Gladiators in Southport, posted by Meroe

After all the medieval and Viking events we’ve had this year, the event on Saturday 12 September took us back to our roots in the Roman period.

We were thrilled to be asked to join our great friends Deva Victrix Legion XX, from Chester (or Deva in Roman speak!) for a special gladiator event at Connell Court Care Home in Southport.  We had a ball.

Meroe, Phoenece and Naima with the lovely ladies of Deva Victrix

Having been a bit worried by the weather forecast for the day we all gave a huge sigh of relief when the sun came out – the gods were clearly smiling on us.

Phoenece, Naima and Meroe did a short set of just two dances - the warm up act for the main event which was a number of scantily clad gladiators beating hell out of one another – but all great fun.  

Naima and Phoenece getting ready to dance

Naima and Meroe - just a few last minute adjustments!

Our audience was made up for the families and friends of the residents and they were all up for cheering on their favourite gladiator.

We did manage to get some of the staff and younger visitors up and dancing – one young lad in particular was very good.

Connell Court staff joining us as well as our "ace" dancer Alex.

We had just enough time to make a quick change from our Egyptian costumes in to our gladiator dancer outfits, while the head of the ludos (that’s the Roman name for a gladiator school) introduced his finest gladiators to the crowd.

These gladiator events are always quite moving because the oath that the gladiators make at the start of each show are the actual words that they would have used centuries ago …

“to be burnt by fire; to be bound in chains; to be beaten by iron; this I will endure!”

We then got to do our gladiator routine.  It’s been a while since we’ve done this so it seems appropriate to tell you a bit more about it.  The whole routine is to one of the tracks from the Gladiator film, and is done with veils – all very theatrical – but the idea being that the veils represent the souls of those, who may very well,  be about to die; looked after and held safe by the dancers. Each dancer offers a “favour” in the form of a coloured ribbon – one for each gladiator.  During the routine you can normally hear a pin drop and this event was no exception. 

Gladiator Dance (photo by Gill)

With our dancing done for the day we settled back with the rest of the crowd to enjoy the show.  The highlight was clearly a new recruit from the audience – the one who could really dance.  He was given a new name – something more fitting for a gladiator – Short Articus! He was pitted against the meanest looking one of the bunch Anti-Claus and certainly held his own.  You can check out how he got on by clicking this link  - Short Articus.

After show photo with some of the residents and staff

With the show at an end we chatted to the staff and residents and then returned to the 21st century.  Now we’ve been lucky enough to perform at a number of events who have looked after us well, but cups of tea on tap, a superb buffet – and yes that did include cake – for all the reennactors was over and above the call of duty, but very welcome.  So a big BIG ‘thank you’ to the staff at Connell Court; to all the residents and their family and friends, and especially Garry and Gill for inviting us to join them all.

Calling all Dancers – Ya Raqs is recruiting!

How many of you out there attend belly dance classes and LOVE it? Have you ever thought about joining a dance troupe so you can perform, in public, the dance that we all love? 

If you have, then this might just be for you.  Ya Raqs has been performing all over the UK for 10 years now and we love it too, and we are now looking for new members.  As those of you who follow our blog will know, we specialise in the folkloric styles of Egypt mainly, but there is a dash of Tunisian and a sprinkle of Moroccan too!  

Our Bedouin dancers in a show in East Grinstead, West Sussex

When we look back at where we have performed over the years it makes for a quite an impressive list – top of it has to be the Great Court at the British Museum, but not far behind we have the World Museum Liverpool, Rylands Library in Manchester; the amphitheatre and Grosvenor Museum in Chester, Lancaster, Carlisle, Stockport, Wellingborough, Godmanchester, Welwyn, Henley on Thames, Warrington, Northwich, Wrexham, Doncaster and even up on Hadrians Wall.  I could go on, but I think you get the gist.

Our Tunisian routine from a show in Henley on Thames

What Ya Raqs offers is more than just a performance team but also mini-me dress up for the children; workshops for all ages and abilities; real henna tattoos and wash off glitter tattoos in the style of henna for the children, all of which adds colour and fun to a wide range of events.  Everything from village fetes to charity events; birthday parties to corporate events.

Mini-me dancers at an event in Doncaster

Henna and glitter tattoos during an event in Caergwrle

Now the best bit – would you like to be part of this?  Have you got what it takes to be part of Ya Raqs?

We’ve got lots of ideas for a fabulous 2016 dance season including the introduction of a little bit of Turkish and just a hint of Algerian to add to our ever growing repertoire!  So we are looking for new dancers to join us.  Therefore if you have a love of folkloric style dance; if you enjoy performing and if you can commit to just one rehearsal a month then get in touch to find out more - yaraqs@hotmail.co.uk - we’d love to hear from you.

Warrington Medieval and Viking Market

So far this year we’ve had a medieval event down in sunny Wellingborough; a Viking event in even sunnier Godmanchester and now we've just had a Medieval AND Viking festival in Warrington – and for the record it was really sunny there too!

Billed as a Crusader Troupe, we joined the medieval knights and Viking hordes for Warrington’s Medieval and Viking Market.  It was a fantastic day.

After a quite early start we made our way to our site for the day.  This was an exciting moment for Ya Raqs because Meroe had spent the previous week beavering away with needle and thread and what felt like several hundred yards of chiffon, to turn a rather plain gazebo into a splendid new home for us. 

Our new "home from home"

All this because we were suddenly aware that our other tents – which require to use of guy-ropes and tent pegs - simply weren’t going to work on the paving slabs of Warrington town centre.  It all seemed to work really well – at least Naima and Phoenece certainly made themselves at home and settled right in to some drumming!

Naima and Phoenece settling in nicely!

Our brief for the day was busk, busk, busk.  So with our magic music box strapped on to a trolley we worked our way round market stalls of the town, weaving our way between mysterious knights in armour, the odd medieval nun (odd meaning on her own, not “odd” odd!) and Vikings who had somehow managed to park a mini-long ship right in the middle of the town centre!

Vikings arriving in style

Viking traders hard at work - this was the backdrop to one of our sets

Being a market there were of course shopping opportunities – I think the total haul for the day was a couple of necklaces, a ring, a bracelet, a bee shaped charm, several slices of delicious home-made cake and a fairy!  We certainly cannot be accused of failing to do our bit to keep the Medieval and Viking traders gainfully employed!  

Our day ended with an opportunity to dance with the wonderful band Serpentyne.  This is starting to become a very happy regular event. As any dancer will know, begin able to dance to live music is always very special and over recent years we have built up a very special relationship with the very talented members of Serpentyne.  The Ya Raqs ladies were certainly excited by the prospect. 

Naima, Phoenice and the thumbs-up from Kebi

So we settled down to watch and listen to the show and were very pleased to dance to some of the pieces and to get members of the audience up and dancing too.  Some were more enthusiastic than others.  Naima managed to pull a gentleman out of the audience who could do the most amazing back bends and certainly had all the right moves!

Naima with our fantastic mystery dancer - don't know who he was but he was great!

Meroe and Kebi enjoying the show

Meroe was feeling particularly pleased, because she had the opportunity of dancing to one of Serpentyne's latest pieces, called Game of Thrones.

All too soon the day came to an end and we had the challenge of packing away our new little home-from-home.  There was a certain amount of debate about which bit went in which bag in order to ensure that the next time we have to set up home it all goes smoothly! Still not convinced we got it right. We'll find out at our next event when we have to put the tent up again!

Aisha, Tameri, Kebi and Meroe - now which bit went where?

We should say a big 'Thank you' to Mark Olly for inviting us to join this event, which is now in its fifth year – it was a super event.  We had a great time and very much enjoyed meeting some great Medieval and Viking folk, not to mention the good folk of Warrington – we managed to henna and/or dance with quite a number of them!  We hope to see you all again very soon.  

And finally, a special thank you to the Mysticknight for allowing us to use some of his fabulous photographs of the event in this post.