2006: Concert Triumph!

by Ruth

2006 saw one of the best Festival concerts ever and was the year we farewelled the Addison Rd Centre venue.

By 2006 many of the Addison Rd Centre venues previously rented for the Festival had been leased out on a permanent basis to different organisations and were either no longer available or had to be rented through the new lessee and not through the Centre management. This made it necessary to deal with four different organisations to rent the workshop venues. As such the organisational degree of difficulty peaked in 2006. On top of this, one venue was withdrawn at the very last minute requiring much juggling. That, coupled with the fact that the Festival had now outgrown the facilities at Addison Rd, meant that it was time to move on in 2007.

Workshop attendance continued to be high in 2006. Favourite workshops included Lalita's Dance of the Bollywood Chorus Girl, Shiva's Stick and Nayima's Egyptian Veil Choreography to Set EL Hosen. Festival guest Rahma Haddad of Canada's Interpreting the Instruments workshop received high praise. The following year Rahma sent us one of her students - the beautiful Narmaya - for which we remain grateful (see 2007). The popularity of tribal style in recent years led to the addition of a second tribal workshop to the program - Hilary taught ATS Basics for tribal newcomers and Devi taught Improvisational Choreography for the experienced ATS dancers.

Above from left (click to enlarge): Backstage at the concert - King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba, King's Guard Shiva (centre) with Queen's Guards Donna (left) and Ileana (right), the Turkish Delights as Ladies of the Court can't help but take the mickey out of their 'ladies' role, UrbanTurban before farewelling the Queen on her journey, Terezka's group SAH HRA before welcoming the Queen to the Caravan Saray with Terezka (centre left) and Jamal (front).

Queen of Sheba Speaks ...

When asked for her recollections of playing the Queen of Sheba, Alexandra laughs as she admits that to this day her friends won't let her live it down - they are always referring to her as "Her Highness" and making comments such as "well, she is the Queen of Sheba you know"!

And Alexandra's friends were not the only ones - she says that her "handmaidens" Rose and Alma amused themselves throughout that Festival and the next by bowing on approach and referring to her as "My Queen"! Nevertheless Alexandra remains very honoured to have had two of WA's most stunning dancers amongst her slaves!

Alexandra recalls some anxious moments on the day of the performance. She had been up late the night before finishing sewing her costume, a task made that much more difficult because she had cracked a rib some weeks before and was still in pain and unable to properly relax. She had been having physio and in the last visit the therapist had put Chinese cups on her side, resulting in large round black and blue marks which were still visible on the day! Heavy make-up was required on the area to disguise the bruising. Alexandra says that her injury meant that her dancing was somewhat restricted, but we saw no evidence of that in her lovely performance. It did aid her in maintaining her regal Queenly bearing however, as she couldn't slump or slouch even a little without great discomfort!

The Orientalism concert proved to be a very special event. Inspired by Edmund Poynter's painting The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, which is in the Art Gallery of NSW, the concert portrayed Sheba's journey to Jerusalem and culminated in her entourage's arrival at King Solomon's court and her meeting with the King, ending in a tableau that recreated the portrait.

To achieve this, Leonie assigned the roles and left it to the dancers and choreographers to come up with something that fulfilled her brief. The Queen of Sheba was played by Alexandra of Desert Flame (Central Coast) with her friend Charles Richmond in the role of King Solomon. Her partner, whose surname really is King, would have played the role himself but was overseas at the time of the show thus depriving us of the opportunity to make amusing quips about nominative determinism!

King Solomon's wives were played by Amera, Shamira and Josefina. Shiva was the King's Guard and Alma and Rose were the Queen's Fan Bearers complete with peacock fans. Silk Caravan and the Turkish Delights were Ladies of the Court. All the performers rose to the occasion, no doubt sensing that they were part of something wonderful.

There was universal agreement that Orientalism was one of Leonie's most inspired creations and it was the talk of the Festival over the following days. Good as it was, however, it was not without it's little hitches! Hilary recalls her Camel Woman piece with horror. She writes: "The short story is that I wanted to do something totally different and figured stilts were the way to go. So I only had them for about two weeks before the night of the show and I had pitched the idea to Leonie a lot earlier than that and she was really cool about it. I was SO nervous that I had bail before the end of my performance because I was going to throw up onstage, which left a long hideous gap in the show. Ack!"

And I well remember that when Shiva's music began for his King's Guard number, there was no Shiva ... the music stopped and began again ... still no Shiva. I had to do a mad dash from the back of the theatre to the dressing room to find out what was going on. Turns out that Leonie had copied the wrong track from the CD Shiva had provided and the music playing was not what he had planned to dance to! Ever the professional, he pulled an alternative CD out of his bag and, after I had done an even madder dash back to the sound guy, he danced to that instead. I haven't run that fast before or since, and in my haste I nearly took out the Queen of Sheba and entourage who were assembling in the foyer to make their grand entrance to the Court of King Solomon down the theatre aisle!

The Bellywood Boogie Ball dinner dance featured Rahma and Seda and an impromptu drum solo by Elenie as she rekindled her historic rivalry with Ghassan (see 2003).

The morning Bellydance Showcase and afternoon Bellydance Competition were held for the second year on the Sunday. The Showcase was overflowing with applicants but the Competition entrants were comparatively thin on the ground which led to the decision to discontinue the Competition in 2007 in favour of a full day Showcase. Nevertheless the Competition displayed some lovely dancing and was won by Raylee of Sydney in the Soloist Category and tribal duet Black Diamond in the Ensembles and Troupes category.

Above from left (click to enlarge): At the Bellywood Boogie Ball - Seda, Elenie and Ghassan, Rahma, crowds on the dancefloor. At the Souk - Tarek's stall.