Getting the hang of the blog format. I spent the better part of yesterday uploading old photos. I wanted to start at the beginning, but as with all beginnings, finding the exact location of the genesis of something is tricky and damned near impossible. So...antideluvian will do. Our first tour...this is what we looked like. We borrowed the bus (and the roadie!) from a local band named Wet Paint. It was a funky bus...no ammenities. Our equipment (what there was of it), costumes, supplies and us, were just sort of scattered throughout a large empty cold space. Only a few seats had been left in it, and it leaked exhaust. The kids came with us and we even took the dog! It's a miracle we survived. After that, Muzzy decided we had to get a real bus, one of our own. Yes, it's true, we were really really hippies. But when we got on stage....

Albert d'Ossche was our first drummer. He learned dumbeg when he was in Germany. He joined Cecelia Comartin and me as a part time and somewhat reluctant drummer. He was better known for playing dulcimer and his book, In Search of the Wild Dulcimer, co-written with Bob Force. Albert passed away several years ago.

This photo was taken at the old Fairhaven Tavern in Bellingham, WA, 1975. The dancers, from the left, were Vickie, whose dance name I have forgotten, Cecelia (Cassima) and me, Yasmela.

In the beginning... This was taken by Harry Pagels in Bellingham. Jon Parry was our violin player, Muzzy on saz and oud.Marty Saltzman on dumbek. Kelleen O'Brien, Cecelia Comartin and Jennifer McIntyre are standing. I am kneeling on the left and Joan is on the right. Joan left right after this. I don't remember her last name.

The deserted highway undulated in the blackness like a silk ribbon with a yellow stripe running down the middle. The windows of the big school bus opened wide to the balmy night air that eddied and flowed through the living room area near the driver’s seat. The Manhatten Transfer crooned a jazz tune from the stereo. Marj sat behind the wheel with her nightgown billowing around her lap as Tony, our Roadie, stood beside her laughing softly and helping her steer. Cece peered out from the front of her bunk where she lay with her arms folded under her chin. John and I were engrossed in a ferocious cribbage game, which I was loosing. Marty tallied up the day’s T shirt sales and Muzzy fingered scales on the oud. Janet and Jennifer had already crashed for the night and their bunk curtains swayed gently in the breeze. As our cribbage game folded and John triumphantly put the set back up on the shelves that held our games and books, tapes and stereo, I looked around, marveling. I was rolling down the highway in the Central Valley of California in the middle of summer, on my way to another show at another club, just one of many in the middle of a month long road tour. Riding the coattails of the hippie era, in the midst of disco fever, I was part of a Middle Eastern dance and music band that cut a rock n roll swathe across the west for 10 glorious, tumultuous years. We made it up as we went along. We tried harder, worked longer, took more chances and entertained more people than anyone or any group in our genre. We played Middle Eastern fusion before it had a name, created our own dances based on photos in books, glimpses in old films and from our imaginations. We carved our own niche, created our own style, scandalized, delighted, educated and entertained everyone around us, including ourselves. We were Bou-Saada. From 1974 until 1984 the Bou-Saada Dance Troupe was my life, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Several times a year for 10 years we took to the road and played shows in Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and British Columbia, Canada. At our peak, there were eight of us, plus a roadie who drove our bus and ran our lights and sound equipment. At various times, my two children, Jennifer’s little boy, and a dog or two were aboard. Sisters and brothers, groupies, friends and lovers occasionally made their way onto the Kenworth Pacific converted school bus that became our home and haven. We played music, we sang, we danced, we sold T shirts, we spoke a language of our own invention and navigated our way through the landscapes of people’s imaginations with the northern lights as a backdrop, the rolling plains of Montana as our stage, the towering Douglas firs of the B.C. coast our stage set. We ran the rapids of the Rogue River, did street theater from Portland to San Diego, played grimy taverns, outdoor arenas, Shriner banquets, rock n roll concerts, Army bases, colleges and universities. Isolated in a small corner of the northwest, we made it up as we went along. Every one of us could play an instrument, sing, dance, run a sound board, set a stage with backdrop, lights, monitors and mics, plug them in, and put them away. We made our own costumes and our own drums and used duct tape in a thousand creative ways. And while we never made a living from it, it was our life. We will forever be bonded by the experience.