The 2008 Tribal Jam has been and gone, and what an evening it was!!!

Here's an article from Amy to fill you on on all the goss....

After reading Dancing in the Streets: A history of collective joy by Barbara Ehrenreich I was inspired to create a space just for dancers to come together - no set performance, no stage, no audience; just great music, a groovy venue and an open invitation to dance... and it happened at WA's very first tribal jam!

I've been dancing for a while now and have found my self yearning for something a bit beyond the old 'performer/audience' formula. As a performer I always want to grab the audience by the hand and drag them up onstage and as a audience member I'm often bursting to jump up and dance in the isle; both socially unacceptable! In my younger days I enjoyed night clubs but, hey, I'm a mum now and am a bit over boob tubes, bouncers and expensive drinks! But I love those special moments in class when we create beautiful, spontaneous synchronicity in dance, so why not on a bigger, grander scale? And so the idea of the tribal jam came into being.

So the invitations were made and sent (thanks Betsy), the venue was booked (thanks Suzzanne), the henna artist invited (thankyou Charmaine and, most importantly, the musos were organised (big, big thankyou Mike and Broni).

The space was decorated with a million fairy lights, candles and saris (thanks Free Spirit and Tribalive). Gotta love the bellydancers answer to decorating 'that thing is ugly, what is it?', 'Dunno, lets chuck a sari over it and stick a candle on it', 'Yeah, looks great!'.

As Mike began his flute solo, guests arrived and shared food and drinks. There was plenty of 'oh, you dance with... ' and 'Ah, I saw you perform a... '. We had a couple of little performances for fun then DJ Broni accompanied by Mike on drum raised the tempo and moved everyone (who wasn't being henna'ed) to get up and dance! We had a variety of circles, choruses, duos/trios and solos all getting tribal to Broni's great tunes! We zilled, we poi'd we zaghareeted! And to top off the night Mike lead a spontaneous drum jam with several of the girls who had brought their instruments!

While the numbers were modest we had representation from six groups - which in WA isn't bad, and by all accounts a great time was had by all!

The success of the night was really due to everyone getting involved in the spirit of coming together to dance as one community, so thankyou to everyone who supported the Jam. And of course our wonderful musician, Mike Zolker and DJ Broni. We look forward to a possible repeat in the not-to-distant future...