Ariadne
Well-known member
The faire I went to has been around 37 years. I WISH I could have seen Bal Anat!Our local RenFaire in Ohio is only 30 years old, but according to Wikipedia, SCA was founded in the Berkeley in 1966. Jamila and Bal Anat were doing some sort of outdoor festival gigs around that time, because videos are floating around of some of those old shows.
I'm not a Salimpourist? Salimpourian? Salimpourite?, but a quick trip to the mothership web site yields "The creation of the dance troupe Bal-Anat evolved in 1968, when the opportunity to perform in an outdoor theme festival called The Renaissance Pleasure Faire challenged the imagination of American Belly Dance pioneer, Jamila Salimpour, to create a variety show which one might see at an Arabian Festival or Souk."
...so 51 years ago, apparently.