Ya Raqs in the spirit of baladi, posted by Meroe

The weekend of the 17th and 18th of August was the first of two weekends of training for members of the Ya Raqs dance troupe. Phoenece and I went off to Haileybury for an amazing dance weekend organised by Juliana Brustik and Judy Hammond – dancing the spirit of baladi with live music. What made the weekend really special was that Noor was able to join us – proving the point that once you are a Ya Raqs girl you are always a Ya Raqs girl!

The course was run at the incredibly impressive Haileybury and Imperial Service College in Hertfordshire. We started off on Friday evening with a gentle relaxation class to get ourselves ready for what was going to be a really busy dance weekend.

Haileybury College

Phoenece and Meroe in the dining hall

The whole thrust of the weekend was to have a great understanding of baladi music and how to react to it. Judy and Juliana spent the first day with us and in the afternoon we danced to live music from Tim Garside. The last class of the day was a drumming class with Tim where he managed to get us all sounding incredibly musical! After a quick tea and change into our party outfits, we spent the evening dancing away to live music from Tim. Unfortunately Tim had to leave about at about ten o’clock, so that is when we put the CD’s on and danced – not quite ‘til dawn – but ‘til very late given how tired we all were!

Dancing to live drumming by Tim Garside

The next day was a real treat: a dance class with Anne White from Planet Egypt, supported by three incredible musicians – Guy Schalom, Gamal el Kordy and Louai Al Henawi. Anne helped us to feel more confident with our dancing and with interacting to live music. Absolutely brilliant.

It was a wonderful weekend and we learned a lot, but what made it even more wonderful from a Ya Raqs point of view was cake – yes they pretty much had cake on tap! Great food, great venue, amazing teachers and cake – what more could you ask of a dance weekend? Can’t wait until the next one.