Later Years
In spite of the bias in American popular culture against the Middle East, Serena continued to perform in a number of Egyptian folkloric shows and appeared several times as the lead dancer in the New York Opera Company's production of Aida. She also continued teaching at her studio and choreographing for her troupe, Serena Dance Theater, which performed throughout New York City.
Serena's studio provided dancers for hire, with dancers available for performances at traditional Middle Eastern weddings and other social events. Notably, in keeping with Serena's long-held belief that belly dancing was not comparable with stripping and erotic dance, her studio would not provide dancers for events in which their performance might be over-sexualized, e.g., for bachelorette parties but not bachelor parties, for bat mitzvahs but not bar mitzvahs.
In June 2007, Serena died suddenly of a pulmonary embolism. She had been scheduled to dance in Greenwich Village with her son's Middle Eastern band, Scott Wilson and Efendi, that very night. Her son and husband continue to carry on her passion for Middle Eastern music and dance. Serena's studio in New York continues to hold classes and provide dancers for performances.
Read more about this topic: Serena Wilson
Famous quotes containing the word years:
“I rather think the cinema will die. Look at the energy being exerted to revive it—yesterday it was color, today three dimensions. I don’t give it forty years more. Witness the decline of conversation. Only the Irish have remained incomparable conversationalists, maybe because technical progress has passed them by.”
—Orson Welles (1915–1984)
“As the twentieth century ends, commerce and culture are coming closer together. The distinction between life and art has been eroded by fifty years of enhanced communications, ever-improving reproduction technologies and increasing wealth.”
—Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)