In an interview published in Al Ahram Weekly in 2016, Saleh commented: "My career as a dancer was very brief, followed by dynamic academic development. Things didn’t necessarily go the way I foresaw them but this is how it happens in life. Despite all the obstacles I experienced at the Academy and the new Cairo Opera, my intention was always to give back to Egypt even if the circumstances didn’t always make that possible. Though I might not be physically in Egypt, wherever I go, Egypt is certainly within me. Maybe it is a romantic way of looking at things, but it keeps me going.”
Born in 1944 to an Egyptian father, Ahmed Abdel-Ghaffar Saleh, a renowned academician and a trailblazer in agricultural education in Egypt, and a Scottish mother, young Magda'a fascination with ballet blossomed at a tender age.
She enrolled in the ballet section of the Alexandria Conservatory, overseen by a British artist from the Royal Academy of Dance, when her family relocated to Mediterranean city. She then earned a scholarship at the Arts Educational School, Tring, Hertfordshire, UK in 1956.
However a mere two months into her experience abroad, the Suez Crisis broke out and all Egyptians had to be repatriated.
At the same time, her British ballet instructor in Alexandria was expelled and Saleh was transferred to an Italian teacher who lived in Egypt.
In 1957, the Alexandria theatre received a visit by Moscow's world famous Moiseyev Dance Company (Theatre of Folk Art). Igor Alexandrovich Moiseyev took auditions the following year, and Saleh, along with 30 boys and girls, was accepted to pursue further education with the ballet master in Egypt a year later.
Saleh was among the first ballerinas to enrol at the newly established Ballet Academy (part of the Academy of Arts) and she was also one of the first five girls to be sent to Moscow for further training where they spent two years at the Bolshoi Ballet Academy, graduating in 1965.
Shortly afterwards, in 1966, that same group gave the inaugural performance of the Cairo Ballet Company, the Fountain of Bakhchisarai, where Saleh played Maria in a cast made up entirely of students of Cairo's first ballet school.
The young ballerina perfomed at the stage of the Khedivial Opera (1966-71) several times. Yet in 1971, at the peak of her successes, the Khedivial Opera burned down, severely impeding the development of Egypt's ballet company.
She continued her career at the Higher Institute of Ballet, where she became a professor and dean (1984-86). However, at this time there was no national ballet company present.
In 1979, she completed her PhD, entitled “A Documentation of the Ethnic Dance Traditions of the Arab Republic of Egypt” at New York University. During that stay, Saleh struck up a long-term friendship with Jack Josephson (1930-2022), the renowned art historian and authority on ancient Egyptian sculptures, whom she eventually married.
In 1987, Saleh was appointed the founding director of the new Cairo Opera House, helping to prepare the new institution, until it opened its doors in 1988.
In 1992, Saleh made New York her home away from home. Even if she retired from dance, she never gave up on Egypt, however.
Saleh was behind many concerts organised in New York's prestigious halls - the NY Public Library for the Performing Arts at the Lincoln Center in particular - featuring Egyptian artists, whom she supported throughout their careers outside the country.
In 2016, Saleh was featured in Hisham Abdel-Khalek's documentary A Footnote in Ballet History which looks into the history of Egypt's ballet and its first stars.
In 2018, Saleh was honored by the New York's Theatre, and afterward honoured again by Egypt in events celebrating her life and art.
Following passing of her husband in 2022, Saleh visited her family home in Cairo, where she stayed several weeks before passing away on 11 June 2023.
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