OMG... I'm having a flashback of a horrible South Beach night club I went to once. RIDICULOUS!
Hey Tia Serena, would this club happen to be Mango´s? A few months ago I went for a long weekend to Miami and was told that at this club they had belly dancing performances some times, but I went one night and they only had reggaeton, salsa and samba...
Oh my goodness... they could just as well get their brains removed right nowNow, unfortunately, Jessica Simpson appears to be a role model to many young girls.
What you do all think... would you rather them look to Jessica Simpson or Britney Spears?
Dear Group,
I am not sure what country this video was from. Judging from the way that various background people were dressed, it was either one of the more liberal countries in the Gulf, or it was Iraq.
Regards,
A'isha
I would say OMG to both those videos in the thread! At least the arab women are wearing some clothes.
A'isha,
I suspected either Oman or United Arab Emirates, but after seeing a man walking by wearing a dishdasha and ghotra, I weed out Oman. This is most probably somewhere in the United Arab Emirates, in one of the more rural village areas. There is no such thing as liberal countries in the gulf, in the end they are all bedouins and their lifestyles are similar. But the laws vary from country to country, with Saudi Arabia being the strictest.
A'isha writes- Well... Dubai is more liberal than Abu Dhabi, which is more liberal than Qatar or Saudi Arabia, Kuwait is in a class of "liberal" by itself!! Dubai is the Gulf playground and it is just as possible that this happened there. Dubia is a very different country from Qatar, and that is waht I meant by liberal. The Saudis, fir example, say that Dubai is more liberal than Saudi and that is why they go there to party.
My sister went to a wedding where there was m3alaya dancing, I wasn't born then. She told me during that time only the black khaleegis danced the m3alaya, not the Arabs....they covered their faces and danced with their butts, but it wasn't raunchy to this extent. She says only the extremely low class weddings do this, which explains why I've never seen this dancing before. I've only been to the type of khaleegi weddings where the bride's jewelry alone is worth a million dollars. The guests arrive, walk around in their designer dresses and stare at each other, no one dances... and if they do, is way different that this. Cameras are strictly not allowed. All weddings have police officers standing outside and they search your purse to make sure you don't have a camera. If you have a cameraphone on you, they'll hold on to it and give you a ticket. This is how most middle and upper class weddings run. If you notice in this video the women are sitting on the floor! This shows this is a very low class wedding party, that is most probably taking place in either Om El Guween or Ras El Khaimah. A friend of mine told me the m3alaya is mostly found there.
A'isha writes- An addendum to the wedding thing. Since even men have been known to try to sneak into weddings, those who are covered are sometimes asked to show their faces at the door if no one recognizes them from the way they walk or from their hands or some other clue. Weddings are very closely guarded affairs and this is just a security measure. There is a name for these wedding crashers, but I forget what it is.
And, those women sitting in the background all covered up could have been musicians and singers, if there was a portion of this party that would have traditional music and singing and dancing. they may or may not have been guests.
I don't see anything "liberal" about this dancing. I think a better way to describe it would be, uneducated. These are mostly people with very little education, it is no different than what goes on in some of the weddings in Egypt's poor neighbourhoods. I'm sure you've seen the prostitutes dancing on stage with Saad El Soghayer. It is different country, same concept. I also find this no different than belly dancing on youtube, where I've read comments about Suheir Zaki saying "this dancer is fat and slow... watch (insert name of tackiest belly dancer on you tube here), she is much better". When my mom and I were passing by a gallery of a talented painter a few month back, she said his paintings are something a 5 year old can do! My point is, it is difficult to appreciate something that you have very little knowledge about. I doubt if these people, whether it's those watching or the girls that are dancing, are educated enough or have any kind of knowledge about art.
Dear Gypsy,
Responses below in context.
A'isha writes- I am not even sure this was a wedding.
Dubai is the Gulf playground and it is just as possible that this happened there.
And note that the girls were NOT black, but clearly Arab.
Believe me when I tell you that you can see this kind of behavior among the more educated women of the Gulf countries as well. The only difference is they do not do it in front of men.... or I should probably say in front of the camera.
The Al-Ameri family is one example. The men in that family just hitting their thirties are the first generation of their Bedouin family to not live in the desert. They have come to the States and Europe to be educated in droves
From most of the El-Ameri that I have known, they would be pretty offended by this dancing.
The Al-Khaldi of Saudi Arabia are the same, and I can name several other large families of Bedouin that are very well educated, including the Al-Anizi from Kuwait, whose name alone lets you know they are hard-core Bedouin stock