Is there a history behind dancing with a cane? My knowledge of lots of BD is not great, but just saw a clip of this & made me wonder what the history behind it is.
There's actually several different styles. In Egypt there is sa`iidi, beledi and ghawazee. You might also want to consider Reda a fourth style . There is also cane in Lebanese dance and khaleegy.
...
Lebanese cane tends to be much faster with lots of spins. Unlike Egyptian cane the grip seems to be in the whole hand
Khaleegy canes are smaller and are manipulated between the fingers. They are only used intermittently.
This one we got from Carolyn Evanoff who has been in Cairo for about 10 years (??) back in 2009. She was showing us the more modern versions of Khaleegi that are now popular (seems it is only Western belly dances who still do the old fashioned stuff with thobes etc). I think the cane, which was short and very thin, started off as a man's prop but is now accepted used by women. When I tried looking for Khaleegi and cane on Youtube all I got was some misinformed dancer doing sa`iidi with khaleegi music - quite different! There's a music video showing some men using it - Kaml Alzein Arabic UAE Song- ???? ??? ??????? ???? ????? - YouTubeOK, I know this post is from quite a while back and I don't know if the poster will see my question, but -- khaleeji cane? For real? I'm familiar with all the other cane styels and cane dancing in general is one of my "things," and I've learned a bit of khaleeji style from a few different teachers, but I've honestly never heard of cane in khaleeji. Do you know of any video clip examples? Or where I can find out more about it?