Classic Arabic music will always be popular with Arabic audiences and strangely enough, often with Turks and other Middle Easterners as well. Famous artists like Abdul Halim Hafiz, Farid El Atrache, Warda, Mohammed Abdul Wahab, Baligh Hamdi, Um Koulthum and a few others wrote and sang some of the most beautiful music ever heard in the Middle East. Um Koulthum in particular is revered almost like a Saint in the Arab world. These artists used full orchestrations and sang in classical Arabic with themes about love and loss and country and pride. A good arrangement meaningfully danced to will win over any Arabic audience. Some of these classics are upbeat some very slow and full deep meaning.

Om Koulthum in particular is known for some very soulful music. The dancer needs to know what the lyrics mean and allow her the vulnerability to relate those emotions through her dancing. This is very difficult because it requires both skill in the dancing a good understanding of the music and the ability to dig deep emotionally as a performer. It is a common mistake for a dancer to dance over a classic piece, acting happy, flirty or sexy when the lyrics are a very soulful yearning for a lost lover or love for one’s country or any mismatch of emotions to meaning. Some think this is where you find out if a dancer really knows how to dance or not, if she can dance to Om Koulthum.

Dancers rarely dance to the original recordings of these classics. The originals are often quite long; some pieces lasting around 45 minutes, also the original recordings aren’t always the highest quality. Dancers will usually dance to arrangements of these pieces made specifically for dancers, sometimes with a vocalist, sometimes without.

This would go somewhere in the middle of a dancer’s set. I tend to like it early on if it’s soulful, like right after the Oriental Entrance. If it is a more upbeat piece I might put it slightly later in the show, play finger cymbals and get people up to dance.