The year was 1975. I was working five
to six nights a week with "Harem
Caravan," a slick Middle Eastern Dance
Review at the Ramada Inn in San
Diego. It featured three dancers and
three to four musicians. What I loved
most about this gig were the com-
pletely professional arrangements:
we had lights, a stage, a dressing room
and a regular pay check. The musicians
were good and they would rehearse
with us to work out whatever the
dancers had in mind to create on stage.

called Azmorani. It was there that I
first became familiar with the Egyptian
folkloric cane dance. It originated as a
peasant dance. Supposedly, the field
workers, while on break, would pluck
a reed from the banks of the Nile and
begin dancing with it.

instrument for it holds the same
amount of orifices as the human body.
Its musical expressiveness comes
through the breath, just as with all life.
The Sufis treasure the sound of the ney
as a call from God.

In my mind, the Pharaohs were into
many esoteric spiritual practices. I
could not help but notice that the reed
was also a stick or staff, perhaps a
symbol of rule and/or measure. Could
it be possible that the Egyptian peas-
ants were imitating the ruling class? Or
perhaps the esoteric origins might go
even further back to a sort of ancient
Egyptian "magic wand?"

So one day I decided to create my own
cane dance and a unique costume to go
with it for the Harem Caravan review.
Here was my inspiration. The cane or
reed is what Middle Eastern people
also use to make the end blown flute
called the ney. It is a soulful, ancient
instrument used in mystical practices.
It is said to represent the human

I had performed at an outdoor Byzan-
tine Festival that summer with a troupe