Our Team

Instagram - Facebook - Twitter - YouTube - Official Website

Amie Sultan - Founder & CEO

Tarab is the brain child of Amie Sultan, an Egyptian dancer & actress. Amie began her career as a classical ballerina dancing lead roles in ballets such as SwanLake, La Bayadere, Don Quixote, and many others. After attending Cairo American College in Egypt, she went on to obtain a Bachelor of Arts in Interior Design from Rhodec Institute. Amie was featured in the book Our Dance Stories which is a series of interviews with dancers from the Middle East region. While on tour in 2014, she discovered her love for Egyptian dance and music. She retired from the ballet to pursue a revival and rejuvenation of the Egyptian dance. She believes in dance and music as a heritage art and an expression of civilization, and was successful to convey that message via several interviews with local and international media outlets. With Vice, she made a video titled “How to treat a Belly dancer by a Bellydancer” which garnered international attention. She was selected by CNN to present a segment of Cairo POV, a special which was produced in cooperation with the Ministry of Tourism to promote famous heritage sites in Cairo. Amie was interviewed by Bloomberg, BBC Africa, The Guardian, BBC Arabic, CNN, Deutsche Welle, ARD German Channel, The New York Times, Associated Press, CBC Canada, Cairo Scene, Enigma, Egypt Today, and Elle Arabia among many others. Since her debut, Amie made a name for herself as Egypt’s most sought after and highest paid dancer at events and weddings of the elite both locally and internationally. She has performed for dignitaries in France, Spain, Greece, United Kingdom, Bahrain, Dubai, Lebanon, Jordan, and continues to perform live with her 15 membered orchestra to the tunes of Oum Kalthoum, Abd el Halim Hafez, Abd el Wahab and many other arrangements rooted in Egyptian Folklore. Her latest endeavor was her production of The Golden Age of Egyptian Cinema Tribute, a theatrical spectacle that premiered at the closing of Gouna International Film Festival 2021. The spectacle is the first of it’s kind in the Middle East bringing Egyptian dance to the stage with a live classical and traditional orchestra, backup dancers, stage projections and stage direction. The show is now preparing for it’s first tour. Amie was recently awarded the International Council of Dance certification of UNESCO’s CID (International Council Of Dance. In her spare time she gives lectures and round table talks and has appeared as a guest lecturer at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, Scripps University, Tahrir Culture Center, Women’s Association of Cairo, the first UNITWIN conference among others. Amie Sultan is the first bellydancer in Egyptian history to dance on a college campus when she appeared at the historical Ewart Hall dancing the Om Kalthoum Tribute in the 2022 edition of She Arts Festival. She is also the first Egyptian bellydancer in history to dance at The National Museum Of Egyptian Civilization (NMEC) when she appeared in the world premiere of “Hassan Fathy Architecture of Dance” directed by spanish director Dani Panullo.

Advisory Board

Professor Dr. Fekri Hassan - Advisory Board

Professor Fekri Hassan established Egypt’s first higher education program in Cultural Heritage Management at the French University in Egypt. He is Emeritus Petrie Professor of Archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. Outside his academic work, he is an essay writer, art critic, poet, graphic designer and painter. He has a Ph.D. in Anthropology (Archaeology) from Southern Methodist University, USA (1973). He joined Washington State University in 1975 and was appointed full professor in 1983. In 1988-1989, he was archaeology advisor to the Minister of Culture Egypt, and senior consultant to the National Center for the Documentation of Cultural and Natural Heritage (CULTNAT). He served as Vice-President of “World Archaeology Congress”, and President of the “Water History Association”. He was editor of “African Archaeological Review” and serves on the editorial board of many scientific journals. Member of Committee for Scientific Knowledge, of the Egyptian Scientific Research and Technology .

Hassan has contributed more than 250 publications on prehistoric archaeology, geoarchaeology, demographic archaeology, water history, archaeological theory and cultural heritage management. In the latter field, he edited CULTNAT’s, “Strategic Approach to Egypt's Cultural Heritage”, and co-edited “Cultural Heritage and Development in the Arab World” (Bibliotheca Alexandrina).

In 2011 he established a Master degree Program on Cultural Heritage Management in the French University in Egypt (UFE) with options in site management, museums, heritage economics, heritage education, architectural heritage, and heritage tourism. The program has produced Egypt’s first generation of heritage managers and professionals.

Ambassador Amr Elhenawy - Advisory Board

Ambassador Elhenawy has represented Egypt in six countries, always acting as an envoy for Egyptian culture. He believes that Egypt’s sense of national and cultural identity gives it strength in the world.

Ambassador Elhenawy’s  views on the importance of celebrating Egyptian civilization have been expressed in recent opinion pieces for journals such as China Daily and The South China Morning Post.Married to an archaeologist specializing in medieval Egyptian architecture, he has led VIP tours of monuments of the Egyptian past.

Now based in Hong Kong, Ambassador Elhenawy serves to link Egyptian cultural and business groups to their Chinese counterparts. In a recent essay he pointed to the fact that Egypt and China, the world’s two most ancient civilizations, are now celebrating their cultural patrimony in new, globally important museums.

Ambassador Elhenawy is known for his cross-cultural communication skills in working across political, religious, cultural and economic divides. With additional experience in the travel industry and the private sector, he has extensive personal contacts in China, the Middle East, Africa and Europe. Multilingual, he is passionate about introducing people from different societies to the achievements of Egyptian culture.  

Dr. Nancy Ali - Advisory Board

Dr. Nancy Ali is a scholar of memory and gender studies, holding a Ph.D. in comparative literature and history from the Sorbonne in Paris. As a research associate at the Centre du Recherche en Littérature Comparée (CRLC) at the Sorbonne (Paris IV), she continues to publish extensively in both English and French on the formal and informal ways means through which collective memory is experienced and reimagined. Her professional activities have allowed her to apply theoretical knowledge to on-ground projects and policy. During her tenure at the Cairo International Film Festival, she curated the Legacy Exhibition marking the festival’s 40th anniversary, which included digitizing and displaying festival archives for the first time. The following year she curated the Cairo je t’aime immersive exhibition, an homage to Egypt’s rich cinematic past. As Cultural and Public Outreach Manager of CIFF, she oversaw several important collaborations between the festival and other bodies in the public and private sectors. She is currently a Lecturer of Ethics, Communications, and Sociology at New Giza University, where she also contributes to the design of the curriculum, in collaboration with both King’s College London and UCL. In her spare time, she moonlights as a creative content consultant and has worked on several important regional and international advertising campaigns.

Soraya Bahgat - Advisory Board

Soraya Bahgat is a Finnish-Egyptian career woman, consultant and passionate advocate for women’s rights in Egypt. Soraya strongly believes in the power of individuals to stand together in the face of adversity and in the power of civil society and grassroots movements to bring about change. In the wake of Egypt’s 2011 revolution she was prompted to start Tahrir Bodyguard, a movement of uniformed volunteers intervening to stop the brutal mob sexual assaults on women in Tahrir Square. This contributed to Egypt passing a landmark sexual harassment law in 2014.
After protests in Tahrir Square ended, she shifted her attention to other forms of violence and discrimination against women including female genital mutilation (FGM) and remains a committed and passionate advocate for women and girls. In addition to her advocacy, she is active in mentoring women and supporting their career progression and recently founded The Equality Label, to encourage organizations to compete for gender equality. She regularly speaks and writes on women’s rights to raise awareness and encourage action and has been featured by CNN, France 24, The Wall Street Journal, Vogue Arabia, the Independent, der Spiegel, El Pais, among others. 

Soraya has been chosen as one of the Women Future Leaders of the Mediterranean by Sciences Po University and one of the Young Social Leaders by the Singapore Summit in 2015 and 2017 respectively. She received the German Bundestag's International Parliamentary Scholarship in 2015. In 2018, she was awarded the Inspire Egypt Award in the gender equality category by the British Embassy in Cairo. In May 2019 she was awarded a scholarship by Vital Voices and Bank of America for a diploma in Women’s Entrepreneurship from Cornell University. In December 2019, she was awarded the Finnish Government's Hän Honour for her work.

She served as a member of the Girl Generation’s strategic advisory group from 2014 until 2019, the first African-led movement to end female genital mutilation in one generation. Soraya is a graduate of the American University in Cairo, holding a Bachelor of Arts in Political Economy and Graduate Diploma in Comparative Politics. She has just completed the requirements for a Master's in Cultural Heritage Management from the Université Panthéon Sorbonne. 

Karim El Shafei - Advisory Board

Co-Founder, Chairman, & CEO of Al Ismaelia for Real Estate Investment, established in 2008 with the purpose of reviving Downtown Cairo and the Egyptian Identity. The company specializes in the acquisition, management, renovation and leasing of heritage buildings in the city center, and ultimately providing a unique experience of Downtown Cairo. Beside his personal passion for arts, Shafei works to revive Downtown through the incubation and support to the art & cultural scene in Cairo. His work includes the support of over 100 events per year in Al Ismaelia buildings ranging from visual art exhibition to performances, providing locations for filming and photoshoots as well as cultural events such as book launches and cultural city tours. Shafei is a co-founder of the Downtown Contemporary Art Festival (D-CAF), an annual interdisciplinary art festival that takes place in Downtown Cairo, now in its 9th edition. Karim’s belief in art as a reflection of Egypt’s modern identity and its role in shaping the future was the most important motive behind him joining Tarab.