Hathor

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Hathor recently performed on stage in Stratford upon Avon, as part of a fundraising show arranged by local teacher Val Rainbow.  Despite snowy conditions threatening cancellation, we all made it there -- though getting home was rather more touch and go -- and the event was a storming success enjoyed by us all!

Three troupes, Miramar (the hosts), ReBellyOn and Hathor put on a two-hour show with a variety of performances ranging from disco fusion, gypsy-inspired skirt swishing, classic Egyptian to Balkan folk.  Biggest regret is that we didn't see what the other troupes were doing as we were backstage, getting changed.  Hathor performed seven dances with six different costumes.

We started with Lisa's disco fusion "Heaven Must Be Missing an Angel" with Wings of Isis.  Three minutes, five pairs of crumpled wings and lots of adrenalin later we made it on stage in the right costumes (the right way out) to perform Caroline's moody "Gathering Storm" with sticks and veils, before having a little breather to build up to another of Caroline's choreographies, the roof-raising "Gotta Stop Kicking My Dog Around", a zambra-mora (barefoot flamenco) piece with double circle skirts and buckets full of attitude.

We shared a dressing room with ReBellyOn and got to know each other quite well - it was snug in there!  With lots of goodwill and cooperation we managed to get onstage to do our respective dances without accidentally wearing each other's costumes or getting our coin belts tangled.

After the interval we were first on with our take on the short, sharp Bollywood-inspired piece choreographed by Laila at "Celebrating Dance" several years ago.  Saving us a costume change we flowed straight into one of our favourite dances, Juliet Harrison's wonderful Egyptian choreography to Sabri Aleel by Shereen.

For most of us, this meant a long break, but some of it was spent helping pin Karen and Tracey into their bedlah for the "Hathor Lite" dance to Inta Omri which they performed with Caroline and Mandy, choreographed by all four of them.

Finally, the finale (what did you expect?).  This was a piece with all three troupes taking a section (ours again, choreographed by Caroline), but at some points there must have been 30 of us onstage at once.  Although we'd had a very brief rehearsal a few weeks before, nothing from that still worked as the shape of the stage had been changed and so all the positioning went awry in the morning's final checks.  Much improvisation later, it all seemed to work and no-one bumped into anyone else or fell off the stage.  I wonder if the audience guessed how last-minute that one was!

After taking our bow, we peeped out of the backstage door only to discover that the snow was coming down in a manner that would have been lovely on Christmas Day but was a bit daunting when you're nearly 2 hours from home.  Costumes that had been carefully arranged that morning got stuffed back into cases and we took to the road - from Egypt to Lapland in five minutes, it was quite a day.

Val told us later,

"I've had lots of great comments and compliments about the show- like ‘phenomenal', ‘absolutely stunning', ‘so exciting, colourful and full of variety' 'very professional', and everyone I spoke to thoroughly enjoyed it - even the non-belly dancers, so I think you should all give yourself a big pat on the back!"

Even better - the show raised £1011.45 for The Shakespeare Hospice, thanks to the efforts of Val the organiser, Helen the helpful stage manager, all the dancers, the super-efficient sound and light men, a pantomime camel and the generous audience.