To Understand Baladi is to feel the heart of Oriental Dance!

I have often been asked over the years to explain  Baladi ….

The word Baladi…also transliterated as..Beledi..Balady..etc…literally means ‘My Country’ yet refers to not only the country but also the village or region of origin. As people left their villages to go to cities for economic reasons, they still held  ’baladi’  in their heart.

Baladi is also a ‘Style’ of dance. It is the dance of the people. In Egypt, Baladi is the type of dancing you will find in village and urban weddings and parties. It is also classically part of the Raks Sharki show.

  The costume is usually a ‘dressy’ form of ‘Thobe’ or Gallabiyah’ which is the long straight robe with sleeves and often slits on both sides. A scarf or belt is worn over it at the hips. The variations on this theme are limitless and each one is beautiful and expressive of the ‘regional culture’ of the music and dancer. 

Here is a short clip of Egyptian Superstar FiFi Abdou doing a ‘Baladi’ section of her show in an outdoor venue in Ismallia Egypt. Fifi was known in the beginning of her career as a ‘Baladi’ Dancer or as often quoted, ” a dancer for the people”. In this show she comes out with the ‘malaya’ a heavy,usually black, wrap that is a prop used in ‘Malaya Leff ’ a  “street dance ‘ of Iskandaria ( Alexandria) Egypt….( you will see it on her exit) and then she picks up the cane (Assaya)…Just a taste of Baladi, Fifi style…

 Ahhh! Beautiful Fifi!

Then for a taste of the traditional in a balad (country) setting of Upper Egypt here are Metkal Kenawy with the Nile Musicians and the Dancer, Hala El Safy, doing a Balaise (Water Jug) Dance.  This is a a Perfect Picture of Costuming, Instruments and Dance in the Saiidi Style.

Wouldn’t we just love to be at that Hafla (party) ????!!!!!

Then just to show a contrast to the ‘Village’ Saiidi performance, here is a fun clip from an old Egyptian film that shows the Upper Egypt Saidi style Baladi  in an Egyptian Nightclub in the 1970′s. The dancer is Rabab. *Note, the Mizmar,the high pitched instrument at the begining and a key sound in Baladi.

I especially love this clip because it shows so many things about Egyptian Dance at that time, the 70′s. First of all the scene was set in a nightclub and you could see from the characters in the audience and the show itself how much more liberal Egypt was compared to today! Although the show was  Saiidi, complete with famous Nile musicians, Rabab’s costume, though traditional in nature had a very high slit. In the 60′s and 70′s lots of leg was shown in the costuming. Today it is mostly much more conservative, as was the older traditional costume.

This was just a short exploration in some of the styles of Egyptian Baladi…the movements of the dance, and general ‘feel’ or as now popularly referred to as ‘musicality’…will be a subject to be discussed later in a series devoted to movement.

There are as many variations of ‘Baladi Style’ dance as there are counties and regions of the Middle East. So, you might ask, is REAL  Baladi Style only Egyptian? The answer is a resounding ‘NO’, although this is often the perception.

And what of the other styles of Baladi Dance? That adventure is for another time…