Between 1963 and 1971, Middle East Airlines sent its employees around the world to perform Lebanese folk dances. It was one way of expressing a stubborn determination the airline would soon come to show in another form: to keep flying, no matter what.
When Middle East Airlines danced
Salim Bou Harb was an electrical engineer at Middle East Airlines. Nidale Hamouche danced with the Rahbani Brothers’ folkloric troupe; she was still a teenager when her sister brought her into the airline to train a group of employees who had begun dancing together after work. He was in charge of the music recordings that accompanied the performances. She devised the choreography and led the dancing.
They married in 1971. That same year, the troupe came to an end. The photographs went with them.
Rowina Bou Harb, Salim and Nidale’s daughter, is an archivist at the Sursock Museum in Beirut. She grew up with those boxes. Her father died in April 2025; a few months later, she sat down with her mother and began going through the photographs. She puts it plainly: at first, it was a form of therapy. Only later did she realise what she had in front of her: a little-known story that deserved to be told.