Rania, Belly Dancer

Rania is a multi-award winning belly dancer who travels all over the world teaching and performing belly dance. Rania is mastered at both Turkish and Egyptian styles, and also performs Saidi, Khaleegy and Persian Dance, or with props such as Wings, Cane, Veil, Sword and Snake. Rania has over 16 Belly dance Videos/DVDs on the market today, and is author of the book, "Belly dancing for Fitness".

Every Middle Eastern rhythm has a name and often an entire history and social context as well. The name of some rhythms will give you a clue about their origins or social context, while other rhythm's histories come to us through word of mouth.

Saidi:

Saidi is based on three strong dums, enticing us with a single dum at the very start, and then driving us forward with two dums in the middle. You can imagine the first dum as the invitation to a party and the middle dums as the party in full swing, or the first dum as a call to battle and the middle dums are the battle joined. Saidi comes from the Said region of Egypt, also known as Upper Egypt - the 'i' ending indicates something from or to do with the Said. The Raqs al Tahtib or men's stick dance upon which the Raqs al Assaya or women's cane dance is based - originated in the Said, and it is easy to imagine a strong and lively Saidi rhythm accompanying the fierce and powerful movements of the dance's.

Khaleegy:

 is the Arabic term for the Gulf.  Keep in mind that khalige refers to all of the gulf states, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the Emirates, Yemen, Iraq, and geographically Iran. Consequently khalige (also spelled khaliji, khaligi, etc.) costume is really a large number of costumes.