The museum was packed with visitors as well as re-enactors of all kinds – Romans, Vikings and Medieval knights. There were demonstrations of weaving and flint knapping, musicians, knights with their hawks, even Mesopotamians with a remarkable replica of the golden lyre from Ur. And last, but by no means least, the dancers of Ya Raqs, who treated the museum’s visitors to three different dance displays over the course of each of the two days.
Phoenece, Aisha and Meroe, in their Tunisian costumes, attempt to outshine the Golden Lyre. Photograph courtesy of Andy Lowings
Our first set of each day was Tunisian, which gave us an opportunity to get out all the bling that we have been collecting. The show was divided into two halves – the first was an explanation of the costume and this gave a member of the audience a chance to get dressed up as a Tunisian dancer. On the first day it was a little girl who would have been drowned by the four yards of fabric that make up the costume, so she just wore all the jewellery and the head-dress. On the second day, our volunteer was a little older and a little taller so could wear the full costume. The museum staff all seemed quite impressed that we managed to get a sizeable audience for this show – normally the first show of the day is very quiet, but not this time. News that the Ya Raqs girls were in town had clearly got round!
The second performance on both days called for a change of costume and a change of style – Bedouin – and a chance for us to try out two new routines, which went down really well. On the Sunday we tried something a little different and rather than just dance all four dances straight through, we encouraged the audience to get up and dance with us for the final dance of the show.
The third performance was yet another costume change, this time into our Ghawazee coats for another full set. By this third performance word had spread and we were dancing to almost a full house! Once again we had the audience dancing in the aisles with us at the end of this performance. To be honest, the audience for all three shows on both days were amazing – they clapped, they cheered, we’d even taught them the zaghereet – it makes such a difference to have an audience that joins in.
By the time we’d had our final photo call of the day, which followed each performance, it was 2:30 and we had finished the “official” part of our time at the museum, but the event itself didn’t actually finish until 4:00. Anyone who knows the Ya Raqs girls know that they never pass up a chance to dance if they can absolutely help it, so what did we do? Yes, you guessed it – have portable PA will travel, and we busked our way around the museum galleries for the rest of the afternoon. We did a set in the Egyptian gallery; one outside the aquarium, and at 3:30 on both days Aisha managed to sweet-talk one of the knights in to allowing us access to their arena in the atrium so we could put on one final impromptu performance, just to finish off each day.
Tameri, Mish-Mish, Aisha, Phoenece and Meroe on the steps of the museum
The girls danced their socks off and by the end of the weekend we were all shattered. No fewer than eight mini shows during the course of the two days, as well as some busking; that comes to a grand total of about 24 dances – no wonder we ached all over.
It was a wonderful way to start off our 2012 season and our thanks go to Gina Couch from World Museum Liverpool for inviting us to join in with their event, and also to Adam Gledhill who was our tech-guy in the Treasure House theatre. Adam made sure the music was nice and loud; the theatre was packed with an enthusiastic audience for every performance, and provided us with lighting that was so flattering, it made it look like we’d all been airbrushed – for that alone we will love Adam forever!
No comments:
Post a Comment