Celebrating Dance has left me feeling POWERFUL. And I like it, it’s liberating! At 8:00am the morning after I found myself down the yard hitching up a horsebox, something I have ‘always left to the men’. Pre-CD I wouldn’t have even considered I could do this, internalised misogyny I know. But post-CD I just knew the electric connector went in with a twist and a big clunck meant I was good to go. And I drove my daughter and her horse to the Veterinary Hospital and it felt good. I couldn’t reverse the trailer, if anyone has done this it involves turning the wheel the opposite way to the way you want to go whilst looking backwards. This is beyond my proprioception senses so I asked for help. A young female stable hand hopped in my car, saying ‘I am not very good at this’ and proceeded to swing the whole set up deftly into place in under a minute!
And this new sense of confidence didn’t stop here, I knew I could do my day job too. Not many people know this but I am a data analyst and I have had imposter syndrome about it forever, which is probably why I don’t talk about it! But post-CD I knew exactly what I wanted to do and what bits of the code I needed to change to get it. I asked specifically for help on 1 or 2 things and suddenly everything fell into place and I could see the whole picture and delivered a valuable piece of insight.
What has this got to do with dancing and organising a festival? I believe confidence is the magic gift of spending time with women and tribe members. Dancing and organizing the festival has given me this in spades. People have thanked Zara, Sandra and I so much for taking on the job of organising the event, but for me this feels nothing compared to what it has given us back.
I must admit I was very daunted by the financial responsibility of the Festival, but Sandra and Zara just handled this and freed me up to focus on things which could go well and not all the things that could go wrong. The new style free flow workshops were a leap of faith, but somehow I knew it would be OK. I had confidence in the timetabling, I trusted my gut instinct as to which teachers should be in which rooms. It worked! People were saying how freeing it was for them. It took the pressure off feeling you had to go to a certain workshop because you’d taken a place from someone else. There was one workshop where it could have been better and that’s OK, we know why and have learnt for next year.
Zara and I didn’t even really talk about how we wanted the Haflas to go, we just knew! We’ve produced 16 Haflas together online and 1 in the real world, so this part was easy. We absolutely loved the feedback we got about how much everyone enjoyed the shows. The stand out compliment was ‘you’ve put the fun back in Belly Dancing’!
We’ve also loved all positivity about diversity. It makes me smile so much as I’ve always just been myself in the dance, a cuddly woman just loving Belly Dance before body positivity was even a thing! I had a fiery red head leading the way, a tall woman who knew she was never going to be short, and long black haired, so she trailed blazed the way to just be yourself. To see the Festival abundant with dancers of every body type with respect for source artists central filled my heart with joy.
I have come away with a new respect for a community of women working together. The balance of next generation energy and wisdom was palpable at the Festival. The fresh post 2014 Mahraghan vibe from the youngsters in Cairo streets traveled all the way to Torquay! And the wisdom of older woman opened their arms to catch it! At the end one older woman came to me and held my hands and I felt my long passed Granny with me. She always knew just the right thing to say to understand and encourage me. It was just what I needed. My first teacher had my back and protected me without me even knowing there was an issue. The Festival worked because it is a Community working to sustain itself. This is very precious. I feel very proud to service this community and look forward to 2023 and beyond.
