Tonya and Atlantis had booked their festival in a cute and
friendly wedding event center about a block from a Marriott
Residence Inn. We dancers took over the Inn and when
not at the festival, it became our clubhouse as we table
hopped at our all-you-can-eat breakfasts meeting famous
musicians and famous and soon-to-be famous dancers from
all of the Western states. We immediately became one big
happy family meeting in the afternoon for snacks provided
by the Inn, swimming or soaking in the pool and hot tub
and exchanging room numbers so we could meet after
the completion of the day’s events to either party in each
others’ rooms or to walk across the street together to party
at another hotel with a bar or to hang out at the 24-hour
diner that served great jellos and pie alamodes. This wasn’t
a festival where we only talked to our friends; this was a
festival where everyone became our friends. I particularly
noticed over the years that year after year the volunteers
were the same volunteers. They were Tonya’s and Atlantis’
dancers and husbands. This event really was a family event
and it was one big happy family with Tonya as the presiding
loving goddess matriarch especially evident when she would
sing love songs to her daughter.
Roxy (CA)Specialty Props
& Universal
Champion
In the old days, Atlantis rented a suite at the Residence
Inn and opened it up to the volunteers, judges, teachers,
musicians and whatever else riff-raff who would come
along. During the dinner break she would furiously wash
lettuce, slice tomatoes, boil noodles, stir pots of spaghetti
sauce, crush garlic for the French bread, pour more wine
than we could consume, bring out cake and cookies, while
showering, applying makeup and eyelashes, frantically
looking for all her lost costume pieces, trying on outrageous
evening gowns her mother had found for her and trying to
be calm and be a good hostess. Sometimes we’d try to help,
but mostly she wanted us to sit, eat, drink and relax. Atlantis
wanted to do it all and make her mother proud.
Nilay (Turkey)Taxsim Champion
There are so many great memories from those early years.
Atlantis tried to form an all-girl band for the competition.
I got to help form the band from San Francisco with Mimi
Spencer on the kanun and Susu Pampanin, drummer,
leading all the girls. Another time, Atlantis used my band
El Scarabiya. This band aka The Giza Club aka The Aswan
Dancers played for the competition. I fondly remember that
year because we had so much fun beforehand rehearsing for
the show and then we got to play and stay together at the
Residence Inn.
October 2015
The Belly Dance Chronicles
57