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Bellydance Plus! Photo Gallery

Leyla Lanty!

Part 1: Egyptian Folk Style

Leyla Lanty is a long-time dancer who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She specializes in the Egyptian style of dance. This article is Part 1 of 2 photo galleries featuring Leyla. This page shows her Egyptian folkloric costumes, and Part 2 shows her Egyptian Oriental style of costumes.

A Colorful Folkloric Dress

In this photo, Leyla is dancing in a black baladi dress with vertical stripes of multicolor metallic threads and gold sequins and beads and long, voluminous triangular sleeves. Photo by Marcia Morris Conklin, one of Leyla's dear friends.

This costume is a baladi dress, so named because of its association with folk dances of the country people. When used as an adjective in Arabic, "baladi" can be translated as "country" or "of the folk". Leyla wears this dress when she's going to dance in the style of people who live in the southern part of Egypt around Luxor known as "The Sa-id". The costume is similar to one type of everyday woman's dress, but adapted for the stage with diaphanous fabric, a lower neckline, open seams on the sides of the skirt and considerably more embellishment.

Here's how Leyla describes this costume:

"In 1994, in Cairo, Egypt, this costume caught my eye and then almost jumped off the rack onto my body. I bought it from its designer, Mahmoud Abd el Ghaffar, at his atelier El Wikalah in the old market area of the city known as Khan el Khalili.

"I especially like this style of costume because it presents a smooth line, with the emphasis on the vertical, which is beneficial for me because I am just under 5 feet 4 inches tall. This one caught my attention because of the use of colors and gold beading as well as the sumptuous sleeves. I keep on wearing it because of the many compliments I receive on how good I look in it every time!"

The Green Hagallah Dress

One day when Leyla was performing at an outdoor show, an anonymous audience member shot a whole roll of film of Leyla and each of the other performers. When the show was over, he gave the film to the dancers! Here are the photos he took of her performing in her hagallah dress.

Another creation of Amira of Pharonics of Egypt in Cairo, Egypt, this costume is based on a folkloric costume from the western desert area of Egypt, around the town of Mersa Matrouh.

The original folkloric style is made of opaque fabric with a wide ruffle around the hips made of contrasting opaque fabric.

Leyla's dress is the stage or nightclub version which would be worn for doing the dance of that region of Egypt. Working with a foreign costume maker can be interesting, because often they make assumptions based on their local knowledge, and even if we know about those assumptions, we don't always remember to tell them the stylistic differences we want for performing in our own settings!

Green Hagallah Dress

Here's what happened when Leyla ordered this costume:

"In Egypt, dancers, with the exception of big stars, must keep any slits in the skirts of their costume either at or below knee-level. When I put in the order for this costume at the Cairo atelier, I forgot to remind them that I wanted the slits in the skirt at the side seams above the knee for use in America. By the time I realized that they'd made it for use in Cairo, it was too late to have it redone. So this is one of my most 'demure' costumes."

This photo shows how Leyla's hagallah dress looks from the back.

Red Melaya Leff Dress

This playful ensemble was another creation from Mahmoud el Ghaffar at his atelier "El Wikalah" in Cairo. This dress was designed specifically to be used for the malaya leff dance, a saucy, sassy, "street" dance from Alexandria. The malaya leff is really the name for the very large rectangular black veil which the dancer wears completely wrapped around her body over the dress when she enters the stage. As she dances, she takes one end and then the other off and twirls it around, drapes it over one shoulder or arm and then the other, and so on. It's the dance of a young lady who, under the guise of "going out shopping" is out looking for men with whom she can flirt and maybe marry.

Here's how Leyla describes the dress:

"This dress is 'off the rack' except for the bodice. It fit my hips and my height, but the bodice was too small. 'No problem', they simply opened the side seams, removing sequins and beads as necessary, inserted a gusset, then added back the decoration plus an extra flower or partial flower as needed."

Although Leyla no longer has this particular dress, she still considers it a flattering style for nearly every body type, including hers. So, given that she felt it was flattering, why doesn't she have it any more? Here is her story!

"Immediately after buying the dress, I arranged for a private lesson with Raqia Hassan, one of Cairo's top teachers, to learn malaya leff. It was a lot of fun to learn, but after returning to the States, I found the extremely saucy style of this dance, often including gum chewing and some extra large moves, to be not very comfortable for me. It just wasn't my style. That was obvious in the puzzled looks on audience members' faces each time I tried to perform it. I've since sold it to someone who can handle the style much better than I."

The Sparkly Paillette Dress

This dress was designed and made by Mahmoud Abd el Ghaffar at his atelier "El Wikalah" in Cairo. It is a stage version of the everyday dress of most Egyptian women, the gallabeya, a type of caftan. It's a T-shaped dress with a large triangular scarf tied around the hips and a matching triangular scarf tied around the head. Leyla uses it for performing a folkloric "country" style of dance.

Here's what Leyla has to say about this dress:

"At Mahmoud's atelier, I saw a model for this dress on a hanger on the wall. I fell in love with it even though it was in a color that was definitely not for me. I ordered it in blue with multicolored paillettes.

"Showing his attention to quality, Mahmoud specified that even a simple T-shaped dress must be made to my measure. So, his tailor, a very sweet woman who really knows her craft, immediately whipped out her tape measure so she would be able to cut it as close as possible on the first try. A couple of days later, I returned at the appointed time for the fitting. The chiffon dress fit perfectly.

"After another couple of days, I returned to find it had been transformed into a dazzlingly sparkly paillette dress for dancing. She had also made two matching scarves for my hips and head. This is a style of costume which I think would be flattering to any type of figure."

Red Hagallah Dress

This dress was designed and crafted by Mahmoud el Ghaffar at his atelier "El Wikalah" in Cairo. The photo was taken by Leyla's dear friend Marcia Morris Conklin.

Another Cairo costume from Leyla's collection, this hagallah dress is a stage version of a traditional dance dress from the western desert area of Egypt. This one is a slightly modified version of the black and green hagallah dress shown in Part 1 of this article.

Leyla wears this dress for folkloric style dance, which often includes dancing with the cane. In Middle Eastern tradition, a cane is considered part of traditional masculine garb. A woman wouldn't use a cane for any purpose other than assisting her in walking if she were unable to walk without it. A woman dancing with a cane is saying "I can dance with this masculine item in public!" It is a sassy and flirtatious dance.

If you enjoyed this photo gallery, please see Part 2 for more photos of Leyla Lanty and her wardrobe of costumes for Egyptian-style dance. Or, return to the Photo Galleries menu to see other dancers modeling some of their favorite costumes.