Tribal Fest 09

Well it was all a bit of a whirlwind trip for me, 4 days in San Francisco 6 Days in Santa Rosa then 6 days back in San Francisco.  I was unaware but Qantas had cancelled my return flight, I only found out by accident, so I had an extra day to fill in, which wasn't difficult.

   San Francisco is a city like any other modern city, way way back in the 60’s and 70’s I was a bit of flower child and dreamt of going to San Francisco with flowers in my hair – big Janis Joplin and Hendrix fan, sadly it wasn’t to be then and of course everything looks different thru older eyes, but I made a point of visiting Haight Ashbury anyway, been there and bought the tee shirt. 

I did the tourist things, went shopping in Chinatown and Union Square.  Chinatown is big, colourful, busy, noisy, touristy and old and well, Chinatown.   I just loved it, our hotel was there too which was great cause its so central for the rest of the city.   Union Square is where all the up market shops are, I spent a while in Borders Books, it is a huge 4 stories.  I caught the tourist bus a couple of times and went to all the hot spots, as you do.  Great way to see a city, probably should have done it day one. It was so cold on the last trip that I had the hood on my jacket pulled up  (never used it before) and tied around my face as tight as possible, my polo neck covering my mouth and nose and my hands in my handbag to try and keep warm, so all you could see of my face was my glasses, I heard a passer by have a chuckle and say ‘look at the person in the red coat, looks like she’s having fun’, what a laugh.   

Most people were friendly and when asking for directions they were really helpful, in almost any situation they had a smile and an opinion to offer.     I did come across some bigotry – A southern woman towards a black man and his child, so yes that still exists.  I saw a lot of poverty, hopelessness and ill health, physical and mental and young guys in wheel chairs, I assume from the Iraq war, pretty sad really.  Occasionally I saw people outside the big hotels and in the tourist areas sitting in the gutters and on the footpaths begging.  That was a surprise, such a rich country and people in such dire straights.   

I caught public transport to and from places like the Mission district to go to classes at the FCBD studio a couple of times and 1.5 hours out of town to visit one of my suppliers, there was something interesting happening every time, on one trip there were a couple of guys arguing on the bus, rows apart, they were putting on a show for every one and parted as best friends, on another trip someone lay down in the middle of Mission Street (think of Kings Cross) and held up the traffic until some pedestrians got him to move, on the train there was a small group of teens doin their hip hop thing, and sucking on a bottle of vodka, just like the music videos. 

One of the hardest things in this big city was finding somewhere decent to eat, I had a lot of really average food before I found a place that I liked, then I had breakfast and dinner there most days during the last week, its probably responsible for the couple of kilos I'm sure I've put on, ah well back on the bread and water diet now.    I also found buying stuff a bit strange, the price they advertise for the item doesn’t include state tax, local tax and/or health levy and/or tip so the item that originally cost $10 now costs 50% more, that was hard to get used to, those bargains weren’t bargains at all. 

  Santa Rosa is north of San Francisco about 55mins by car, it’s a nice trip once you know where you are going.  I think it and Sebastopol are weekend retreats for San Franciscans, they both certainly get busier at that time.   We stopped off in Petaluma at a DFO on the way, you know the female urge to shop, but that was a bit of a waste of time. 

Santa Rosa is a pretty town, bigger than I expected and is about 15 mins drive from Sebastopol.  I went on some of this adventure with Sue also a member of Aziff, she had hired a car and was continuing on with her husband down to Florida after TF.  Sue did all the driving and managed it really well, gave the windscreen wipers a hard time though :-).   I had difficulty getting my bearings as in which way was north or south, right or left, not good when you are the navigator.   The whole wrong side of the road thing really threw me.    We managed to get to Sebastopol every day without too much trouble, but I don’t think we made it back to Santa Rosa the correct way once.  

Santa Rosa is a centre for local wineries in Sonoma County, there are a lot of them within easy driving distance, we took a trip up to the Russian river area where some of the better wines come from and it’s a very beautiful place.

Tribal Fest ah!

I feel pretty positive about the experience all up.   I went to Tribal Fest wanting to see what all the fuss was about, check out the stalls, find some new suppliers, get some new costuming ideas, see some of the more famous performers and see if the event was any better than ours and I came away satisfying most of those.   I did find some new suppliers; you’ll have to keep an eye out for some new stuff over the next few months and  I came away from the festival thinking that our Tribal and Trance festival stacks up very well against it, ours is smaller but it has a better format.  

The festival was not as big as I expected, it’s held in the community centre in Sebastopol, which is a lawn area, a parking lot, and two buildings, a large main hall and an annex building.  Everything seemed to go off without a hitch but the facilities were not great, the big hall was not air-conditioned and it was very hot in there, 94 degrees on the Saturday, can’t imagine what it was like for the performers under lights.  They said the hall would be air conditioned for next year.  

The festival was very Fusion oriented and should be called Fusion Fest rather than Tribal Fest which I thought was a shame.  I mean no disrespect to Fusion or any other dance style in saying that, Tribal is just the style I prefer.   I did a workshop with Carolena, one with Zi'ah Ali from Awalim Dance Company and one with Lee Ali on trance.  There were others that I would have done but didn't get in early enough, they are usually on the website around the end of October for the next year and the good ones go quickly so mark it in your diary if you want to get in.  Most of them were 2 hours and most cost $33.   I was pretty happy with the workshops I did and felt I got value for money.

It was a bit surreal to be there with all the famous names we hear about, watch on DVD or YouTube wandering around shopping at the same stall next to me, or performing 20 feet from me, of course GC’s Paulette was there too and it was lovely to be greeted with a big hug and her friendly face, how wonderful to be on the other side of the world and get that tribal greeting.

Performances run on Friday, all day Saturday day and night and all day Sunday and they mix student and professional groups in together so you really have to keep an eye on the clock and the program so you don’t miss any acts you want to see. Unfortunately they don’t publish the performance list before you book your workshops so you are bound to miss something.  I thought that our concert i.e. Red Carpet Night that we have and the soiree type event for student groups as separate events is much better, much less pressure on the student groups and everyone who wants to gets to see the pros at the concert. 

Most of the performances I saw were terrific, and I’m sure they will be on YouTube in no time flat; every second person in the front 6 rows had a video camera.  I saw a number of Tribal Style groups perform really well, Fat Chance were fabulous as always and Gypsy Caravan did GC moves to Fusion music matching the beat and looked great.  There were a lot of really creative moves and ideas on show, some of the acts were more music hall type acts, they bore little if any relation to belly dance that I could see.    There was a largish Goth influence, one girl danced in a death mask and there was a group that did something inspired by Dante's Inferno but a fair amount  of the fusion performances had some dark aspect to them.  There was lots and lots of beautiful costuming, these girls must spend a fortune, even if some of them weren't particularly good dancers they all looked great.  The atmosphere was electric for the well known people / groups, it’s hot, loud, and noisy and everyone participates with yells, zaghareets, stomping etc.   The crowd for FCBD almost raised the roof.  We went to the after party on Saturday night for a while and that looked like it was going to be a blast too.  It’s a younger crowd here, I guess that’s the fusion influence and I’m sure they all have a ball together.

The market was on for all 5 days of the festival and was kept interesting because stalls came and went so you always had something new to check out.   All the big names were there, like Geisha Moth, Phoenix Rising, Catherine Crowley etc.   They had approx 60 stalls with mostly fusion stuff for sale, some of it very beautiful. There was lots of Silver Jewellery,  Old Indian Silver and Tuareg, Hill Tribe etc,  fitted dresses and tops with lots of frills, corsets, lush lace items, little frilly jackets,  pants of every description, I nearly bought a pair of Melodia’s that fastened up the side of each leg with suspender fittings, there were gloves, lace and mesh, flowers, dreads, halter tops, head bands, hoops, hair sticks, animal bones woven into bits and pieces, leather and feathers you name it.  There were 2 or 3 vendors that actually had tribal gear, with their jaipur and tissue skirts, velvet cholis, raj skirts and tops and some beautiful Raj Coats and kuchi jewellery.  

I think if I went again I would stay in Sebastopol and just do the festival, although I don’t know how much sleep you would get.  Santa Rosa is nice but you feel a bit isolated from the event.   Sebastopol is a small town you could only wander around it so many times and there is not much accommodation available so get in early if you want it.    There’s not a lot to do around the local Sebastopol area, but by staying there you would mix with the festival groups more, get to know other dancers maybe, we didn’t have a chance to do that.  We did a bit of sightseeing in the local area, out to the sea and off to a winery or 2 after our workshops etc. but these places were all more than a 30 min drive away.

I must admit that we got a bit tired of the festival after 4 days of it and on Sunday we just went sightseeing.  You know you've been around too long when most of the vendors start saying "how are you today".  

The trip back to San Francisco was uneventful, we stopped off at Muir Wood,  the last remnants of an old red wood forest still surviving civilisation, there are photos in the slide show.

Back in San Fran I had a private with  Carolena after the festival, I was pretty nervous and awkward (tired, sore foot etc) but she was very gracious, she made me a cup of tea and put me at ease,  I have lots to work on but I expected that, things like proper FC hand floreos .... my hands are not supposed to just flop around at the end of my arms, who knew?? My snake arms are too fusion??? and my torso rotation, well what can I say, that is always a work in progress for me.  On the upside she was pretty happy with a lot of the moves we did (Yes the whole private was a duet with Carolena … yikes!) and we covered a lot, so that was a good result, even if I felt very clumsy and tinsy winsy bit overawed at the time.

ooOoo

Well that’s a summary of it all, I hope it inspires you to visit Tribalfest USA when you can but don’t feel too bad if all you can manage is to come to Sydney for the Tribal and Trance Festival next year, probably a bit cheeky to say but it’s a similar experience and is much much cheaper.  All depends on what you want and the size of your wallet.