In ‘Ceremony’ Dexter Navy turns his lens towards equestrian rites across Egypt

In the late-afternoon haze of Luxor, dust shimmers like gold leaf as it rises from the galloping hooves of Arabian horses. Their riders, draped in flowing galabeyas and woven shawls, lean low, guiding their animals with an instinct that feels as established as the Nile itself. 

Amid the reverberations of flutes and the thrum of tribal drums, English-Egyptian photographer Dexter Navy found himself participating in a sacred drama, one steeped in the ageless Sufi mysticism, ancestral pride, and haunting memory of Egypt’s layered past.

Originally published in Dazed MENA Issue 02| Order Here

Shot across two equestrian events – the first in Luxor, the second in Beheira – Navy’s recent body of work is a visual hymn to the Egyptian spirit. These are not staged portraits or distant observations, but intimate glimpses of a culture where man and beast move as one, enacting rituals that bind them to their ancestors and to each other.

“The Arabian horse is a symbol of freedom and power,” reflects Navy. “I’ve always been obsessed with how ancient Egyptians used animals as metaphors. Shooting this project felt like tapping into that energy—symbols becoming real again.”

Held annually in February (the 2025 edition ran from 20 to 21 February), the Beheira Festival for Horse Dancing is a lesser-known gem among Egypt’s equestrian traditions, transforming open fields into poetic arenas where man and horse perform an art form without a perfect English name. The Arabic word adab in the festival’s title can mean ‘manners’, ‘literature’, or ‘discipline’. But here, it finds its truest expression as movement with grace, quite literally ‘horse dancing’.

These dances are not choreographed in the conventional sense, but they possess an undeniable musicality. Riders guide their horses in patterns that respond to the pulse of live music—flutes, tabla drums, the applause of a crowd. “The more energy the horses gave, the louder the music became,” recalls Navy. “It was like feedback between the animal and the sound. It was less about control and more about communion.” 

Music, in contexts like these, is often linked to Sufi rituals where it plays a central role in tuning the self to something deeper. Known as samaʿ (listening), these gatherings often feature poetry, singing, and instruments used to guide participants into a meditative, heightened state of awareness. Music becomes a way of expressing emotion that’s otherwise difficult to articulate.

It is hard not to draw parallels between Navy’s photographs and the reliefs of temple walls. Although, this is no exercise in nostalgia—rather, a revelation of continuity. The Mermah of Upper Egypt and the equestrian traditions of the moulids are not relics. They are living rituals, breathing through the 21st century. Indeed, Sheikh Abou Haggag’s shrine at Luxor is so viscerally a link between Egypt’s various periods that the Sufi master is entombed on the premises of an ancient Egyptian temple, which becomes the nexus of his moulid attended by the multitudes to this day.

Two days after Beheira, Navy followed the trail south to Luxor, the ancient city of Thebes, to witness another equestrian rite: the Mermah Sheikh Abou el Goumsan. From 22 to 23 February, the fields outside the city were alive with dust and drums, hosting one of the most charged events in Upper Egypt.

El-Mermah, a tradition tracing its roots to the Arab tribes that settled in Egypt centuries ago, is part pageantry, part martial game. Here, riders demonstrate mastery not only of horsemanship but also strategy, skill, and showmanship. Two riders gallop side by side, sometimes brandishing bamboo sticks or palm fronds, engaging in theatrical jousts or performing feats of agility such as picking objects off the ground without dismounting.

“It was raw,” asserts Navy. “No fences, no barriers. Just riders, horses, and people pressed against the edges of the field. The danger is part of the spectacle—but also part of the respect.”

El-Mermah, unlike the polished horse dancing of Beheira, carries a combative energy. Both, however, share the essence of adab—discipline, elegance, pride. And both act as living threads tying the present to a deeply rooted past. What unites these two events, despite their different tones and geographies, is their spiritual undertone. 

Though not overtly religious; they exist in a world shaped by Sufi ideas of transcendence and union. Here, the self must be trained – like the horse – through rhythm, ritual, and surrender, and this mystical parallel runs subtly through the imagery. Riders are not merely individuals, they are conduits. Their horses, not just animals, but extensions of will and emotion. 

In the mystic realm of Sufism, the horse is far more than a beast of burden. It is a symbol of raw desire and spiritual longing, like the ego before it has been brought under the spell of divine love. Jalal al-Din Rumi wrote, “You are the rider, and your body is the horse. Train it to go where you will, not where it wants.” The horse, in Sufi thought, is thus the self in all its fierce intensity—a force that must be guided, not crushed, if the seeker is to gallop towards the Beloved.

These themes echo through centuries of Sufi literature, where the journey to God often feels like a charged pursuit. In Ibn Arabi’s mystical visions, the horse is sometimes divine transport, recalling Buraq, the luminous steed that carried Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) through the heavens on the Night Journey. The horse is the lover and the flame, the body, and the path—a reminder that surrender isn’t weakness, but the beginning of a wilder, deeper freedom.

“There’s this feeling that horse and rider become one,” says Navy. “It’s not just physical mastery. It’s spiritual. You see it in the way they move, the way they breathe together. It’s a coming together. People gather not just to watch horses, but to be part of something, too. There’s this synchronicity. The way the horses move, the way the band matches their rhythm is electric.”

The horses themselves, often adorned in embroidered saddles and bridles gleaming with silver, seem to know they are being watched. Their steps are almost choreographed. For Navy, the Beheira experience was transformative.

“There was this moment when the horses started to move faster, and the band picked up the pace in sync—it felt like the energy of the place was in control, not the people,” he recalls. Navy’s project, incidentally, is as biographical as it is photographic. The son of an English mother and an Egyptian father from Basyoun, he grew up between worlds. His visual language – refined in London – finds unexpected harmony, here, in Egypt’s ancient heartlands.

“Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been riding horses in the countryside of Egypt,” he reveals. “There’s something about it that always felt like freedom. This project is a continuation of that—part of a bigger plan to explore my culture through film and photography.”

But if this is self-discovery, it is generously offered. Navy’s images do not privilege the foreign eye, and they attempt to avoid the usual Orientalist tropes. His riders are not exoticised. They are dignified. They are fierce and joyful.

The traditions captured in Navy’s work, especially El-Mermah, exist in a delicate tension between endurance and change. Once informal games played in open fields, such events now draw tourists from the Gulf and beyond. Tents are set up weeks in advance, vendors arrive with sweets and saddles alike. Yet the essence remains—one of dust, competition, rhythm, and ritual.

As Egypt modernises and urbanisation stretches its limbs, traditions like these are both threatened and reimagined. Through Navy’s lens, they are also archived, not as fossilised pasts, but as living, evolving memories. “There’s this stereotype that tradition is static, but what I saw is the opposite,” Navy explains. “It is fluid, it adapts. And it teaches you about the land, about pride, about grace under pressure.”

Navy’s lens often lingers on quiet moments, the brush of a hand across a horse’s flank, a rider crouched in thought, fervent onlookers gazing with pride. These are the afterimages of devotion—proof that somewhere in Egypt’s dust and din, something sacred has continued to gallop on through the epochs.

Originally published in Dazed MENA Issue 02| Order Here

Executive production LOTTI PROJECTS, executive producer MATHILDE CARLOTTI, local production SNAP14, producer NADIA EL-DASHER, production coordinator YAHYA ELHELALY, photo assistant DINA EL SAWI