Tribal Ford
May 2005
Review by Adrienne
Mananan's Travelling Circus,
Some words from a wide mouthed frog!
So the ladies from Hediya were on their travels again and this trip found three of us ‘trouping’off to Ford Castle in Northumberland for 3 days of Tribal Belly dance.
To say that the trip had been eagerly anticipated would be a serious understatement – the costumes have been made, the hair braids purchased and the tassels, well, what ever the verb would be for tassels – tasselated?
With a week to go, the programme arrives and what are the girls to do – so many classes, only so much energy! An immediate favourite was the session on Saturday morning for ‘Dancing with props” – in plain English, sword dancing!
As careful travellers, we didn’t expect to just turn up at the airport and get through security, so we dutifully ‘phoned ahead and confirmed all would be acceptable………..to cut a lengthy story short – don’t do it, ever – end of lecture!
Ford Castle is a stunning venue, with beautiful pale wood panelling and varnished floors through out. The gardens made it worthwhile getting up 15 minutes early to get some fresh air.
Classes
Friday evening...
We did a Skirt Dancing Session with Haven. This wonderfully flirty session was designed to make maximum use of a 10 yard skirt and included both Salsa and Flamenco moves.
Sam’s Tribal Fusion for Solo’s was an amazing introduction to the Director of Domba! and Boom Boom Bollywood. Basically, are you scared of performing before an audience? Well here was a session to teach you to scare the audience right back!
Saturday morning...
After a wonderful breakfast we began the day with a choice of warm up sessions, being brave and believing that we have strong constitutions we chose the Bhangra warm up with Sam from Boom Boom Hollywood and Domba! What a session, which was not a warm up, it was a melt down! Boom Boom Bollywood dance predominantly the male style of Bhangra Dance and there is a lot of jumping and hopping to get all those moves in.
After a necessary coffee break we were of to Dawn O’Brien’s props workshop, this was a lengthy session on dancing with swords by request of all attendees and a shorter session on tribal veil. Tribal veil is bolder than the veil we are used to in oriental dance. Watch out for Dawn, she is keen to come to the Island and we would highly recommend her classes to anyone.
After lunch, we choose the Tribal Bollywood class with Boom Boom Hollywood again – spotting a trend? All we can say is wow! Gotta find the films, the CD’s anything to learn more!
The second afternoon session saw Catherine taking a ‘finger veil’ workshop, which involves pinning the veil securely to your head and attaching the end of the veils to your hands with elastic. Sharon and the frog opted to attend Dawns makeup and turban tying session. Catherine, to her credit then went onto do a Gypsy dance workshop, (which we had all signed up for) Sharon and the frog retreated to the Souk and then the showers before the rush started for the Hafla.
Ah, the Hafla. 100 gorgeous Tribal dancers in their finery, with marvellous entertainment and great food.
Sunday morning...
This found many students taking the option to remain in bed, but Mananan’s Travelling Circus were up and ready to go, Catherine and Sharon opted for a gentle yoga based warm up with the Frog catching up on the Gypsy Dance class missed on Saturday afternoon.
The second morning session was also the group dividing their time over 2 classes with the frog and Sharon opting for a last session of Domba! On transitions and cues and Catherine increasing her knowledge of Gypsy Dance.
At 12 noon, we had to drag ourselves away to catch our flights, missing unfortunately the class photograph and the last session of classes – we so wanted to try candle dancing!
What a marvellous event, no wonder it is fully booked so soon, we are all hoping to go again next year and we recommend anyone who has ever fancied going to ‘give it a go’ you won’t regret it.