Tarik Sultan

Okay, to answer you more directly. What we have to take into consideration is our particular body shapes. Most of us, myself included, do not have a very toned athletic frame. We may have more weight in the abs than we'd like and in my case, legs that are not very bulky. On the other hand, being painfully thin is also a problem. Your costume should compliment your frame and also facilitate and not get in the way of your movements.

While I think the eunuch comment was just plain.... well... you know. There is a point about not being locked into a certain look. Because we tend to be the only male dancers in our areas and because there is no institutional standard as to what we should wear, we've had to be creative. As I said before, you do have to take your audience into consideration. They may want something more conservative or flashy. You should be able to meet the customer's needs, just as ladies should always have a variety of costumes for the same reasons.

This is a compilation of different costume styles to give you all some ideas as to the many possibilities male dancers have to choose from. All these costume styles are masculine yet tasteful and theatrical. The first few are my own costumes.

This one is a vest sewn on a net shirt base. I wanted something that would conform to my body shape and not pull away. It zips up the back. You can see the bottom and back are cut on angles that give the illusion of a V shape. The upper back and chest also have V shape embroidery which draws the eyes outward with appliques that highlight the shoulders.


This is my typical vest costume. I fitted it on an angle so that it stays more in place even when my arms are raised. I got sick as a dog on this trip and was really bloated. It would have looked 10 times worse without the net. The sweat on my skin under those lights would have highlighted every bump and dimple in my stomach. The net hid a multitude of sins! you'll also notice that the belt is cut much narrower than a woman's belt which cups in the back. this is because as men, we have smaller butts and hips than most women. A wider belt would distort the natural contours and proportions. Also my fringe is much shorter for the same reason. Long fringe would draw a longer line in the body making me look like a bean pole.


This one is more of the traditional Ottoman style. It was custom made in Cairo by Redda el Hadidi whose family was in the business since Ottoman times. The vest was made slightly too long though. Sometimes I take the vest off and dance with the shirt, which still has nice embroidery on it. It still catches my moves although stomach rolls, which I don't do much of anyway would get lost. The belt I actually inherited from Morocco. Its a long scarf on a canvas backing, with multi layers of round beaded short fringe. Very heave, but moves well.


Not me, but gives me ideas. Nice shirt, shalwar and cumber-band type of belt. I think he's adorable!


Another kid. He has a nice jacket that is closed in front, with a hip scarf. Very nice and flattering.


Yamil from Argentina. Fitted body suit on top. Really shows the torso work without revealing skin.



Amir thaleb. This one has a jacket over an open front shirt


This one has a mesh shirt under the vest. Sometimes he dances without the jacket.


This is Samir also from Argentina wearing mesh shirt and flared jazz pants with cloth fringe hip scarf. If I had the legs, I'd wear them too. But since my legs aren't my greatest asset my eunuch pants will have to do. Maybe a pair of jeans with a nice cut or cargo pants that give the legs more bulk could be an option for us chicken legged guys. ;-)

da Sage

I thought most of their dancing was very simple, but it was also very well done.

I don't think a "showy" presentation is quite the same as showing off.

Pirika Repun

Hey Tarik!
I like man has small ass and chicken legs, I think nice and sexy

I saw Tito wearing just T-shirts and fitted jeans to dance before, and some reason he reminds me "Freddy Mercury” of “Queen” (UK’s legendary Rock band) Maybe Tito has big ass, and his leg is kind of big (yeah, compare to chicken legs…no offence to you Tarik) when he wears fit to his body shape jeans and t-shirts, he looks little bit feminine then usual. I guess if he wears little loose or buggy jeans maybe looks different. I think fitted jeans and t-shirts emphasize his body shape, and it doesn’t look good to me. Yes, I can see his move clearly with this outfit, but I like he wear costume.

BTW the boy with white shirts and pants is cute!

Mark_Balahadia

This video was VERY ODD. Tarik is right about the music choice...the song is leylet hob, a belly dance but they are dancing to it with dabke movements. Weird.

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khanjar

Tarik,

Well done, you came up trumps with the video representations of the different styles costuming for males can take, and you hinted on something else I had not considered. That thing was how a persons body shape might suit the costume style.

To be honest, as a male,I have never considered how a style of clothing might suit me, based upon my frame, I usually just wear what takes my fancy, (I wondered about the odd looks). Anyways, I see now thanks to your post that frame has to be considered in both performance wear and civvies if one is to look one's best.

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Dipali

Dear Forum,
I believe for the practice session or in classes jeans and a hipscarf is good enough. Thats what I was wearing the few classes that I have taken. Some pics attached, how it looks, its not the perfect as my model is very shy.Say hello to Andrew. Also you can actually make a top out of a hip wrap if you want to.

Attached Thumbnails

   

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jenc

Tito does NOT look feminine. That is just one kind of masculine body.

By the way, one thnig you might want to avoid is gathered tops (like the one in your picture?). Traditionally worn by small girls to look bigger - they could make people stare at your chest to see if you are taking hormones.

Caroline_afifi

Well I thought this thread may help me with my limited understanding of mens dance.
I am going to be very very honest here an say that the limited male dancing I have seen, including random youtube clips, bares little resemblance to the cultural male dancers I have seen. I have seen one or two clips of men dancing to classical belly dance pieces wearing very odd looking garments with some form of adapted belly dance style.

Tito I am afraid is the only person I have seen translate what I have seen in an informal seeting onto a stage and keep the similarities withpout adding too much from other dance styles. Most of it looks very adapted and stylised to me, unless it is the very straight folkloric styles.
Lots of whirling with hip drops is a fusion. Why do some fusions seem ok but not others? I have a 101 questions going through my head now.

Please help educate me here... I am totally confused.

PS I just checked out Tariks clips and became even more confused. (Just re-read this and realised what it says! I mean SOME in the cocktail of clips not Tarik himself!! spare my head from the block)
Dont get these styles at all. I would not have thought much about anyone of them only the comments about the 3 guys has confused me.
I still cannot see what what so different.
I feel I am having to apply a different set of dance knowledge to mens dance. If it is culturally based then I should not have to, right? sah wala la a??

I will corner my two fellow dance buddies this weekend Shafeek and Khaled and quiz the life out of them and I will blame this thread! lol

Tarik Sultan

If I can't I promise not to make it up.

As for the general comment. Well, understand that most dancers male or female have not learned the dance in its cultural context. They have only learned a set of movements, but not the soul which fuels those movements.
This is why there's so much non Middle Eastern stuff out there. Probably going back to the 60's, the dance was commercialized in ways that didn't relate to the culture, so people thought it was okay to use non tradition music, add in different moves etc.

There was a time when I myself was all technique and no personality because I thought the dance was all about moves. To be perfectly honest, this still happens at times if I'm stressed out or tired as was the case with the shish dance clip. But it's only been since I started going to Egypt more regularly and hanging with locals as versus night clubs, that I was able to see and understand the emotional quality that gives the dance its soul. Imagine the average person who hasn't. I feel that its just now that the greater dance world is beginning to understand what Egyptian dance really is, but now, thee are so many styles and of course this calling themselves real that are really not, (both by native and non natives), that people coming into the dance now are really confused.

With the guys in the clips. The ones in Argentina all have previous dance backgrounds and that shows. They all seem to have been mentored by Amir, who although is of Arab descent, learned the dance in Argentina like the rest of us would. He is of Lebanese extraction also, which may explain why his dancing doesn't have that Egyptian feeling to it. In any case though, it is well done and tasteful. Also you have to consider that non one created a professional style of the dance for men the way they did for women. Women's dance evolved in the nightclubs of CAiro, so there was a template created that was more or less copied through out the Middle East. There was an idea of what it should look like, intent etc. We didn't have that, so each male dancer has had to decide for himself what he want's to represent on stage. That is why there is such a wide range of approaches for us. We have no archetype to follow. Tito on the other hand grew up in the culture seeing men dance socially and understanding what it is. He also saw the professional female dancers and understood what he was seeing from the cultural perspective. Therefore, he combined the social dance men do, with the theatricality of the professional dancers and that's why it makes an aesthetic sense in an Egyptian context to your eyes.

Question? How do you find Khaled and Shafiq's dancing with regards to your comment above?

Tarik Sultan

I just wear a pair of jeans, cargo pants or sweats and a fitted tee shirt of some kind with a coin scarf. Gets the job done, no need to change before or after.