I think it was around December when I approached my husband with the idea that I would like to spend an exorbitant amount of money to fly to California, live in a hotel for a week with my best buddy and dance partner Nur, take umpteen classes with my bellydance heroes, and perform on one of the biggest and best known stages for tribal bellydancers in this country. When he said, “Okay honey, I think you should do it” I was floored, excited, overwhelmed, and so much more.

And so, on a Tuesday in early May, I found myself on the long flight to San Francisco, giddy with excitement and joy, ready for adventure and a good butt-kicking.

My first and very short experience of San Fran was driving through its famous hilly streets in the rental car, amazed at the way the houses are built touching and wondering where all the poor people with no yards take their dogs out. We drove over the golden gate bridge, which is actually red, and stopped at the overlook to gaze at Alcatraz. Then it was on to Santa Rosa, where our hotel waited for us.

We arrived the first morning at the community center in Sebastopol where the Fest is held, ready to dance but early enough to check out the first vendors on the scene. We immediately were drawn to a booth full of racks of leather pouch belts, Hipstirr . This is one of the things we had decided we would get at the Fest. Nur found the perfect one for her within the first few minutes. It’s red leather with several snapping and several zipping pockets, and shaped with pointy places and soft curves. I found a couple I really liked, but decided not to choose until the end of the day. By then I did choose one, dark brown leather with two outer snap pockets and two inner zipping ones. Also kind of pointy and curvy. Very pretty. Yay!

Shopping highlights included many of the most well know tribal goodie providers from all over the country: Wild Card and the Five and Diamond, with their fancy leather belts, shoulder holsters, and pouches, beautiful vests and cutsie bloomers, and a wide array of fabulous ear jewelry; Once in a Blue Moon, the purveyors of the famous metal bra cups and some really cool belts made mainly of bone; Eventide Music Productions, represented by Jeremiah of Solace with their new release Opium Head as well as lots and lots of other music and costuming goodies; Minerva’s Antennae, who had a variety of tribal costuming and adornments; Creatureskins, creators of leather armor and armbands, very medieval looking stuff; Samiah, seamstress of renaissance wear including beautiful pirate coats and wraptops and dresses; Geisha Moth Designs, who make really cool pants and dance tops; and of course the fabulous Melodia Pants booth, where dancer after dancer had her pants dreams fulfilled.

Oh, the classes... where to begin. I took so many, and they all were fun.

My first favorite was Amy Sigil of Unmata. Rockin’ the Tribal Boat was the name of the class, and it was truly rockin! We learned some hip hoppie and Polynesian style tribal improv. The energy level was incredible, we were bouncing all over the place. One of the combos had us working in foursomes, moving in and out of center and crossing each other, changing places, all at a pretty good clip. There was much laughing as we all tried to figure out the complicated directional changes and not run into each other. Having not taken a class from Amy before, I was thrilled to have the chance and must say, I cannot wait to have the opportunity again! Her teaching style is upbeat and easy to follow, her class music is high tempo and modern, she is quick to see which students need a hand and can talk them through and catch them up. Yay Unmata!

The second best class I took was Tribaltique's contact partnering class. Molly and Julia were funny and super nice. The class was all about different ways to work with a partner and change positions on stage. We drew from different partner dance styles, such as salsa and tango, as well as doing some fun spins and tricky drops! I was inspired to try some partner dance classes when I got back home, and to also incorporate styles you might not associate with bellydance into our fusion style.

Ariellah’s class, the darker side of drilling, offered up an intense bellydance drilling workout. We learned some new ways of stretching and warming up, drilled some moves in ways we hadn’t seen before, and learned some really cool combos. My favorite quote from Ariellah: “I like to turn the music up really loud, then scream at the top of my lungs!” I have Ariellah’s instructional video, Contemporary Bellydance and Yoga Conditioning, which I love, so I felt like I knew somewhat what to expect from her workshop. She came through, with a kind of tough love feel and dynamic personality I didn’t get from any of the other instructors.

The classes from the Indigo and Bellydance Superstar instructors were all pretty similar. We had Kami Liddle, Rachel Brice, Zoe Jakes, and Mardi Love there, and I took all four of their workshops. They all ran sort of the same way: warm up and stretch, drill a few moves, then dive into combos that build to choreography. Kami and Rachel both spent a good deal of time with the somewhat challenging movement set called “sidewinder”, and I found it interesting that they don’t do it quite the same way. Zoe was a riot as usual, her personality is really fun and silly, I always enjoy her classes. Mardi’s choreography felt heavy on drama, with a 40’s and 50’s movie star and poster girl quality that seems to be present in all of her stuff. All of these classes were great, although even with the detailed note taking I did, I find myself having a bit of a hard time remembering much of the choreography.

Samantha Riggs taught a fun and imaginative class called Why is the Rum Always Gone? You got it- pirate bellydance! This was a fast paced, tongue in cheek adventure in dance. We tossed around plastic water bottles (they use glass liquor bottles in performances, but for class that was deemed unsafe  ), learned combos with names like “Fred Astaire” and “Double Attitude”, and did umi’s while drinking from our faux rum bottles. Fun fun fun!

The Pinup girl bellydance class with Michelle was chock full of information about pinup art and history, with a four page printout. We learned the secret of looking like a pinup model is in the facial expressions, shaping your mouth into the vowels but with lots of exaggeration. And the costuming secret? Bullet bras!

The show at Tribal Fest was something like 28 hours long! We certainly didn’t see it all, but we did see a lot. There were surprises and old standbys, a lot of fusion and a lot of classic ATS. Pirate bellydance, Dark fusion, a vampire bat, some contact juggling, beautiful ribbon dancing, Bangra, Bollywood, and sooooo much more.

We were awed and amazed by Asharah, her stage presence was enthralling. She demanded attention and got it all. You Tube it!

Unmata delivered the kind of performance they have inspired with for so long. I was tickled when Primus started playing! Energy, Bounce, Attitude, these girls got it!

Verbatim is Amy Sigil of Unmata’s student troupe, and they brought it too! All of the intensity of a great ITS troupe, with some scimitars and cute costumes, and a male dancer!

Sharkra! Holy Wow! I had vaguely heard of them before, but had no idea what they were about. They left me breathless and dreamy. They danced with staves, drew on each other with lipstick war paint, and stomped all over the stage. Like they claimed in the program, Shakra is totally stompalicious.

The Indigo had a long and fun performance that included animal masks, a tea party, musical chairs, and a Balkan brass band! It’s always inspiring to see these ladies in action.

Blacksheep Bellydance and Fatchance Bellydance worked the American Tribal Style they are so well known for, along with several other groups.

There were some great free dance opportunities with such well known bands as Helm and Raquy and the cavemen, who invited the crowd to jump on stage and break it down.

The Mezmer Society’s Onca and August were representing Asheville well. As usual August got the audience swooning with his accordion and deep lavish vocals. Onca rocked a cane dance, they swayed us all some more with her singing.

And Nur and I broke out our new cowgirl/ spy fusion piece. What a thrill to perform on the same stage as all of those other great dancers! Wearing furry chaps, colorful cowgirl hats, and western fringy vests, we incorporated some tango from Nur’s recent studies and some clogging steps from my years in Vermont as a clogging instructor.
Then we played spies to a piece of video game music, removing the chaps, hats and vests to the cheers and whistles of the audience, revealing our tribal fusion getup beneath. We wrapped up The Forbidden set with Derivations, by Beats Antique.

Then there were the after parties. Wow. Dancing to DJ Amar and Maduro, performances by Frederique, Zoe Jakes, Sooz, Samantha Riggs and her daughter Josephine, The Beckys, and oh so much more. If only one didn’t need sleep! We could have gone all night!

Tribal Fest also taught me an important lesson about personal stamina: eight hours of classes in a day might be too much (heehee!) and if I plan to go to the after parties for more than an hour it might be a good idea to schedule in time to nap during the day. Also, Northern California might be known for having gorgeous mild weather, but that doesn’t mean there can’t be a heat wave in early May! It was 90-100 degrees the whole time we were there!

If you have thought about going to Tribal Fest, or any of the really big bellydance gatherings for that matter, and haven’t done it yet, I highly recommend giving in to the urge. These big fests are a treat you really should give yourself. The learning and inspiration, the chance to ask questions of the dancers you admire, the chance to be in the front rows for their performances, and getting to perform for peers and dance lovers, all add up to a really great time well worth the resources spent. Hooray for bellydance!