1998: Dinner Dance Delights

by Ruth

The dinner dance event was born, adding a touch of "Cairo nightclub" to the Festival.

The Midnight at the Oasis dinner dance was held at the Addison Rd Centre on the Friday night. For many audience members, this was the first time they had seen cabaret dancers in their "natural environment" - on the dancefloor with a live band performing for an audience seated at tables enjoying dinner. It proved a glittering night, with most attendees dressing the part, and featured performances by Shamira, Cait Delaney (daughter of Cynthia) and Amera.

Shamira not only gave a beautiful performance but also survived a marathon nine minute drum solo from the notorious Ghassan that had her wiping the sweat from her brow. Obviously Ghassan is a big Shamira fan, because he just wouldn't stop! And on top of that, he once again demonstrated his complete aversion to the conventional approach of playing the same rhythm four times in a row!! Fortunately, this was nothing that Shamira could not handle - she took in all in her stride magnificently.

During 1996, Amera had returned from her travels and bought half of Amera's Palace back from Leonie. The two of them ran the shop together until 1997, when Leonie decided it was time to give up retail and concentrate on her school and the Festival. Amera's shop and Leonie's school continued to share premises at 12 Enmore Rd. But late in 1997 this building was sold. Both moved down Enmore Rd to number 83, Amera in the shop downstairs and Leonie in her studio upstairs.

The new studio was one of the workshop venues (Friday and Saturday), along with Addison Rd Centre's Turkish Hut & Main Hall (Saturday) and The Edge (Sunday and Monday). On Sunday, while workshops were being conducted at The Edge at the south end of Newtown, the Bazaar was in full swing at Addison Rd some distance away. Leonie's main recollection of this Festival is running between venues.

Workshop teachers included Keti, Elenie, Shamira, Amera and Cynthia and guest Helen Ferris from NZ. Helen studied with the Hilal School, qualifying as a teacher, and toured with Hossam Ramzy before returning to NZ and opening her own school. Helen taught Taxim and Drum Solo with live musicians.

Above from left (click to enlarge): At the Midnight at the Oasis dinner - Shamira, Cait, revellers from the NSW Central Coast's Desert Flames, Elenie and a young fan.

Leonie took on a more pro-active role as Artistic Director of the Festival concert, held at the Main Hall of the Addison Rd Centre on Saturday night. For the first time Leonie created a theme for the show - Desert to Desert - and gave each of the performers a brief connected with that theme. The result, while perhaps not reaching the degree of professionalism that we are used to seeing today, was a far more cohesive show than its predecessors.

Leonie says that, looking back over all the concerts, Desert to Desert was her all-time favourite until it was surpassed by Orientalism in 2006. But Desert to Desert remains her sentimental favourite. Leonie loved that it had a theme, a story and a script, written by Ali Higson (now with Kush Cabaret) and performed largely by MC Maria Masselos, who invited us onto her magic carpet for a "desert to desert" tour of the world. The first draft of the original script is included in the documents below. Note the handwritten annotations and crossing-outs - the final draft was somewhat different.

Leonie's favourite performances on the night included Helen Ferris' Polynesian dances and the final number, Belly Dance Dreaming, by students of her own school with Koori dancer Terry Olsen. The cast included Jane (winner of 2003 Belly Dance Competition) in her first ever performance, and Koori belly dancer Mary Edwards. Things did not go entirely as planned though - Terry, who had opened the show, had spent the rest of the night in the audience and was enjoying the show so much he missed his cue and got there in time for the curtain call! Ever flexible, Leonie says that she simply superimposed him into the video of the night, and "it made a fabulous ending"!

The concert can be described as having a high "wacky factor", prompting one to speculate that there may be some correlation between this and the degree of fondness with which Leonie recalls the event. The main culprits in the wackiness included Cynthia Delaney and the Gypsy Flames with their life-size "Ahab the Arab" puppet, and Nabila and Kyle who played mummy and archaeologist in Act 1 and Elvis and Little Egypt respectively in Act 2. In fact, when pressed, Leonie nominates Nabila (Libby) as Elvis as the absolute highlight of her night - which is no doubt why she was invited to reprise Elvis in 2007.

Above from left (click to enlarge): Desert to Desert concert - Gypsy Flames as the Ouled Nail, Ghawazi from Sarah Hamilton's Raks Arbaa', Bellydance Dreaming curtain call with didg player Michael and Koori dancer Terry plus NMEDC dancers with Jane second from left.