World Museum Liverpool, posted by Tameri

Ya Raqs were delighted to be invited to the wonderful World Museum in Liverpool for the second time this year.

Our plan on this visit was to take the audience on a little tour across North Africa; introducing them to the different costumes and dances as we went.

Day one started off in Tunisia and our first set gave us the opportunity to show off one of our favourite costumes and all our ornate jewellery.

Meroe, Phoenece, Mish Mish, Naima and Tameri in their Tunisian finery

We then moved on to a Moroccan dance. The scarves that we used in this dance inspired the Mini-me dancers from the crowd to join in. Scarves where twirled around like helicopters. I don’t think the Easter Island figure or dinosaur quite knew what to make of it!

Meroe leads the scarf dancers round the museum exhibits

For our second set of day one we moved up the Nile to Nubia to celebrate two weddings, which are, of course, are joyful occasions with lots of clapping and singing. This set was so well received that we repeated it on the Sunday but added in a solo from Meroe. It was nice to have a contrast of a traditional group dance with a modern solo routine. Meroe was able to use her beautiful Nubian costume that she had specially made for the Funoon wa Alwane show in Liverpool, which we’d taken part in earlier this year. It was certainly a hit with the museum crowds!

Tameri, Mish Mish and Meroe performing a traditional Nubian dance

Meroe performing her solo

Our third set saw us staying in Egypt with a Saaidi routine from Luxor, followed by a fun dance from the farming community of the Nile Delta. The dance mimicked winnowing and water collection, and we got to wear our colourful headscarves.

Meroe and Phoenece mimic winnowing, with Naima and Mish Mish behind them

We had planned to get the whole museum dancing to a Lebanese Debke at the end of this set, but it very rapidly became apparent that the Ya Raqs ladies are a lot fitter than your average museum goer! (It must be all of that cake!) Everyone started off brilliantly, but as the energy levels rose, testing folks’ stamina to the limits, it was only Ya Raqs, a few hardy youngsters, and one member of the museum staff who made it to the end of the dance - but it was a great try!

The Debke - towards the end!

For the final set of each day we headed to the nightclubs of to Cairo to let our hair down and to show off our more glamorous costumes finishing up with a free for all dance with the audience!

Naima, Tameri, Phoenece and Meroe show their glamorous side

We only did one workshop on the first day which went down really well – we certainly saw some very good mini-me dancers. The workshops are always a hit as they give the children a chance to dress up to look like little Egyptians. And of course there is always that promise of the now famous Ya Raqs Certificates!

This bought us to the end of a very successful day one with an audience of 490 – not bad, but could we top that on day two?

For the second day we decided to change things round a little, so stayed firmly in Egypt for the day’s performances. The first set was a Ghawazee set, and our costumes were based on those worn by the dancers from the nineteenth century around Luxor. This set led into the first of two workshops for the day. Both were very well attended and we even got some of the museum staff to join in. And in case you are wondering – yes they got certificates too!

All in all it was a wonderful weekend – and the time went so quickly. An excellent venue with a super audience who weren’t afraid to have a go. The atmosphere, the participation of the crowd, and the wonderfully vibrant energy bouncing off our mini-me dancers, who proudly went away with their certificates, meant that we all came away feeling quite elated!

Ya Raqs would like to say a big THANK YOU to the World Museum Liverpool staff for making us so welcome!

Oh! And if you are wondering whether or not we beat the audience total from day one – we did. We reached 580 on day two giving us a grand total of 1,070 for the weekend!

Ya Raqs get a dose of Baladi Blues, posted by Meroe

The end of July and some of the Ya Raqs girls had an event with a difference. Rather than us performing we were back at school - so to speak - with a fantastic seminar on the mysteries of Ashra Baladi with the amazingly talented Guy Schalom.

Guy Shalom

The Ya Raqs girls had joined Meroe’s regular Thursday dance class for a special class that had been arranged with Guy and one that didn’t involve any dancing! Guy gave a quick introduction to the main differences between classical and folkloric music, which included introducing the group to a range of musical instruments. He made us all work, there were lots of questions and that was just from Guy!

He then went on to talk about Ashra Baladi and explain how it is structured, in order to help us have a better understanding of how it’s performed. We starting off learning all about the improvised introduction called a taxim. Then he moved on to explaining how the melody was introduced and told us about a song from the late 1930s titled Aminti Billah, that is often used. Guy then got the group to do something that was totally unexpected. To make his point, and to help the group get the melody of this song, he got us all to sing it! Everyone was a bit hesitant at first, but we did it and it even sounded musical in places - or was that just wishful thinking on my part! Anyway, the singing certainly helped although the reason why some of the group were dancers and not singers became a little more evident, but………… well, let’s just leave it at that and say no more!

I won’t bore you my own account of what Ashra Baladi is, particularly when Guy explains it so much better – check out his website and click on the Workshops page. It was a brilliant and very informative evening and I think everyone in the group learned something new at this seminar.

If you get a chance to attend a workshop by Guy - do it - we had a great time and learned so much. And we got to buy a copy of his latest CD too!

Wellingborough Medieval Festival, posted by Meroe

The really busy summer season continued for Ya Raqs on the weekend of the 26th and 27th July with a trip to sunny Northamptonshire for Wellingborough’s Medieval Festival.

Now, we won’t bore you with yet more ice cream photographs – but rest assured we lived up to our reputation and not only was ice cream consumed on the journey to Wellingborough but so was cake, which meant our sugar levels were nicely topped up ready for what was going to be a very full and busy weekend.

The Medieval Festival is always one of our busiest events but somehow it never actually feels like hard work – it’s just great fun. We were staying at the Hind Hotel, which has a fascinating history and was – allegedly – where the generals met to discuss strategy before the battle of Naseby. Cromwell himself is reputed to have stayed there.

Phoenece in the Cromwell Room of the Hind Hotel

We set up our little home from home outside the 17th century tithe barn just behind the Hind Hotel, just like last year only this time we had neighbours! Some of these neighbours were more of a worry than others; in particular the Justicar (cue sinister sounding music!). We got in to a spot of trouble last year because our licence to dance clearly said we couldn’t dance on the Sabbath – but we did! Thankfully we weren’t caught, but this year Meroe made sure to apply for a full licence, just so we were properly covered!

The licence for Saturday AND Sunday

It was granted without too much trouble, which was a relief, but there was the suggestion that accusations of witchcraft might be flying around this year! This was a particular worry to us as our magic music box (aka our PA system) attracted a lot of attention last year – could this be construed as some kind of witchcraft? Well just to be safe Kebi somehow managed to convince the Justicar that the box wasn’t magic at all but simply contained a very small musician called Ahmed who was too shy to come out and talk to anyone!

Anyway, day one and we seem to be performing at spots all over town – when we weren’t dancing to our own music, we danced with some of the street entertainers including Squeak's Noyse, who we met last year. In between dance sets we managed to get what felt like most of the children of Wellingborough either dressed up as mini-me dancers, or covered in our new glitter tattoos!

Phoenece with trainee stick dancers

Meroe and Noor listening to Squeake's Noyse

Despite being so busy we still had time to make friends with some of Wellingborough’s four-legged beasties – including a wolf! Well not 100% wolf, but we were reliably informed that there was a certain amount of timber wolf DNA in there! Meroe really took a shine to her but couldn’t persuade the owners to part with her. Just as well really, otherwise poor Tameri would have to have sat on the roof of the car for the drive back home!

Meroe and the wolf

During the afternoon on both days we were very pleased to be performing with the amazing Serpentyne once again. Meroe performed two solo routines to tracks from their new album and the whole troupe danced to The Bramble And The Rose, which Meroe had choreographed for them. All the performances were very well received and we managed to get quite a number of people out of the audience to join in, including some of the medieval folk, once they’d recovered from the shock of the Ya Raqs girls showing their ankles - that’s a bit of a no-no in the medieval world!

Performing The Bramble And The Rose with Serpentyne

Audience participation

Our final set of each day was in the main arena in Croylands Park where we managed to put on one of our largest workshops of the year – the arena seemed to be full of children and knights!

Meroe teaching a knight to shimmy

Our treat on Saturday evening was a repeat visit to the Italian restaurant we fell in love with last year – La Rocca.

We had an amazing time in Wellingborough and our thanks go to David Smith for inviting us, to the good folk of Wellingborough for welcoming us so warmly, and to Serpentyne for the opportunity to dance to their amazing music once again. We hope to see you all again next year.