Thread: Forgive my novicehood, but...Turkish...cane?

So there's raks assaya, and everything I have read about that is that it is non-negotiably Egyptian. Then, thanks to having read lots of Bhuz threads, I know a little about Lebanese cane dance. And that's what I know about cane: it's under the purview of Egyptian and Lebanese styles, and may show up in Vintage Orientale/AmCab performances.

But then I find this, with Reyhan:

REYHAN - YouTube

Which I think is just too saucy for words (although I think it could have done without the strobing lights and the smoke machine.) It looks like raks assaya, with a Turkish accent.

Then I found a clip of Prenses Banu doing the same thing:

Princess Banu, Cane Dance - YouTube

And that's about it, apart from a very brief clip of Melike dancing with a cane.

So, is this a Turkish thing I had not heard about or seen before (which is entirely possible)? Or is this individual dancers genre-crossing? Costuming and music choices (particularly with Prenses Banu) make me suspect the latter. But I'm too new at this to know, really.

Thoughts? Definitive answers?

Wow! Amazing find. If a student had asked me this morning about Turkish cane dance, i would have said I'd never heard of it.

Now I have. In both cases the music seems to be Arabic rather than Turkish, but not especially Saidi, really, and there's not much Saidi movement vocabulary going on here (like, if you took away the cane there's nothing about the dancing itself that says Saidi to me.) I'm not seeing any hallmarks of Lebanese canework that I'm familiar with -- seems like there's usually more vigorous twirling in Lebanese? -- but I have only a passing acquaintance with Lebanese style, so I can't be sure.

Both are doing a lot of step-lift step lift, bringing the cane to the hip, and some dancing around the cane, and a smidge of twirling. It almost seems like Reyhan might've seen the older clip & been inspired by that?

Originally Posted by Tiziri

Or is this individual dancers genre-crossing?

This. Nesrin Topkapi was known to dance with a cane, too, but it's taken from Egyptian styling. There is no Turkish tradition of cane dance.

Originally Posted by Lauren_

...In both cases the music seems to be Arabic rather than Turkish, but not especially Saidi, really, and there's not much Saidi movement vocabulary going on here (like, if you took away the cane there's nothing about the dancing itself that says Saidi to me.)

That's how it looked to me -- I noticed the Egyptian music, and the Turkish footwork combo...especially with the Prenses.

I'm not seeing any hallmarks of Lebanese canework that I'm familiar with -- seems like there's usually more vigorous twirling in Lebanese? -- but I have only a passing acquaintance with Lebanese style, so I can't be sure.

After watching the vids in the Lebanese-cane threads, I thought, "This isn't anywhere near that, is it; the Lebanese style seems almost aggressive, where this is flirty."

Originally Posted by Aslahan

This. Nesrin Topkapi was known to dance with a cane, too, but it's taken from Egyptian styling. There is no Turkish tradition of cane dance.

It really did look to me like an Egyptian pastiche. Thank you both for helping me suss this out; I suspected this was not some thing I should have known about and didn't, but just don't have enough knowledge to be sure!

I've always been told by my teachers, and it made sense to me, if a Turk is dancing with a cane, they are imitating Arabic tradition, there is no traditional Turkish cane dance. Some do it reasonably well, but I remember watching a few clips where things really seemed to go awry.

I have seen Serap Su doing a mean cane dance at the Kervansaray. I could ask her how / why she started doing it.
I talked about it shortly and she told me "my arm and my cane are one" and that's sure what it looked like

MEISSOUN

One of the reasons I have found it so hard to wrap my brain around Turkish style is that a lot of what they do is borrowed from Arabic dance/music.

So a simplistic "purist" mentality of thinking that Turkish belly dance is done to Turkish music using Turkish movements, Turkish steps and Turkish stylings while wearing a Turkish costume doesn't really work very well. (In contrast, this mentality does work reasonably well for Egyptian dance). In any case, it makes it hard to develop a gestalt understanding of Turkish style belly dance.

In the first clip- Reyhan- in the original post...what song is that?

Originally Posted by amarasdance

In the first clip- Reyhan- in the original post...what song is that?

I dunno -- I was digging it, myself; I'm a sucker for a a good pop song. Maybe someone else knows!

Originally Posted by ssipes

One of the reasons I have found it so hard to wrap my brain around Turkish style is that a lot of what they do is borrowed from Arabic dance/music.

So a simplistic "purist" mentality of thinking that Turkish belly dance is done to Turkish music using Turkish movements, Turkish steps and Turkish stylings while wearing a Turkish costume doesn't really work very well. (In contrast, this mentality does work reasonably well for Egyptian dance). In any case, it makes it hard to develop a gestalt understanding of Turkish style belly dance.

Yep, I'm finding that out -- and for me at least the elements that make me go "Oh, that dancer's Turkish, no doubt" are intangibles (unless there are obvious tells in music/costuming/etc.) It's getting easier to distinguish, because the dancer's "accent" tends to show up even when they're trying to be faithful to another form...but it's still hard to pinpoint the specifics of why. Does that make sense? (My 11-year-old is really getting good at picking out "that's a Turkish dancer...that one's Egyptian"...but she can't really frame exactly how she can tell and what gives it away.)

Alexandrian identified the Reyhan song as "Romeo" by Essam Karika over here I know I should know but......

Originally Posted by Tiziri

Yep, I'm finding that out -- and for me at least the elements that make me go "Oh, that dancer's Turkish, no doubt" are intangibles (unless there are obvious tells in music/costuming/etc.) It's getting easier to distinguish, because the dancer's "accent" tends to show up even when they're trying to be faithful to another form...but it's still hard to pinpoint the specifics of why. Does that make sense? (My 11-year-old is really getting good at picking out "that's a Turkish dancer...that one's Egyptian"...but she can't really frame exactly how she can tell and what gives it away.)

Not sure where you live, but in case you are within easy reach of D.C., Yasmin and Artemis have "Vive La Difference" in February, where they work towards solving that mystery of what makes Egyptian and Turkish similar and different - I find it interesting that even though both of them are experts on the topic, they continue to discover new things. I went last year and can highly reccommend it - https://www.facebook.com/events/268621863153801/ And, shameless plug, for something with a similar spirit, check out the event in my sig :-)

LetT me remind you that Traditional Turkish cabaret ended in the very late of 1980, when their dancers started to look for jobs in Arabic countries and mainly in Lebanon and Egypt. That is why they changed their style complitelly (sad) and borrowed some Egyptian technique including work with Eg. acce-rs. So, here we are: Turkish bdancers with Egyptian acc-rs. Things went so far that you can see bellydancers in Orient House dancing with a cane:( Many Turkish dancers worked in Lebanon in 1990th and influenced Lebanese dancers. I'm not sure about history of cane dance in Lebanon, but in a very few words: a cane isn't a traditional prop for Lebanon. Their dancers prefer to do dabke instead of a cane dance. But when they do it, the most dancers do it differently(in my memory Dani Boutros was only one, who was closer to Egyptian style of cane dance) Lebanese don't count when they work with a cane and they expreriment a lot with it. They obviously don't care about traditions of a cane dance. It is easy to see. The whole point is just to impress, as they do with other props. Once again, it comes from that fact that a cane dance isn't Lebanese. The same with Turkish. Simply said, if you wanna see a real cane, watch Egyptians:)