Bellymob!

On sunday a group of about 15 of us dressed up in our bellydance costumes and went down to the South Bank in London and had a wee dance. We had 3 drummers (very good) joined us too and you should have seen the crowd that gathered! Dancing in my shoes made me feel like Suraya... but now looking at the photo of said shoes i realise hers are still much much higher!!!

People were lovely and appreciative and some even joined in... one guy using his jacket like a veil, another 2 Egyptian men joined me from the audience and used their umbrella's as sticks while we did some saaidi together!!! Thankfully the rain stayed away too! Oh and for those of you reading this in Egypt- yes it is possible to do this sort of thing in UK without ANY abuse... no names being called out, no one trying to touch, no rude comments. All there was was just appreciation for dance and everyone having fun. The way it should be!!!

It was such a lovely thing to do- for NO reason. we weren't promoting anything or anyone or busking ... we were just having fun.

It reminded me of my many fringe festival show years... wandering about Edinburgh in full bellydance costume, handing out flyers. That and dancing along Princes st with 40 other dancers as part of the fringe cavalcade. In fact- South Bank really reminded me of Edinburgh at festival time. I loved it!!!

Unfortunatly, we didn't have a performers permit for the drummers - so the security guards moved us on after about half and hour- and the crowd all 'boo-d' because we were being stopped!!!! It was a great feeling. We had gathered so many people to watch us that the whole route was blocked! We were all buzzing when we went for some refreshments, in the National Theatre afterwards!

A great day out- dance for the sake of fun!

(Photo Credit: Kristina West)