(Photos courtesy Saroya Poirier)

By Tracy Record
West Seattle Blog editor

After one last wild weekend of swirling veils and flashing swords at Hiawatha Community Center next Saturday and Sunday, the Mediterranean Fantasy Festival will fold its tents for the final time.

So July 15-16 will bring your last chance to enjoy the only annual West Seattle festival devoted to dance, which also is the region’s longest-running belly-dancing festival.

“It’s been a good run,” organizer Saroya Poirier told WSB, an understatement if anything. The Mediterranean Fantasy Festival is ending in its 30th year; we were surprised to find out this would be its last, so we asked her to take some time to talk about it.

Of the festival-founding Babylonian Ensemble, Saroya explains, “Everybody from the group is retired but me. … I’m ready to go on to something else. I’m 69 and it’s a lot of work” – seven months to plan and schedule, starting in December every year.

And all that work has come with decreasing payoff – it’s always been a labor of love, but more so every year.

While the festival has no shortage of dancers, with troupes coming from many miles around, the number of vendors has dwindled over the years. Some vendors, like Saroya’s dancing-troupe-mates (“The Babs,” above), have retired; others have gone online-only.

“The entire back side of the park on Walnut used to be full of vendors. Now, it doesn’t fill up,” she observed.

The dance schedule – that’s another story.

More than 70 performance slots were already filled when we talked to her, and some are coming just to be part of the final Mediterranean Fantasy Festival. “One dancer is flying back from Hawaii just to perform”; another one is coming from Florida. (The Saturday lineup is here; the Sunday lineup, here.)

Saroya herself still dances – and teaches (at the Renton Senior Center). She’s been dancing since 1971 and teaching since 1976. The Babylonian Ensemble danced twice the first year of the festival and continued with at least one performance every year for a long time. But now, she insists she’s ready for the festival to become a memory.

Thirty years of memories: “We started putting it together in 1987, and it actually started in 1988. … When we started it, we were all broke, young, with families …” They scraped together the money it took to stage the festival, buy a sound system, stage and backdrops. “We ran it, we worked it and set it up, and tore it down, with husbands and children who were old enough to carry something.”

Backing up a bit, where did the festival idea come from? Saroya said she was driving Suzie Wiggins home from dancing at a restaurant back in the ’80s when she said, “We could do a festival. We have a park” – a relative of Suzie’s worked at Hiawatha, and that’s where they practiced.

Saroya said she laughed at first – “who do you think you are, Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney, ‘let’s put on a show’?” But … they did. And that’s the way it’s gone over all these years. After those months of preparation, it comes down to the days before the festival, with Saroya going to Hiawatha to do preparation including painting spots where people will be setting up, putting up the backdrops, the stage skirt … and when it’s all over, “my son and his husband and friends and neighbors and dancers and audience members help tear it down.”

Two stages, if you haven’t been – indoors in the Hiawatha gym, as well as outside.

After this year’s festival finale, where will it all go? “We don’t know yet – might sell one of the backdrops, might just give it back to the original owner. A few things, I’m going to keep … a dancer made us a sign … I’m going to put it on the wall. These are my souvenirs.”

Wasn’t there anyone who could take over the festival and continue it? They talked to a few people, including “one we really liked” – but that person’s vision was different, “she would have taken it downtown” and transformed it into an event with admission charges, instead of an “open air, free for everyone” festival. “That just didn’t work. … We’ll retire the name and keep our memories.”

Memories of lots of fun, and lots of hard work. Though the festival runs Saturday-Sunday, the setup starts Wednesday, Saroya notes. And though there are strict rules for performers and venodrs, sometimes they get broken just the same, and she and others found themselves cleaning up spilled soda and wine in the changing rooms.

But, “that’s what we do.” She has no regrets.

So what will she do with all that extra time next year? Spend more of it with friends, for one. And maybe participate in smaller belly-dancing events outside Seattle: “I’d like to start doing those again.”

Though she lives in SeaTac, West Seattle holds many memories, not just of the festival. “I grew up down on Delridge, went to Cooper School” – now Youngstown Cultural Arts Center – “we all had ties to the area one way or the other.”

And after next weekend, one less.

So don’t miss the Mediterranean Fantasy Festival finale. Even if you’ve never been a belly-dancing aficionado, as the text of the “personal invitation” online suggests, you just might find some fun.

*************

ABOUT THE FESTIVAL:

In and around – south and east sides, plus gym – Hiawatha Community Center, 2700 California SW

11 am-7 pm Saturday, July 15th – dance schedule here

11 am-5 pm Sunday, July 16th – dance schedule here

Admission is free.