Last Saturday, I took a jaunt up to San Luis Obispo for the annual belly dance extravaganza, Tribal Fusion Faire (http://www.meddevi.com/tribalfusionfaire/). What, you may ask, was a classic-style belly dancer doing at a “tribal” event? Learning of course! Far from being a style-exclusive event, Tribal Fusion Faire tries to include something for all styles of belly dancer. Shopping, shows and an excellent lineup of top-notch instructors – what more could a girl want?
This year’s instructor lineup included Amel Tafsout, an internationally beloved specialist in the dances of North Africa (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Mauritania, Libya – also known as the Maghreb). Saturday afternoon, Amel taught a workshop on dancing to Rai music. I first discovered Rai when looking for new music to add to my repertoire. The music I found was fun, upbeat, and great to listen to; I never used it because I was unsure of the “rules” and cultural context of the music. This workshop was a great opportunity to learn more.
Amel’s teaching style was very easy to follow, natural and informative. I particularly appreciated her attention to sharing cultural information and context of the Rai style of music and its development and influences over time. We learned some general movements suitable for dancing to Rai, posture for the dance, and part of a choreography. Every student seemed to really enjoy the class and I think Amel inspired many to go out and seek further information. Being that learning more folk dances, is always on my “student list”, I felt the workshop was very worthwhile of my time and would even take it again were it offered at a festival I was attending.
When I wasn’t in class, I had the opportunity to watch some performances by bellydancers from Santa Maria, Monterey, SLO, Los Angeles – everywhere! I also had the chance to do some shopping. There was a dazzling array of vendors, but since I’d finished holiday shopping early, I was good and only picked up some adorable hair accessories from a lovely vendor whose name escapes me. My intuition tells me that my darling husband wouldn’t appreciate an additional gift if it were of the bedazzled variety.
Overall, I will say that even though I was only able to attend the festival for a brief time I enjoyed myself and am looking forward to next year. Thank you for all your hard work Wendy and everyone who helped plan Tribal Fusion Fair 2011!
—–
Mary is a professional Middle Eastern dance performer in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo. When she’s not dancing, she likes to pretend she can write CSS code and accidentally delete the comment feature on her website blog, much to her web consultant’s chagrin. Once we work through the technical challenges, they’ll be back! In the meantime, socialize with Mary on a platform where she can’t play with the coding – Twitter (www.twitter.com/maryraks) or Facebook (www.facebook.com/marybellydancer)
