Hanney Festival

l-r Rita, Pips and Kay

God bless new events, and Ashnah absolutely loves venturing out to new places and making conversions as it were!  The tireless Dawn Massam invited us to the Black Horse in East Hanney and being her beautiful warriors and all (her words of course), we were only too pleased to accept.  Naturally, it had the Massam flair which lay in the detail – brilliant bands, lovely atmosphere, a warm welcome and if I had anything to grumble about is the lack of communication between Dawn and the big man – thank goodness for her foresight which saw us dancing under cover!

Thanks for looking after us so well Dawn.

Bunkfest

Ashnah, Nirzari, Zoku and Marekesh plus baby

What can I say about Bunkfest 2016?  This years entourage consisted of 4 dance troupes, 1 drum troupe, 1 husband, 1 small child, 2 babies, 2 students, family and friends plus 1 dog - making a total of 35 'beings' who came to dance, support, gurgle or bark!!

Kaleidoscope consisted of the Nirzari lovelies who performed together for the first time since the births of Mel and Shereen’s babies, our lush Marek all the way from Essex who heads Marekesh Tribal, Charlotte Elizabeth of Zoku who overcame all the challenges British Rail threw at her to reach us from London and not forgetting ourselves, Ashnah.  Also rocking the rhythms on African djembes were the inimitable ODT who were joined by Kay’s son Owen on his first gig out - he helped ramp up the beats and raise the temperature everywhere we went!  We did get rained off towards the middle of the afternoon but nought could dampen our spirits.

Thank you Jenny Cox and team and bring on 2017!

Oxford Drum Troupe

Angela from Nirzari leads

Marek leads the troupe

Angela leads Lulu, Kay and Marek

  

Shereen from Nirzari in full swing with Rita