Despite the fact that it's supposed to be summer, we seem to be having the most schizophrenic June ever! More like April with lovely sun one minute and torrential rain the next!
Saturday I was due to teach a taster workshop at the Peace Festival, and everything went well- except the weather! Fortunately we were in a very nice marquee so it didn't really disturb us, but the sound of the rain was so loud we almost couldn't hear the music! The workshop went well, but my CD player kept jumping on the tracks and cutting out, which was a pain, but otherwise people seemed to enjoy it...hopefully I might get a student or two out of that. Then it was onto the Shuvani performance at 1.15. We performed outside on wet grass (but managed to dodge the showers!) and had to contend with lots of distractions, including the main music stage belting out and capoeira to loud music going on in the tent behind us, so although the girls struggled manfully with it all, we made a few mistakes. However, the girls looked fab, the audience seemed to really enjoy it and the audience participation bit went down a storm! The girls then dashed off for some serious shopping at the masses of stalls selling wonderful enthic clothing....well, it's only once a year!
The Peace Festival (for those of you who don't know!) was started in the 1970's by a bunch of local hippies, and has gone from strength to strength ever since. It's open free to everyone, and as it's in the town centre park, can't grow huge and unwieldy, one of the secrets of it's continued success, I think. It attracts huge crowds of people from every walk of life, and as well as the inevitable traders, there is live music, kids activities, adult workshops, therapies, eco and climate change organisations and stalls, local groups and initiatives as well as representatives from many faiths. It's hippy heaven!
The Peace Festival has definitely been a date on the calender for local belly dance groups for several years, and there is always a bit of a race to get your application in first as they will only allow a limited number of groups to perform. Only briefly caught sight of Sarah Brook Taylor's troupe in passing, but I gather there were more on later and on Sunday too. Surprisingly, it was our first time! I've held back putting us forward in the past as I thought it was only for local groups, but after seeing groups from places like Coventry & Southam perform, I decided it was obviously OK for anyone to take part!
And the next performance for Miramar is a return visit to a BUPA care home in Stratford tomorrow, as part of their healthy-dancing-initiative-week thingy, and then after that both Miramar and Shuvani are performing at Stratford River Festival on the 2nd and 3rd July. Couple more performances for both troupes after that and then it's officially the holidays...and boy am I ready for that!
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