musical. My dad would get me these limited-edition CD’S. And I just used to follow their dances and try to learn and perform them.
She also started teaching later on until she got really busy. At this point she still didn’t post her first dancing video yet, but then she did, and all the magic happened.
The video got 20K views and different people started encouraging her to post more. She never imagined that things would turn out to be this way. “It was all a coincidence.” She says.
She is also very amazed by the response she is getting, and she loves all her followers, that is why she tries to reply to all the messages she gets. She told me that she screenshots all the sweet texts or mentions she gets and saves them all to an album; “I just really appreciate it” she said.
When people tell me that I am their role model, I am like: No sis, I shouldn’t be your role model.. I am just an ordinary girl living her life.
An important piece of information though, is that Amira doesn’t really want to pursue dancing as her main profession. She aspires to be an actress, or an entertainer to be exact. “I love dancing, but I want to be an entertainer. I just enjoy making people laugh. I make YouTube videos as well. I want to reach a point where I can start working for charities as well. Not the political side though, I am leaning more towards animal charities, etc. I am trying to create a following as an actress who I can hopefully inspire and influence with different charity works. I have so many ideas.”
Amira is 100% anti-hate. She stated that it is one of the main things she would love to change about the world.
“If I get the chance to change anything about the world, it would be unnecessary hate about anything. People need to be more accepting and stop spreading hate. It just doesn’t make anything better. I think these people just need someone to ask them if they’re okay. Even if they don’t accept the help you offered, what is important is that you did your part.”
She used to play a lot of sports too. She played soccer, gymnastics, squash, and swimming ,but she always got injured until she couldn’t play anymore. Soccer was her favorite though. Now she just dances and considers it a sport (which it is). She also played a lot of instruments. She used to play the violin and the piano too. But now she plays the drums instead.
“My mom prayed for a girly girl, she legit went for Umra just to ask for it. But God was like: Don’t be greedy and then blessed her with me”.
Conclusively, it was lovely interviewing such a beautiful human being inside out. We learned more about her as a person, including the fact that she would rather have eyelashes for fingernails instead of fingernails for eyelashes. Oh, and shout out to you Andrew for jamming and playing the drums with our girl. We appreciate you, dude.
