Um...she accused a friend of mine of sleeping with the owner of a restaurant (she did no such thing- gross!) I guess this is a standard MO for her.

She blacklisted my longest dance teacher from her events because she "didn't bring enough of her students" with her to these things, and also because she did workshops for Fatima as well. She would call her up the night before Fatima's events and bitch her out for her participation in them. True story.

One time in class, one girl was talking about how the manager of a restaurant cornered her in her dressing room and made her feel really uncomfortable, and Jodette shut her down immediately, saying something to the effect of not talking badly about the restaurant owners that hire dancers. (Nevermind that this particular owner could have been a total sleeze bag jerk off...)

She makes her dancers buy the costumes she makes- which are cheap and flimsy, not to mention overpriced and barely more than a piece of cloth and a couple of sequins. She wants her girls to show as much flesh as looks good on them. Which means, as much as possible.

She also turns girls out to dance "professionally" when they clearly have not had enough training. I've seen girls who have danced with her less than a year going out for paying gigs who dance like absolute beginners. Oh well...

She also undercuts every other dance teacher and professional dancer in this area, both by charging considerably less for classes, but by pimping out her dancers for as low as $25 a gig (which is paltry! and hardly covers gas and makeup, let's face it!)

Um...stories she's told...walking in on her own funeral, being kidnapped by a prince who made her dance for him, having her snake go missing on a trans-Atlantic flight (they found it in a woman's purse, curled up and resting), her picture was taken with Billy Carter and published in Star or National Inquisitor or Weekly World Weirdness Tabloid or something like that, how she can walk into any club on Mohammed Ali street in Cairo and get a job by declaring, "I'm Kamalia of Jordan," which of course, is the name that she was given by the king or prince of Jordan when she was like 15... then there's how her father kidnapped her from her mother when she was an infant and she was raised with gypsies...

Uhmmm I think the comic book shop I go to is next to that Jodetts place.

Jodette was my very first teacher. She is from the Middle East and actually knew Badiya Masabni, Taheyia Karioka, Samia Gamal, Fareed Al Atrash, Mohamed Abd El Wahab, and many other dancers, musicians, and actors -- personally. I think she is one of the best teachers anyone could ever have. She is filled with the knowledge of the dance as someone who was born and raised there; she actually lived with the gypsies and learned to dance from them. Regardless of what anyone may think of her because of some personal experience or another, Jodette is the real thing. She may have her views on the world, but her views are because of her upbringing and cultural experience. She is kind and giving.

I think this thread deserves the other side of opinions. I will be the first to give mine. It is sad that the Internet -- a public forum which is read by all, including Jodette -- is used to bad mouth people just because of isolated incidents that did not go well with the writer at one time or another. One will never get as close to the Golden Age of Egypt as with Jodette. Don't let one or two incidents sway your point of view, and always take into consideration a person's ethnic and cultural background and upbringing before writing dirt about them. Giving them the benefit of the doubt will always make the world a better place to live.

-Sausan
Sausan Academy of Egyptian Dance

I'm still kicking myself for not picking up a Jodette bellydance music album I found in a Goodwill in West Sac in 1995.

I did pick up a Jodette cookbook one year. It's pretty awesome.

Jodette has many stories of Sacramento in the Sixties: she told tales of when Jimi Hendrix and Joan Baez passed through town. She said Baez sang for her supper on the street.

I did kind of promise to write her life story at some point, I guess I should head over there with a tape recorder and do it while she's still around. It would make a pretty interesting book, assuming I could validate any of the information she tells, but it would probably still be a hoot to hear.

hey, i'm kind of an inactive member here since i am 2 years away from moving to sac-town. this is a very interesting topic, since i am also a bellydancer. as a new bellydancer moving into town, i'd probably have fallen for all that stuff not knowing any better. i am aware of unmata and will probably go to their studio first. but i know for sure that i will avoid this jodett's place.

This post was deleted by )'( Mr Skirblah )'(

well as a drummer or African and Middle eastern Music i have run into Jodett. At frist she was pleasent and all was well and i even drummed for her s few times but then she saw me drumming for other troupes and teachers she didnt like so she has snubb my drum troupe ever sence. I do wish her well and hope she Contuiones to teach but i do hope she learns to let go of the past. Esp. sence i didnt not mean to insult her in any way.
Hakeem

I canceled my tribe membership a while ago, but I had to rejoin just to respond to this post. I am currently a dancer with Jodette and have been with her for almost 4 years now. While I completely understand most of the posts on here, I wanted to lend a little perspective. I certainly have no illusions of perfection about Jodette, but she has been given a bit of a harsh rap here.

Yes, she tells some of her professional dancers to lose weight, but you know what, my grandma has told me to lose weight before, and while I think it's a little old-fashioned and misguided, I don't think my grandma is an evil person for it. She's just a product of a time period where that sort of thing was more acceptable to do. I give Jodette that same benefit of the doubt. I have recently also become involved in some of the scheduling at her studio, and so I've started to see first-hand how cruel and ruthless some of the comments of restaurant owners can be. I've had restaurant owners tell me plainly "never send me that fat girl again." Jodette gets the same earful, but she gets the less kind Arabic version. She has shared with me the dilemma of wanting to send certain dancers to restaurants but owners not being happy about it and Jodette telling me she "doesn't want to break the girl's heart" by telling them no one wants them to dance at their restaurant, so her solution is to tell them to lose weight. Yes, it's messed up that that's the way it is, but it is what it is until we can change societal standards.

As to the story about her dismissing a girl for complaining about the conduct of a restaurant owner. I know for a fact that oftentimes Jodette will play down controversy in front of beginning students for fear of making herself or her business look bad. I was not there when this incident happened, so I can't say whether or not this is the case, but I do know that she dropped at least one restaurant that I know of because dancers were complaining about similar behavior of the owner. It's possible that she played it down in public and dealt with it later in private. I do know that there have been no complaints of that nature about any of the owners of her current restaurants, so whatever there was in the past, she has dealt with it.

The costumes-trust me, this is a complaint of mine too. This is definitely something about her business I would do differently. Yes, they are overpriced and not half as good as something I could get online for a lot less. Her logic is that she gives her professional dancers free classes and books them at restaurants for free, so this is really the only way she makes money from them. Again, I disagree with it, but it's a condition of getting jobs from her. I would rather pay for classes and be free to buy my costumes where I choose. However, as to the inappropriateness of them, that's really the responsibility of the dancer who chooses to wear them. When I bought my first costume, she tried to give me a completely see-through skirt to wear with it. I simply told her I wasn't going to wear it, and that was that. I feel like I've respected myself with all of my costume choices, and I have certainly never been forced to wear anything. The girls who wear indecent costumes choose to wear them.

The same really goes for the pay. The dancers who choose to take $25 jobs choose to do that. Usually it's the beginning dancers who take those jobs. The more experienced dancers pick the restaurants they will dance at, and they always go home with much more than $25. As far as undercutting, there are dancers coming along right behind Jodette offering to dance at her restaurants for tips only. Some of them are students of the other Sacramento dancers mentioned in this thread. I know of one of the teachers herself who is mentioned in this thread who went to a Jodette restaurant on the same night one of Jodette's dancers was there and danced for free. This is a person who constantly trashes Jodette for negotiating low wages.

Yes, her stories are outlandish and probably embellished, but you have to admit they are interesting. And don't assume they are entirely untrue. I've been skeptical of lots of things only to have her pull out a photograph or newspaper clipping to verify what she's saying. She did learn and perform in the middle east, and she does know a lot of people, and she has done a lot of things. Some stories have probably gotten much bigger through the lens of time, so just take it with a grain of salt.

One thing you have right is that she can be a bit paranoid (the spies and such), and I've only recently figured out what all this is about. After some online research and numerous conversations with her, I personally believe this is a result of the northern California belly dance scene in the 60's and 70's. If you've never read anything about it, I highly recommend the article series "Reflections from North Beach" on The Gilded Serpent. Belly dancers were very cruel to each other and not entirely honest about they way they conducted business, and Jodette and Jamila Salimpour shared a particular rivalry at this time. The details of this rivalry would take up pages, but the bottom line is that dancers at this time actually were sending out spies to other studios to "steal" moves, recruit dancers, and just scope out the competition in general. Jodette says that she and Jamila have made peace, but Jodette still spent at least two decades watching her back (and dishing it out a bit too). She tells stories about bringing her dancer friends from Egypt to do workshops and having them comment that they didn't know how she could stand how cruel and cutthroat the scene was in northern California at this time. I think she's spent so long "at war" that her default reaction is suspicion.

For the record, her granddaughter has danced at numerous non-Jodette restaurants and events, and she is not disowned.

One thing that has not been mentioned is how truly generous Jodette is. She wakes up at 5 in the morning and cooks food to take down to the river to give to homeless people. Her van is constantly full of blankets and canned goods that she endlessly collects and hands out. She does most of this without help. I have also seen her generosity toward the dancers at her studio, myself included. There are numerous dancers who have told her they are struggling financially, and she immediately helps them. I can't discuss specifics of this because she doesn't necessarily want other dancers to expect freebies, but I can personally vouch for her in this department.

The bottom line is that Jodette is human. Like all humans, she is flawed. I've certainly had my differences with her. About a year ago, I was ready to leave. But after truly getting to know her, I believe that she is a good person. And I don't think a belly dance teacher should have to be held up to a standard of perfection because every teacher in this area (and indeed everywhere) would fall short. I think we should all try be gracious enough to forgive each other our flaws. If she's not for you, I understand. But I just feel that perhaps some of your harshly negative views of her might come from a lack of understanding about her history and thought processes and the lack of a behind-the-scenes perspective.