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.