“Baladi” means “a land”, “belonging to a land”. In that manner the Egyptian Baladi becomes “belonging to Egypt”.
Raks Baladi is a folklore style of the Middle East dance.
This style was danced before and is still danced now in many Egyptian villages, it was danced at home and for women.
The movement of this dance is mainly accented on haunches and the movements of arms are simple. Baladi is danced barefoot.
Baladi includes all Egyptian folklore styles, which has existed for a while now.
There are five main groups of Egyptian styles at present: the peasant’s dance, the fisher’s dance, the dance of Bedouins, Saidi (the region of Egypt) and Assuan ( the region of Egypt). Baladi doesn’t belong to any one group. On the contrary – it is all these groups together, it is Baladi!

The difference between Baladi and the other styles

Many movements of Baladi look like the movements of Raks Sharqi, as they have the same roots.
Baladi is playful and coquettish as a style. In difference from Raks Sharqi, which includes all scale of emotions, transmitted from dancer to spectator, Baladi seldom transmits deep senses. Baladi uses light leaps, but the poses and the basic movements aren’t saturated. In same cases you can see the other difference: Baladi is very close to a ground and the feet of dancer are seldom on half-toes. The deportment isn’t so formal and a body inclines more, than in Raks Sharqi.
The canonical Baladi has not very artificial movements and isn’t “academic”.

The music of Baladi

It is easy to be entangled in attempt to understand the difference between the folklore styles and Raks Sharqi, because there aren’t any characteristics to differ the music classic from the folklore music.
The music of Baladi in Cairo can differ or cannot differ from the music, used in provinces. Some composers and musicians detach the town-music as Shaab Baladi (it is meant the townish Baladi). This music is often more modern. It is very popular in Egypt, especially in Cairo and in Alexandria.
The music of Baladi is not only an instrumental accompaniment. Often in the composition takes place a play “a question – an answer” between instruments or between a singer and an instrument.