Thread: Help! Baladi with a mixed class.

I need some guidance on this one. I had planned on doing a sassy little baladi with one of my classes and then found out I have a male student in my class. Now I'm not so sure how to incorporate him into the choreography or what song to pick.

Is there an appropriate baladi song where I could give him a role or make it a bit theatrical or that would be more appropriate for a man to be dancing with women to? A lot of the songs I've thought about just won't quite work...

Any help would be so appreciated.

Mahmoud Reda's "Robabekya" had a Saidi piece where the men and women alternated dancing. For that matter, you could probably adapt some of the interplay from a Melaya Leff duet. I think the important thing would be to preserve the male student's gender and not have him doing the same moves as the women throughout the song.

Or, you just teach what you had intended to teach and let the whole class understand that a dancer needs a range of expression - both male and female - to appropriately understand the energy investment in the music and how that affects movement.

:) He probably doesn't want to be singled out and have to do different things than the rest of the class because he's a guy.

It depends on the choreography. I'm not saying that men don't use the same movement vocabulary, only that when the OP said it was a "sassy little baladi," I was assuming she meant it was heavy on the flirting. Male and female flirting can be the same thing (looks or winking), or they can be totally different (biceps flexing or turning your sleeve into a face veil). I think if you want to go with a flirty style, it would look better to play it up like a group of girls trying to get a guy's attention, unless, of course, the guy isn't comfortable in that role.

Everyone could still be doing essentially the same choreography, but I think it can come across as strange to an audience when a male dancer is treated like "just one of the girls." Being male isn't a disability that has to be hidden in the back row or glossed over. (Chances are his costuming may set him apart anyway.) I see it as a different circumstance from having, say, a female student with a physical limitation who wanted to be inconspicuous because she was self conscious about not being able to perform things at the same level as the others in the troupe. If the male student is ready to take on the challenge, isn't it important to ask if he wants to step forward and demonstrate that men can do this dance, too?

If your male student doesn't want to "solo," another option might be to break the performers up into groups, and arrange the routine so that he and the others in his group are wearing/doing something slightly different. That way, he and his routine-mates set apart enough to honor his distinctness without his being forced into a solitary role. It's my personal preference, but I just don't like the look of the cheerleader-line-plus-one-guy.

Right, but I no longer feel comfortable doing the flirty thing I had planned (for reasons that I cannot go into publicly) so I'm looking for a song that would allow me to have him dance as a man but with the ladies.

To clarify, what are some great baladi songs that would be appropriate for both a man and woman to dance to?

we need ranya renee for this lol
send her a pm see if she has any advice

I like Saad, but I think he tends to be more bawdy than some of the other easily purchased artists. Maybe something by Ameena or Hakim? If you get too far off the beaten dance path, it may be difficult for your students to buy the music, so I'm assuming you want to stay in the Amazon- or HMC-orderable range, and that limits you quite a bit. OTOH, Amazon and HMC don't carry a lot of music that is blatantly inappropriate for dancing, so you have a little bit of a safeguard.

I don't know whether you are looking for sha'abi or if you want updated folkloric that isn't full-tilt, hardcore-ethnic Saidi. Just about anything that has romantic lyrics is going to be a little strange if you have a mixed-class performing chorus-line style, so maybe you would want to consider an instrumental?

Thanks Tourbeau - not looking to do sha'abi, pop, or saidi so no hakim/saad/ameena.

Instrumental is fine but I want this to be some serious home-styled baladi

Originally Posted by anyadance

not looking to do sha'abi, pop, or saidi so no hakim/saad/ameena.

Instrumental is fine but I want this to be some serious home-styled baladi

In that case, I am confused as to what you consider "baladi." If you do not think of "serious home-styled" music as including sha'abi and Saidi styles, what kind of music do you mean? Do you want an accordion progression?

Originally Posted by Tourbeau

In that case, I am confused as to what you consider "baladi." If you do not think of "serious home-styled" music as including sha'abi and Saidi styles, what kind of music do you mean? Do you want an accordion progression?

For clarification
http://www.bhuz.com/forum/music-trad...ifference.html

Specifically

http://www.bhuz.com/forum/398382-post30.html

I went back to this post to provide examples of what I mean. I am not looking for a baladi taqsim progression but more along the lines of fatme serhan or hoda sinbati

Shems also made an excellent post about this providing youtube examples

Shaabi
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=66B4F2E8DABD9EFE]YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]

Baladi
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=052482A759E429D7]YouTube - Broadcast Yourself.[/ame]

I am familiar with that thread, however I see it as a lot of unnecessary confusion and hair splitting when Arabs themselves do not tend to get so hung up on which is which, or even how much of a distinction exists. One of my teachers is a native Middle Easterner and she finds the whole discussion baffling. "Baladi" means "country" in Arabic, and that is kind of the end of the argument to her. "Baladi" might be referring to an earthy, unpretentious, simple style of behavior or music, or it might be in contrast to "urban," and consequently referring to something that dancers might think of as "Saidi" or "Fellahi" in a contemporary context. "Sha'abi" to her is simply the way that people who are "just folks" do music and dance. It isn't overly planned or sophisticated, and it can be very emotional. "Sha'abi" means "popular" or "public," so it also carries some of the same meanings as the English word "vulgar," particularly in that it relates to "the common people." Because the Arabic word has become associated in the dance community with songs that often contain content that is "vulgar" as in "indecent" or "inappropriate for polite company," it seems there a has been a convergence on the opinion that "sha'abi" is different from "baladi" because it is "dirtier," when apparently that association isn't always made in Arabic. When an untrained partygoer heads for the dance floor to bust a move, they would be doing "sha'abi" or "baladi" dance, regardless of the music being played.

The whole discussion becomes like trying to force American country music into little boxes. Lynyrd Skynyrd was "southern fried rock" when they came out, but a guy from Michigan decided to sample their record, and now it is played on country-format radio stations. How can Hank Williams and Taylor Swift and Ricky Scaggs all be playing "country" music? Is Johnny Cash "alternative rock" if he is singing a Nine Inch Nails song? What is Woody Guthrie? Where does "country" end and "folk" start, or is "folk" a type of "country" music? At some point, it becomes like arguing whether magenta is more pink or purple.

Originally Posted by anyadance

I am not looking for a baladi taqsim progression but more along the lines of fatme serhan or hoda sinbati

Then you've answered your own question. Both of them have worked with Dina, and both have CDs available for the dance market. Lyrics should be widely available to help you figure out appropriateness.

I totally appreciate your information and perspective, I was simply looking for additional artists along the lines of hoda sinbati and fatme serhan.

Originally Posted by anyadance

I totally appreciate your information and perspective, I was simply looking for additional artists along the lines of hoda sinbati and fatme serhan.

I don't have any suggestions for artists or song titles -- I tend to go straight to Fatme for baladi! - but I wonder if your original flirty choreo could be saved?

What if the dance was the same, but you invite the male dancer to make substitutions for certain moves or gestures? Or leave things very open-ended by asking all the dancers to, say, travel left for 16 counts, then 4 counts of flirtatious gestures toward the audience (or staged chitchat amongst themselves. Hmmm.. not sure i'm communicating well, but I always enjoy what I get out of my dancers when i leave in open-ended bits for them and just show them a few examples of the kinds of things I'm looking for.

Or, if open-ended doesn't work, maybe work with the male student to accommodate where he feels necessary. I might say 'the phrase ends with step ball change bounce kick, where the kick will be a very feminine girly little kick to the back, looking over the shoulder. Mike, should we adapt that kick for you in some way so you don't look like you've just been frightened by a mouse, or are you comfortable with it? Maybe you could bring your foot forward and do more of a Saidi kick on the beat instead? Feel free to adapt as we go along, I trust your ideas. If you need help ask me.'

Anya, I sent you an actual email to your email address in regards to this...

Originally Posted by anyadance

I totally appreciate your information and perspective, I was simply looking for additional artists along the lines of hoda sinbati and fatme serhan.

That's what I was confused about. If you had posed the question, "Which artists have a style similar to Fatme Serhan or Hoda Sinbati?", I'd have still answered with singers like Ameena, Hakim, and Saad (although perhaps not so much the incarnations of those singers under Miles Copeland's tutelage, where productions values are considerably more slick than on their non-MC recordings). At any rate, they have all recorded in that same unpretentious, raw vocal style with traditional melodies and rhythms, and often featuring mawaal.

As dancers we get very attached to labels, and we are trying to make sense out of something foreign to us, and sometimes we get a bit carried away. Words like "baladi" and "sha'abi" are more like abstract concepts than precise ideas. Their meanings shift depending on the context. It really isn't any different than how "country," "down home," "good ol' boy," and "redneck" can all mean the same thing or very different things in English, depending the person doing the talking and what they are talking about. If someone from Tennessee says, "Ted Nugent may have been born a yankee, but he's a redneck at heart!", it's meant as a compliment. If Jon Stewart makes the identical statement, it's an insult. How would you go about sorting that out if you weren't a native to the US? You can't. You just try to develop the best intuition you can, and roll with the ambiguity.

The way Anya is using the terms is pretty standard in the US. You're right of course, we have to be more rigid and precise in our labeling than a native Egyptian does, for exactly the reasons you describe. To us, those terms are meaningless if they're used fluidly because we lack the depth of nuance.

May I suggest you start a spinoff thread to discuss the use of those terms? Then your insistence on discussing the matter might be welcome and won't be interpreted as browbeating a poster who's looking for help with a specific situation that's only marginally related to your issue.

Originally Posted by Lauren_

The way Anya is using the terms is pretty standard in the US.

If the terms were that standardized, Bhuz wouldn't have so many threads devoted to trying to sort out the confusion! I'm not trying to browbeat anyone, only explain a miscommunication about recommendations I made up thread to the OP's request for suggestions.

Originally Posted by Lauren_

May I suggest you start a spinoff thread to discuss the use of those terms? Then your insistence on discussing the matter might be welcome and won't be interpreted as browbeating a poster who's looking for help with a specific situation that's only marginally related to your issue.

Seconded. While I agree that the distinction between "baladi" and "sha'abi" is more a difference of degree than of kind, this discussion is becoming really OT to what the original poster needs.

Anya, what about the song Eddalla Ala Kefak? There's a fun version on Judy Jihan Reda's Egyptian Cabaret Music CD. There's also a version on Hossam Ramzy's El Sultaan CD, but I don't like it because there's no vocals. It's also too trumpety, as I recall.

Originally Posted by anyadance

I need some guidance on this one. I had planned on doing a sassy little baladi with one of my classes and then found out I have a male student in my class. Now I'm not so sure how to incorporate him into the choreography or what song to pick.

Kinda up to you, him, and your respective philosophies and comfort levels.

Male Student, Now What?

YMMV as I've seemingly stirred up a hornet's nest on this subject over on GS...