I am cleaning and sorting and scanning in old black and white negatives, color slides, old photos.  Here are a few from today.

Rossah - publicity photo - Rossah danced with us frequently

Rossah

Farideh - taken at a show in Seattle in the 1980s
with the Sultans as the band

Photo by Harry Pagels
Marji - Alia, probably one of
our first pro shots

Mustapha on the davul

Rossah and Uncle Mafufo in Las
Vegas

Cassima and Yasmela in the Double Sword

Yasmela - Tunisian

Yasmela at the Sutlans show in
Seatlle

Yasmela again - and no, I am not
holding up the light fixture.

Mustapha and Yasmela in the Ouled Nail

Because you can never have too many pictures

Muz and John from the tar dance

Muz in his solo section of the
tar dance

The sign says it all-Janet and Gail with the salmon

Our float for Campbell River Salmon Days

But wait...there's more

I just brought home a box of photos, posters and negatives from Marji/Aliah's husband's house. He passed away last year and still had a lot of Marj's things. Now it's up to me to sort and post. There are some wonderful photos I haven't seen and a nice stash of photos of Rossah, Marji's teacher and best friend, also Bou-Saada sister. As soon as I figure out the new scanner, I'll try to get them posted here.

Dancers we have known and loved

Time goes by and photos surface. I have a stack of negatives ready to be scanned. It occurs to me that several dancers performed with us for various amounts of time and I have forgotten to include them. If you read this, have a photo, and I have not mentioned you before, please get in touch, send me a copy of the photo, and I will post it.
Other dancers:
Cecelia Alvarez, artist and fabulous Cubana dancer
Farideh, Cathryn Balk
Sarita
Rossah Bendhaman, aka Rossah Gulab
Lani Momeyer
I know there were more...

More photos just because

I just loaded these random shots because they are lurking in the archives. From the top First one was taken at a Fat Tuesday celebration in Seattle Second is a rear view of the Shimmy Dance, probably taken in Bellingham at an outdoor festival. Third is another rear shot of the final bow at the Fat Tuesday celebration and next to that is Saheed doing a solo Algerian number because I forgot my costume (!). This was taken in Powell River, B.C Fifth is my favorite shot of Shayla from Pt. Roberts Sixth is John tuning the kanoon at a workshop in Vancouver, B.C. Seven is another favorite. This was a dance that John, Muzzy and Marty did with hand drums. It was taken at Pt. Roberts, a very popular dance! Eight is John playing for Sahira on the glasses. Nine was at Pt. Roberts, our last year, Saheed and Yasmela And last is my favorite troupe shot.

Bou-Saada was always striving to do better. With no internet, no videos and big cities to the north and south but no Middle Eastern culture close at hand, it was challenging. I think that may have been why we became so involved in each other's business, why we were a family. All we had to rely on was each other, and the chemistry on stage was truly remarkable. I heard about and saw some Egyptian style dancing in the early '80's. After Vicki Peacock left us and moved to Oregon, we visited and stayed with her, parking the bus in a field out in the woods. When she moved in to Eugene and started teaching, she taught us a Said'i dance she'd learned in a workshop. We performed it to The Apricot Song, which we learned from Sirocco and Farideh. It was a group dance and the first piece in which we sang.

We loved the costume changes...most of the time...and we layered and layered in order to offer our audiences a folkloric look. Sometimes it was as simple as a tunic and other times, the costumes got quite elaborate as in the Algerian. The backdrop behind us offered a place to do quick changes and adjustments. We gave a lot of thought to how the sets were structured in order to make time for costume changes. For Tunisian, my speciality, I adapted a traditional haik for use over my other costume.

But there was lots of fun on stage and getting ready to go on stage...

The last photo was taken on the bus. I think we were all looking at some "muscle magazine" that Gwynne brought on board. She went on to be a body builder after leaving the troupe.

Old friends:

The first photo was taken in Seattle with Omar Baptiste, a well respected, charming man from Seattle with a vast knowledge of folkdance and music. He was a mentor to many of the Northwest dancers and much beloved. The second photo was taken when Hamza el Din was in residence at the University of Washington. He generously gave his time to both Muzzy and John as a mentor and teacher. It was Hamza who first inspired me to into the field of research while I was still in high school and discovered his albums on Vanguard Records. I had the incredible honor of dancing for him when he came to one of our performances at the Seattle Center, and later was thrilled to see him in a small concert setting as part of his time as an adjunct professor at UW. The last photo was taken at Town Hall in Seattle at a performance Bou-Saada did with Sirocco. Sol and Armando were always good to us as we wound our way through the learning process of Middle Eastern music and dance. Sol was an old acquaintance of Muzzy's from the folk music scene in Southern California in the early 1960's. I saw Sol and David Lindley with the rock band Kaleidescope, when they performed at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco in 1967. It was the first time I saw belly dancers with a rock band, and I beleive it was Marta Schill, who was with Sol at that time. We finally met in person when I became friends with Farideh/Cathryn Balk, who moved from the Bay area to Vancouver B.C. She and Sol had a daughter, Fairuza Balk, and Sirocco (Sol and Armando) often stayed with us in Bellingham on their way north to play in Vancouver B.C. Armando passed away in December 2012 and will be sorely missed for his great warmth, generous praise and encouragement and enormous talent. He was truly a Great Soul.