Thread: Cane to a baladi piece?

Hello!

Looking for enlightment again. I have been asking way too many questions lately...

Anyway, I was wondering if it is appropriate to do a cane dance to a baladi piece, or when is it appropriate? Would you do it to an Egyptian audience? And not a Saidi baladi, but something like taht il shibak or alike without that Saidi flavor.

I have been having this discussion but there is not much I can say about it so I am hoping you can explain to me a bit better this relationship between baladi and cane.

Thanks again and again!

As far as I know, cane is almost always done to baladi music--either Saidi or more traditional sha'abi music for Egyptian dance, and debke for Lebanese. I don't think there is anything culturally wrong with using "Taht al-shibbak" as far as Egyptians are concerned, but within the dance community, it is not usually danced to with a cane.

Thanks!!! I always thought it had to be a saidi or a ghawazee piece for the cane to come out on stage (for Egyptian style cane).

Are there any other opinions out there?

Or videos?

There's an example of baladi cane in Ranya Renee's baladi DVD set.

:) Thanks! That will take me a while to find though...any good examples on youtube?

You may have to manually cut and paste the links because the format has changed since the upgrade and the old embedding doesn't work anymore, but there are lots of clips in old threads.

http://www.bhuz.com/showthread.php?3...uTube-playlist
http://www.bhuz.com/showthread.php?4...-s-Raks-Assaya
http://www.bhuz.com/showthread.php?4...di-Raks-Assaya

Horacio just performed cane (tahtib? whatever the straight cane is called) to a baladi when he visited San Francisco. It was stunning.

As ever, you need to be aware of the lyrics of whatever song you are using, to make sure it makes sense for a cane to be added to the dance. For example, I was watching a video of a UK showcase once, with Nadia Hamdi, and we watched someone dancing a Sa'aidi cane dance, and the very first comment Nadia made was that it should have been a waterpot dance, because the song was all about going to the river for water.

That doesn't necessarily mean that the song *has* to contain a reference to the stick, just that it doesn't say anything that makes using a stick look stupid!

I know what you mean :)

Thanks for the videos!!! I will go check them out.

Originally Posted by NisreenBrooklyn

There's an example of baladi cane in Ranya Renee's baladi DVD set.

yeup, she talks about the men's style of the baladi progression using cane. i think fifi abdou has some great examples of this on youtube.

As I have been overquoting myself about this subject:

"The prop does NOT make the dance!" So pleace talk about the style when you talk about the dance. Not that I'm making a cane dance. So which style???????

In Egyptian style there are several folkloric styles where there can be cane or those can be danced without the cane also. Saidi, Ghawazee, Simsimeya, Bedouin, Baladi are all of those. The most important think is that you DANCE within the style - the steps, feeling, expresions are different - even the cane might have to be different in some styles. And just add the cane to emphasize the dance. In male style of Tahtib there should be cane. The whole point is about the staged fight. Tahtib is style of dance. The cane straight cane is just basic male cane.

So to the question in the hand. Yes it's ok to do balady with a cane. Just keep the dance as balady and add there cane work with same feeling. I might not want to whirl it a lot as balady is more in the place, taking your time and restfull dance. If you'll use some balady song like Taht Il Shibbak, there is more activity happening in the song so I might play with the cane a little bit more compared to balady progression.

Outi

Yes Outi, I see what you mean and it makes lots of sense. Thanks for clarifying that. I do not think I could do a cane piece to a baladi any time soon since I still, even after watching videos, cannot wrap my head around it. I know of other styles of doing cane but I am proficient only on Saidi style. I really want to learn Lebanese style too and I have been following the recent threads on the topic. But I still cannot imagine holding a cane to a baladi :) It is almost shocking to me (I might be over reacting, but it is!). I am very glad I found out about it though! I am sure I will get to do it at some point.

Thanks!

Last weekend I danced with a live band, mostly Lebanese musicians, and asked for something baladi. "Oh, you are going to do cane?" I was asked in response. So some bands/audiences will expect cane with baladi. (as it happened, I was going to play sagat, thank you very much )