Good morning friends, next I will speak to you about my passion, the dance of the feet barefoot. In the first post I briefly talk about their origin and benefits; Today I will comment on the "Baladi".

  Oriental dance, in Arabic Raks sharqi رقص شرقي, when we talk about dance and its music we must first refer to Raks baladi رقص بلدي (dance of the people) is a very elemental dance, with movements mainly of hips that are danced especially in Cairo. It is the most classical and typical dance that takes its name from the musical piece that the inspection and which has as a base rhythm a maqsum (4/4) or a masmoudi (8/4).

  Most of the dancers do not study music, but we have our ears well educated, we learn to recognize the different rhythms according to the cadence of the derbake, here a brief explanation of how to understand a bit the rhythmology, from the point of view of a dancer:

  The word "báladi" in Arabic means "my land" or "my country", and refers to the "people" or to all the "popular" and traditional, as well as the dance performed by the women of the villages when they moved to large cities like Cairo to work. When we speak of báladi we refer to a piece of music, which begins with a taksim, which is the only one of a melodic instrument. The most common is the accordion, but it could also be a violin, a nay (flute) or a kanun (instrument with many strings), or any melodic instrument. Then comes what is called Awwadi, that is, introduction, where the melody enters into a dialogue with the percussion, for me it is the most beautiful part of these pieces (one plays, the other responds ...). In this dialogue the rest of the instruments that will accompany the melodic instrument and the percussion are introduced, adorning them to give them greater importance; thus the piece begins to have strength and more melodies are added and the percussion begins to play more with the ornaments or accompaniments. To finish, the melody closes and everything ends in a solo table, or a very predominant part of the very cheerful derby that we call "Fiesta" contrasting a lot with the beginning of the piece, until you reach the end of the piece at the pleasure of the author or the performing orchestra.

  Now we will talk about the costumes of a dancer Raqs Baladi. The most common suit is the galabeya, which is a kind of tunic that covers the dancer to the feet, with a handkerchief or belt on the hips. The most traditional galabeya is preferred for folkloric performances, they are very simple. While the galabeyas used for more cabaret style performances are made of an elastic and shiny material, decorated with fringes and pearls. Or you can even interpret it with a one-piece or two-piece suit, if it's a more modern style.

  Here you can see, some models, make sure they adapt to the style they are going to dance: