Fashion

[ECBG]

During warm months, on vacation I love caftans!

They are easier to wear than a robe that falls open or splits when you cross your legs.

The one I have been well washes fine, I hang to dry.

I ordered 1 for myself and one with bright red and other colors for my DIL to wear over her swim suit!

[Mz iMac]

I have quite a few Caftans.  Most I purchased in Africa.  Yes, they do wear & wash very well.

One is "sort of" dressy.  That's the one I wear when I am running around town.   The others I wear around the house, on vacations & especially when I am in Ocean City & Atlantic City.

No matter which ones I wear, I always get complements.

[Enufstuff]

@Mz iMac @ECBG  I love caftans and have been wearing them a lot since I retired 2 years ago and not going out much since Covid. They are so comfortable.

     I have two that are Joan Rivers and six that are Stan Herman.

One that I have is from Morocco. If they are not petites, I have to

shorten them a couple of inches.

     When I performed  in Middle Eastern Dance shows I would wear a caftan over my costume, when not onstage. All the dancers did that for modesty.

      Sometimes I like to wear my Egyptian and Middle Eastern

jewelry with my caftans at home.

   @ Mz iMac  Valide arrived today, I can't wait to start reading it.

[Mz iMac]

@Enufstuff  "When I performed  in Middle Eastern Dance shows"

  I envy you!  I can only do the right hip move.  That's it!   Do you still dance?  Do you do the "classical" dance?

I follow this male belly dancer Rachid Alexander on YouTube.  Here is my favorite video of him:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2fUbld3x9I

He was trained as an "oriental dancer" when he was a little boy.   He trained in Miami.  He's from the island of Curacao.  The control he has of his muscles are mesmerising!  

Where I use to live a neighbor of mine was from Turkey.  She told me that ancient Turkish female belly dancers were actually plump and/or very voluptuous.  Not skinny like they are today.  The fatter they were the more desirable.

The caftans I purchased in Africa I had to have hemmed. Hems dragged on the floor.   I even went down a size from medium to small.  I am 5'6.  The ones I purchased in the USofA, their lengths were perfect.

I am picking up the 2 books you recommended from B&N this Sunday.  The clerk called me today to tell me my book orders arrived this morning!

[Roscoe the Rascal]

When I was 16 or so  I got a caftan for Christmas.  It was a wild looking thing and when I opened it I thought to myself what the heck is this.    I was not thrilled but was grateful for the gift.  My sister who was older said oh you will love it.  I have one and wear it all the time.

My sister who I dearly miss sense my disappointment and the gift was from my mother.  But chin up and never disrespected a gift given to us kids.  We did not grow up with tons of gifts but Christmas was always great.  There were 7 of us so if you got two.each that was a lot of excitement around the tree.

Anyway ended up loving my caftan and I have two now.  I am assuming  the wild colors was more of an African influence back then.

Mine are for around the house and out on the deck or to my daughters house next door.  When I want to be comfy early but yet presentable if someone stops by.  Like the UPS guy with my deliveries..   Lol

[Enufstuff]

@Mz iMac   I always loved dancing and when I was in a Jazz class in my thirties, the instructor and owner of the dance studio

suggested that I join her Belly Dance class. I didn't do it right away. A couple of years later, I found myself a single mother of five children after being married for 21 years, now divorced.

    I was going to college for my Food Science degree and during my last year, I met a handsome young man who grew up in a

boarding school in Egypt and was now getting his degree in Civil Engineering in Boston.

   We dated for a year and he took me to a Middle Eastern Restaurant in Cambridge for Valentine's Day. They had dancers at the restaurant .  When I saw those dancers, I decided

that I would love to dance like that.

   So I went back to the dance studio and joined the Belly Dance class. I stayed with that studio for two years and did shows. The style was Greek dancing. After seeing other dancers performing in other venues in Boston and Cambridge,

I decided that I preferred the graceful,sinuous Egyptian style of dance to the bouncy Greek style.

   At a Lebanese Restaurant, it was Arabic night and they had a dance club. I watched a woman who was dancing so gracefully

and I commented to a friend. I found that she was a dance instructor and had a studio about 15 minutes from my home.

   I asked if I could join her class. I, my friend from the first studio and my daughter joined her classes. I also went to many workshops in the Boston area with professional dancers from Egypt & Lebanon. I learned from 7 different instructors, over

eight years. (My three daughters and I always loved dancing.They danced since they were three years old and one became a ballet instructor)

   After picking and choosing my favorite styles(there are many) from different instructors, I created my own style and choreographed my dances and made all my own costumes. (I still have them)

   My middle daughter and I danced together in one show. By that time, I was dancing at private parties in addition to the shows.

    I joined a studio where one of the best dancers in Boston gave classes. She was the last instructor that I had. One time she held a workshop at that restaurant in Cambridge where I first saw the dancers. The owner of the restaurant saw me dance and asked the intructor to asked  me if I would be interested in a job performing there. I was very flattered, but I

had to turn it down.

   First, I had a day job and my children at home and it was 40 minutes from home. Also, he had some of his dancers, step down from the stage and dance among the guests having dinner. The guests would stuff money into their costumes. I would not want strangers touching me.

  You are right about traditional dancers having a little weight on them. It was considered to be more attractive. In classes were a couple of girls in their 20's who were very thin (my daughter was one of them) and they just did not look that good performing.

  That instructor who danced so beautifully was tall, not thin and not overweight. She was 52 years old. She told us that older women with a little weight on them, were more attractive

and  were preferred  as dancers.

   After 5 children, I weighed 115 at 5'1". I was in my best shape, when I danced. It takes concentration for the isolations,

which are all the different movements that are being done, hands and arms, shoulders, abs, hips and footwork, while sometimes playing the zills and remembering the choreography. I loved veil work.

   I danced in my 30's and 40's. After I married my second husband at 45, I only danced at a few private parties. The next year I developed fibromyalgia and the pain from that pretty much stopped my dancing.

   Now, at 75 I listen to my old music and it makes me want to move. I can with limitations with arthritis in my knees. I do miss my dancing days. It was such fun. Costumes in the 80's were fabulous.

   I watched Rachid Alexander. He is amazing! His style is my preferred style. A traditional dance has a few separate parts: The entrance, then an intro and some travelling steps, then veil work (if used), slow rhumba like section, drum solo and then the ending. After so many years, I don't remember the Arabic names for each section. Danse Orientale, or Oriental Dance is

my style. On my business card is Middle Eastern Dance. I prefer that to Belly Dance. It just sounds a little more elegant.

   Rachid Alexander's drum solo is quite impressive. I could never do that for so long. My knees hurt just watching him. The shimmies and hip movements are all in the knees, like the hula. Skirts hide what the knees are doing. One of the best workshops that I participated in was taught by a male dancer from Egypt.

   In 1984 I dated a Rashid from Saudi Arabia. He was a little taller than I am and he looked just like Prince. He even wore his hair the same as Prince did then. He was cute. When we went out,people stared at him. Then he complained that he didn't like the attention. So I said, "Why do you wear your hair like Prince?"

   I'm really enjoying Valide. I finished chapter 4 last night, staying up reading until 1:30 a.m.  I hope that you enjoy your books.

[Mz iMac]

@Enufstuff 

What an interesting dancing journey you had/have.  I am so envious.

My dancing skills is hip-hop.  If I say so myself, I am still pretty good at it.  I only dance around family now so as not to embarresse my children.  The grands are still young enough to get a kick out it.  The oldest is 22 & is always showing me (through zoom) the latest dance moves as he keeps reminding me I am now too old to go "clubbing."  

[Enufstuff]

@Mz iMac  Maybe my post was too long , or something. A lot of it was missing at the end, so I just went back and edited to add some of it.

   Don't you miss those days of going out dancing? I loved getting dressed up and going to clubs when I became single in the 80's. Dancing was always such fun.

There were so many great clubs around Boston back then.

   You must be much younger than I am. My girls are in their 50's

and my boys are in their 40's. My oldest grandson is in his 30's

and my oldest great grand daughter is 11.

[CatsyCline]

@Enufstuff    you have had some interesting adventures!  was the Cambridge restaurant Averov's?   oh yes the dancers  came out from the stage  and danced around the tables.

I'm sure you remember the legendary Bishop's , the Lebanese restaurant in Lawrence - they had a lower level club...the Sultan's Den(?)  where belly dancers performed.  They served MiddleEastern fare and also were well-known for their Prime Rib and Lobster!   oh i loved the raw kibbeh!   and the Middle Eastern Sampler? 

i loved going clubbing too. loved to dance.  there was the Roxy and Landsdowne street had some great nightclubs thru the years. and Lucifer's - in Kenmore Sq. and later, Vincent's for Salsa.  miss those days...

[Enufstuff]

@CatsyCline   At The Averof  in Cambridge was the first time I saw the dancers. Salisa was the most talented dancer and also the girlfriend of the owner. We would go there for dinner and stay to see the show. That is where the owner asked if I wanted a job dancing. It was too far from home and I mentioned the other reasons I turned it down, in my other post.

     Sadly,The Averof closed and they opened another restaurant in Newton, called Karoum. I never went there. Another place we would go to was the Middle East in Cambridge. Some of my dancer friends danced there. The food was not as good as the Averof, but we would go to support our friends who were dancing that night. I believe that the Middle East is still in business.

       The first time I went to Bishop's, I was about 12 years old

and my father took the family for Sunday dinner. The food was wonderful. When I went there in the 80's we would go for dinner and one night a week, they had an Arabic band and dancing downstairs. That was where I met that beautiful dancer, Dorothea,

who was the one I asked to join her studio, and my daughter joined too.

     You are much more adventurous than I am. I have never tried raw kibbeh. When I was dating a Lebanese man in 1989,

he told me about raw kibbeh and I thought that it was not really safe to eat raw meat. I learned how to make baked kibbeh. In fact, I just made some a couple of weeks ago. I make a lot of Middle Eastern food.

    One time when Fadi(my Lebanese young man) and I were dancing at Bishop's, he goes "There's a guy from my village".

I was so surprised that he met up with someone from his village in Lebanon, dancing at Bishop's. He was surprised too.

    I was so disappointed when Bishop's closed. I loved their food and missed the dancing and the music. There was one drummer there who did the greatest dumbek solos.

    I never went to any of the clubs in Boston, that you mentioned. There was one in Kenmore Sq., but I can't remember the name of it. Lately, I'm having a hard time remembering the names of things, which is not like me at all.

  I'm wondering if it is a side affect of the statin that I am taking. I'll remember something later, when I'm not really thinking about it.

  There was another club in Boston. It was a name, maybe Jonathan's, I'm not sure. Also, we went to a club in Cambridge

and that name escapes me.

   One place I loved was The Palace in Malden. It had six dance clubs in it; each one a different theme and different music in each one. John Martin's Manor was a restaurant in Saugus that had a very nice dance club and I went there often.

  Chameleon in Lynn was a very big and popular club in the 80's and I loved going there.

  I was never much of a drinker, sometimes I would just have a ginger ale. I just loved the music and dancing. Sometimes my oldest daughter would go with me when she turned 21.

  It was such fun back then, when everyone dressed up.

Did you live on the Northshore? Was The Roxy, the club in Cambridge?