Adventures in London - Bringing Bellydance Mainstream at the Camden Fringe

Last weekend I was super honoured to be part of a theatre show run and directed by Darkstar Dance as a part of the Camden Fringe Festival in London, dancing alongside Darkstar herself, her performance troupe Team Darkstar and the delightful Kathy Pearlson.

Darkstar's vision for the show was to put fusion bellydance in a place and position to be seen by peeps NOT already a part of the belly universe - to get it out to people who haven't seen it before, and where better than the Camden Fringe, where people like to take a chance to go try out some weird new stuff. In the bellydance community we seem to spend forever winging that we don't get the same respect and venues as other dance forms, but to get that kind of respect and venues we do have to put ourself out there first.

We had the tiny baby Ecetera Theatre to dance in and three one-hour shows in three nights to fill. Our dressing room was a teeny tiny sweaty box filled with stressed-out dancers looking for missing bras and getting glitter everywhere. It was so black in the blackouts I'd be groping on the wall at the side of the stage looking for the stage door, hoping I'd find it before the lights turned on again (though it would have been hilarious if I hadn't). Team Darkstar provided group pieces, and Darkstar, Kathy and I did solo pieces plus a cool little trio together. It's a really cute little theatre, you can see all the audience, which I like, though the sound system is definitely not used to the amount of bass and dubstep we Tribal Fusioners like to crank up.

It was really amazing to be dancing alongside such freaking stellar dancers - Darkstar is ridiculously awesome and cool and Kathy is just absolutely magical - I'm still pretty amazed I was asked to dance alongside those guys. 

The show was a SELL OUT, every single night baby! It was received really well by the general public (and we definitely had a strong non-bellydance audience!) and by the reviewers who came along to watch and write stuff about us. Hell yes! 

Big respect to Darkstar for pulling this off! And you know you want to do a dark fairy-tale one with a story at the fringe next year, you know you do.....

Here are the reviews  - Check em out!

Views from the Gods Review of The Bellydancer

Female Arts Review of The Bellydancer

Show Finale!