Thread: Banat Baharei lyrics and a question

I'm looking through some songs for an upcoming performance and was going through my Wash ya Wash collection and came across Banat Baharei. Does anyone know where I can find a translation of the lyrics? Tribe, bhuz and google searches have come up empty thusfar.

Also, it seems this is a melaya only song... is that true? If I used it, I wasn't planning on using a melaya would that be a faux pas?

I had this song translated--I don't think it would be fair to my translator to give her work away, but the gist of it is that the girls in Alexandria are the prettiest and the best in the whole world, more beautiful than houris.

Can't really answer your second question, but I've only seen the song done with meleya, so I suppose I personally would be surprised if a dancer did a non-meleya routine to it. But maybe you could do it without the meleya and still capture the same attitude.

Maybe it could be used for a non-melaya but still iskanderani style dance though. I'm not really clear on exactly what that is but I have a few folklore videos with scenes that seem to involve fishermen and mermaids and no melaya girls.

Hmmm... I think I'll just wait and use it as a melaya piece. I was definitely going to keep the general "vibe" one would have with a melaya, but just not in the dress/wrap and I wasn't so sure about how people would see it.

Thanks for the info Badriya and Nepenthe! :)