Customer Reviews

Raks Sharki, Vol. 5: Stars of Casino Opera

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This is one of my favorite raks sharki albums! The music is that of the golden era (30's - 40's) of Egyptian music, and features the music of Mohamed Abdel Wahab, among others. The music is rich, complex, subtle, and ever-changing in tempo, rhythm, and emotion. The dance routines were composed in honor of dancers Samia Gamal and Tahiya Carioca. The track notes are very informative, and provide the names of the songs in the medleys.
Be aware that the music is all in 3 long tracks, each of which is a complete 20 or so minute routine.

This CD contains 3 complete belly dance routines. They are all great. This is probably not a good choice for a beginner belly dancer, as you must be prepared to dance for 18- 20 minutes. If you are an experienced dancer, these tracks are great for standard cabaret performance.

First off, ALL Jalilah's Raks Sharki albums are great quality and variety, so a beginning belly dancer could do way worse than buy them all to start an Arabic music library.
However, I especially like this one because the songs are long and varied.
May be a little tough for beginners to dance to, but if you feel you cant dance to the piece, just sit down and listen to gain appreciation of the nuances of the music.
This is beautiful music for listening and dancing!