The 1st International Belly Dance Congress (28th
- 30th Sep. 2007)
The first International Belly Dance Congress,
which took place in Butlins at Bognor Regis, UK,
has been a great success and I am extremely happy
I attended. This belly dance event was a full weekend
(2 and half days that included half day on Friday
and the whole of Saturday and Sunday) completely packed
of workshops, belly dance shows and entertainment.
It was the perfect dream come true for every bellydancer.
The International Belly Dance Congress offered very
good value for money too. At a price of 149 pounds
(less if booked before the end of April 2007), it
offered two and half days of workshops (that 
started
at 9am and ended at 6pm) and night entertainment,
which included three hour long belly dance shows,
live music concerts and our own Arabic dance disco
club and D-J. Also, the teachers and performers were
international belly dance stars coming from countries
such as Egypt, France, Germany or Sweden. Two of the
biggest names were Raqia Hassan and Randa Kamel from
Egypt.
Like many of my fellow belly dancers who attended
the First International Belly Dance Congress, I made
the most of it. I attended workshops for 9 hours a
day (with only half an hour break), watched every
show and danced the night away (well almost) on the
dance floor at the sound of belly dance music. At
the end of the week end I was completely wrecked and
it took me a few days to recover, but I was happy.
The First International Belly Dance Congress –
the workshops
During the International Belly Dance Congress, I
attended as many workshops as I could, which meant
dancing for at least nine hours a day. However, I
could attend only some of them, as there were on average
five workshops going on at the same time. The International
Belly Dance Congress hosted dancers such as Randa
Kamel, Raqia Hassan and Yasmina of Cairo from Egypt;
Beata and Horacio Cifuentes from Germany; Leila Haddad,
Tunisian living in France; Fathiem, Jim Boz and Frederique
David from the USA; Samasem from Sweden; Khaled Mahmoud
and Shafeek Ibrahim, Egyptians living in the UK and
other UK teachers such as Josephine Wise, Heather
Burby, Kay Taylor, Maria D’Silva and others.
I thoroughly enjoyed all the workshops I attended,
which gave me an insight into many different, but
all interesting and fascinating, belly dance styles.
Page 2 of the Belly dance
congress report
