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Two go mad in Manchester -
Raqs Britannia - 10 & 11th June 2006

Myself (thats me, Sarah, on the left) and the lovely Sarah H. of Kismet Bellydance (on the right: yes, another Sarah I'm afraid!) headed up to Manchester in June (along with about 800 other belly dancers!) for the Bellydance Superstars' Raqs Britannia event - a fabulous weekend of workshops, performances and a huge Souk. We only manged to take a handful of pictures at the event because we were so busy, but we are happy to share those we do have!

It was a hot weekend, not helped by the fact that the Jarvis Piccadilly hotel didn't have great air conditioning - lots of the participants complained that their rooms at the Jarvis were too hot! Fortunately Sarah and I were not staying at the Piccadilly - we stayed at the Britannia Sachas hotel - across Piccadilly Gardens from the Jarvis. We had a nice suite with a lovely big window to open, so it was nice and cool. However, the Friday night party-goers were pretty noisy and kept me awake - Sarah had no such problem as she was sensible enough to have some earplugs with her; needless to say a trip to Boots the next day saw me following suit! To the left is a picture of our room. To the right is a picture of our hotel.

To make the most of the two days, we had both booked onto several two hour workshops: Sarah had training with Amar Gamal, two with Petite Jamilla (drum solo and double veil) and Sonia's Polynesian class. I, in my pursuit of Tribal perfection, took three classes with Rachel Brice and one with Sharon Kihara. I was certainly a very happy bunny, and I don't think I have ever done so much yoga in my entire life! I know Sarah thoroughly enjoyed her classes too, and when we saw each other briefly between workshops we were eager to share what we had learned.

We were fortunate in that we had full use of our hotel's spa facilities, which we did find time to make use of, both in between classes and at the end of a hard days dancing; it was so nice to have a relaxing swim, sauna/steam, and a quick run through the amazing "hot/cold multi directional spa shower"! 

                                             Left: Sarah H with Sonia

On the Saturday evening there was a show and hafla. The first half of the show comprised performances from some of the UK teachers that were running workshops that weekend as well as a few other "well knowns" from this country. The second half saw a full performance of the Bellydance Superstars Raqs Carnivale show. The show was great, but it didn't get started until 9pm and it was very hot. This meant that the hafla itself didn't start until around midnight! Sarah and I couldn't stay awake long enough to attend the Hafla, so unfortunately I can't report to you on that! Though I did hear that there were some night-owls dancing until 2am and eventually had to be thrown out so that the organisers could close down and get to bed!

On the whole, I think the weekend was well worth the money and the journey.  This event is planned for next year, and I highly recommend that you get booked up early if you want to attend as i predict that it will be even more popular next year.