BALADI Baladi is an egyptian, improvised solo dance. Name Baladi means my country. This dance has few styles like solo accordion, progression, cabaret. The most important elements are the hip drops, lack of isolations and heavy, grounded feeling. The costume used for baladi is a long galabeya/baladi dress with narrow sleeves and sometimes a hip […]
HAGGALA Haggala is a happy dance style of Bedouins living in the Saharan oases. This dance focuses mainly on the work of the hips (tipical ¾ shimmy and twists). Haggala is a presentation of feminine pride and strength. In choreographies made by Mahmoud Reda are dancing female and male dancers – for male dancers characteristic are jumps and clapping […]
FELLAHI Fellahi is a joyful and vivacious dance of farmers from the northern Egypt, depicting their daily lives like harvesting or carrying water. The prop used in the style is a pitcher. Costume for fellahi dance consists of long, loose dresses with flowers and flounces, and a headscarf. A dancer may also have a scarf […]
ESKANDARANI Eskandarani or Iskandarani is an urban folklore from Alexandria, the port city in Egypt. Eskandarani outfit is quite unusual – it consists of a short dress to knees, with flounces, a headscarf with tassels or flowers and high heels. Eskandarani can be danced with a large black shawl called melaya – then the dance […]
SAIDI Saidi is a folk dance from the Upper Egypt region of Said. This style was introduced on stage by Mahmoud Reda. I mentioned the male version of this dance with the cane called tahtib in the previous post – saidi is it’s female version. It can also be danced with a cane made of […]
TAHTIB Tahtib is a folk Egyptian male dance called also a “stick/cane dance”. But first, tahtib was a fighting martial art from Upper Egypt – style of self-defense. The image of men fighting in this manner is in the Egyptian pyramids. Lately it evolved into a dance – imitation of a battle with a wooden […]