Raqs Sharqui in Blackpool

Over the years I have done many jobs and some have been really bizarre in the extreme. I got a booking in Blackpool via an Agency so all I had was an address and instructions that I had to do the entertainment for the whole evening, so bring everything along, boyfriend, PA, costumes in different styles and so on.

Blackpool was and many would still say the entertainment Capital of the North of England if not of the whole of Britain. Many would say that it is just like Las Vagas, a seaside town that grew up from providing the entertainment and holiday needs of the rising urban populations of Liverpool and Manchester around the Victorian and Edwardian era. Tacky and crass or down to earth and salt of the earth. The Golden Mile, rude postcards, popcorn and just about every building a hotel or entertainment house.

Anyway we found the street the hotel was supposed to be in and glanced along, seemed to be like private houses. They were, but all converted to hotels. We found our one along the row, and upon going through the front door we were in the front lounge and our hearts dropped. It was a front and back room knocked into one long room and in this area was packed with armchairs down both sides and each was occupied by the residents and really I don't know what comes over if I use the term "English" but this could not be more English if you tried. The extreme in terms of the clothes, the hair styles, the ambience of the hotel and the people themselves, mostly middle aged couples. Someone on an organ playing "Doing the Lambeth Walk and Underneath the Arches, is the entertainment needed here, obviouly the agency had got the wrong act booked by mistake, easily done I suppose. But apparantly not, Zehara is what they have booked. We seriously debated whether to just go home and make up some excuse,  just what on earth could you do here? OK, well lets make a laughing stock of ourselves then, I got changed and my boyfriend squeezed the PA in somehow. Well change into what and dance what? Given that this was going to be a disaster, lets think of something that I could just spin out the time with, what better than some obscure Eqyptian Raqs Sharqui, I found a piece called 1,001 nights and Tamma Henna and changed into this one piece black dress and put on an Eqyptian scarf, and just went ahead.

What happened next truly flabbagasted me. As all lovers of the Eqyptian belly dance music knows, the music constantly has tiny and subtle changes of pace and mood. Just after the first minor pause within the music which was after a few seconds, I got this huge applause. I did several more bookings in similar hotels and only gave these up when work that was nearer (and better paid) came my way. This Christmas (2002) I am doing a couple of bookings in the same hotel, so out will come the black dress! The rest was history but now looking back on it I can now see how well it did work. 

The audience were receptive and in the mood to learn. I discovered that these little hotels are real melting pots for entertainment, if you can survive them then you are a born entertainer. The quests are in the hotel for the entire evening. Once they have had their meal, other than watching the telly, there is nothing else other than the entertainment going on. The main thing about it all is the close proximity and the need to build up a direct rapport with the people. The people are within a few feet of you and it is just like performing in your front lounge. If it goes well it goes brilliantly well. The people, though they could not understand the content of the songs could pick up the mood changes which I express through my movements. I don't know what they are singing about, I don't understand Arabic, so I have to go off the feel of the sound of it, which of course is the level at which these people also go at it with. In this sort of setting the constant changes of mood varying between slow and inward to fast and extrovert was something that everyone can respond to.

These people were all sitting in armchairs and all facing me, in 2 longish lines opposite each other. I had their complete and undivided attention. The bookings that I got from Blackpool has reawakened the challenge of how to get this style of dance across to the general public.

I don't this this style of dancing would work in a restaurant for the general public. For a start half the people have their backs to you and they are having food. Also they are chattering to each other and so I think this style of dancing would get completely lost in these settings. Restaurant dancing is completely different art altogether. I will talk about this in a future article. Regarding this style of dance on a stage where the audience is some distance away, well I don't know, I know that I would appreciate and enjoy it, but I don't know if the general public would. The conditions in that hotel would be lost in an auditorium.