Sirocco is a weekend-long dance fusion festival, which celebrates the meeting of East and West in dance and music. The event kicked off with a theatre show on the Friday evening, with performances by the weekend's teachers. Then there were two days of workshops, and a party on the Saturday night.
Pheonice, Meroe, Noor, Kebi and Amisi at the party
Between us we attended a range of workshops; including Baladi, Ghawazee and Zambra Mora dance styles, creating choreographies and dancing with a stick.
We also met up with our friend Nawarra, who organised our trip to Morocco last year, and who was teaching Khaleegee and Moroccan Shaabi workshops.
Amisi, Meroe, Kebi, Nawarra, Pheonice and Noor
Last but by no means least, several of us took a number of workshops with Karim Nagi, on his first teaching trip to the UK. His workshops covered a huge amount on the different rhythms and types of melodies used in Middle Eastern music, and we felt that they helped us a lot in understanding the music that we dance to.
Amisi, Kebi, Meroe, Pheonice and Noor with Karim
All in all a great weekend, and many thanks to Kebi for driving us all the way there and back.
