Bellydance Festival Medfest 2011 In Seattle

0 CommentsFriday • July 15, 2011 • by Imei

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You wouldn’t know it by the weather, but it is well into festival season for Seattle. I once had the opportunity to be a part of the Seafair royal court as a princess, and one of the duties is to attend ALL the Seattle area neighborhood festivals and events. The Seafair court rode about in convertible cars, floats waving to the crowds and throwing candy to kids (note: thowing candy has long since been banned). While I have my favorite summer events, such as the Pirate landing at West Seattle, the Mediterranean Fantasy Festival has been a part of my Seattle summers since 2002, and if you attend, you’ll see why Seattle has the best bellydance festival, rain or shine.

Mediterranean Fantasy Festival
Sponsored by the Babs (aka Babylonian Ensemble), the Mediterranean Fantasy Festival has been running some 22 years in West Seattle’s Hiawatha Community Center and grounds. The public sees two days of bellydance from beginners to award-winning dancers on two stages. The grounds fill with vendors selling Middle Eastern drums, CD’s, instructional DVDs, costumes, and accessories. MedFest runs July 15 – 17, 2011, with stages for dance starting 10 am Saturday July 16.

For myself, I’ve digitally archived five years of performances on the indoor and outdoor stages, using the time as an opportunity to gather with my network of friends as well as introduce new people to the world of modern bellydance. I believe the festival not only shows off some incredibly gifted dancers and troupes, but it also allows people of all ages and sizes to imagine themselves dancing, whether it be for fitness and fun, or for performance and a career.

MedFest 2008, choreography by Sabura

For you aspiring dancers, you can get great ideas for music, costuming, makeup, and thematic presentations by attending festivals like MedFest and dozens of others that have performance artists offering free shows. I can’t tell you how important it is to take the time to observe others dance, sing, act, and otherwise emote. Sometimes, it’s the glint of the eye and the powerful and timely extension of an arm that changes an “OK” performance to one with soul and drama.

For more information about the local Seattle bellydance scene, check out this link from the West Seattle Blog (@WestSeattleBlog) that was published earlier last week.

If you’ve been wondering, “Hey, I haven’t seen any videos or many blogposts from Hips For Hire lately,” now you know why. In order to perform and create, I’ll be the first to say that writing and promotions suffer a bit. Interestingly enough, I recently received a blogpost via Facebook about John Mayer’s plea to resist the temptation to spend all your time doing promotion of your work. If you are a serious artist, I encourage you to read this post. Please share what you think of his position, and compare that to the band Moonalice, who uses Social Media to promote almost all of their work (granted, the main players had a lot going for them beforehand).

Posted in: Art, dance, instruction, music, Seattle

Tagged with: 2011, belly dance, bellydance, bellydance festival, bellydance performances, bellydancing, Mediterranean Fantasy Festival, Seattle, West Seattle, west seattle blog