Mihrimah’s World Belly Dance Day 2008 in Tampere, Finland

Mihrimah organised a World Belly Dance Day event in Hervanta, Tampere on May 10, 2008. Our dancing parade started from the leisure centre heading towards the market place where the parade stopped for a while to dance to people gathered there. The colourful procession danced along the streets accompanied by tablas, tambourines and zills. The next stop was the local shopping centre Duo and its central square.

The set of dances at the shopping centre started with all the participants of the parade dancing together a popbaladi Nar (cor. Taikku Hyvonen). After that we had four performances by different groups: Mihrimah’s girls danced a popbalady (cor. Maarit Roihuvuo), Mihrimah’s own group danced a fellahin dance (cor. Peppina Lindfors), Louhen tyttaret tribe improvised American Tribal Style and a group from Ahjola Open College danced a discoriental (cor. Taikku Hyvönen). The audience liked our dances so much that we asked them to join us when we danced Nar again to fininsh the performance.

Our day continued in a get-together, called Spring Shimmy, in the evening, which has been our tradition for ten years. We had dance performances, we danced together dances that everybody knows, e.g. Madgy El-Leisy’s Minda, ate good food and had fun together well into the night. We will certainly arrange something similar next year.