1999: Friends and Flavours
by Ruth
On the Festival's tenth birthday, the program evolved into the "modern" format and Leonie introduced Turkish Rom style belly dance to Australia.
Friends of the Festival
Leonie established the Friends of the Festival Club in 1999. Some of those who joined up right at the beginning have been with us ever since: Cynthia Delaney of Wollongong, Nayima Hassan of Adelaide, Maria Masselos of Brisbane and Sydney's Vicky Younis.
Cynthia, Nayima and Maria will be well-known to you - all are long-time Festival-goers and teachers who we love to have back again and again. Also see 1995 for more details of Cynthia's contribution to the Festival. But you may not know Vicky, although she's always been around behind the scenes. Vicky is a fan, never a dancer, and her love of belly dance led her to establish the former All Dance and Glitter Exchange in 2002 and to organise the 1st National Belly Dance Competition in Sydney in 2003.
A couple of years back, we gave all four Life Membership of the Friends Club. So, now, they will never escape our clutches! But seriously, we sincerely thank them for their past contributions and their ongoing support. We also thank all the members of the Friends club over the years - your support helps us to keep the Festival going.
The "modern" program consisted of four days of workshops at the Addison Rd Centre, a Friday night concert at Enmore Theatre, a Saturday night dinner dance, performances and shopping on Sunday and the first Teachers' Forum was held on the final day.
The addition of the Teachers Forum reflected the growth in the number of people teaching belly dance in Australia in the previous decade. As the dance became taught more widely, giving rise to issues relating to consistency and curriculum, there were increasing calls from the teaching community for an opportunity to meet to discuss and exchange ideas on issues such as standards, curriculum, technique and safe dance.
The Festival concert moved back to the newly-renovated Enmore Theatre for the Flavours of the World show. Performers included Terezka's Academy of Danse Orientale who managed to put a little taste of everything in Coffee, Nayima of Adelaide in her first Festival appearance doing shamadan for Saffron, the very tight Paroulas Greek Dancers in Oregano, Gintaras in his first Festival solo in Water, plus Maria Masselos and Elenie hamming it up in a fun Nubian number choreographed by Mahmoud Reda.
Seda Jurin (yes, she's Tanyeli's sister) taught a workshop on Turkish Rom style and performed at the Moon over Marrickville dinner. She gave a glamorous cabaret show, but she had a hard time of it when she tried to get our all-Arabic band to play Turkish gypsy rhythms. We salute her for even attempting it! Seda now calls Australia home, has her own dance troupe, and has developed her own dance-based workout program called SEDAdance. And you may have caught a glimpse of her in the Matrix sequel.
Above from left (click to enlarge): At the Moon over Marrickville dinner dance - Belyssa, Seda with the band and doing the washing Turkish Gypsy-style (Seda pics by Maureen Milroy), Leonie.
Other performers at Moon Over Marrickville included Belyssa, Leonie, Susu in black and gold, Keti in green, and Kyle, who got many 'wooos' from the crowd with his double stick act. At the end of her show, Belyssa grabbed Leonie, placed a chair in the middle of the dance floor and sat Leonie down on it, before leading a group 'thank you Leonie' dance which also involved Gintaras of Perth, Cynthia of Wollongong, and Elenie and Maria from Queensland.
Do you have any images of the Flavours of the World concert or the Moon over Marrickville dinner dance? If so, please contact us.
| Program Extract - Workshop Timetable 1999 |
|Colour Brochure - Front 1999 | Colour Brochure - Concert 1999 | Colour Brochure - Dinner 1999 |
| Video Cover - Concert 1999 | Video Cover - Dinner 1999 |
| Ticket - Moon over Marrickville Dinner |
Ticket - Workshop 1999 |
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