Harem Girls and Camel Races - Sarah McCormick Seekatz

Someone posted about this article on the blog, it's a very interesting history of the "Date" festival that takes place every year in Indio, California.

The author is also doing her PhD at UC Riverside in History on Orientalist motifs in Southern Californian culture - very cool!  I'm glad she is because the date festival, the date farms in places like Mecca, California, and the very interesting connections to the "Middle East" are all things near and dear to me and my research interests too.  Plus a regular trip to Indio is always a good thing, date festival or tamale festival or whatever.

In any event, the article is "Harem Girls and Camel Races:  Middle Eastern Fantasies in the Deserts of Southern California" by Sarah McCormick Seekatz, and it features a ton of great pictures, and you can read the whole thing here:

http://www.kcet.org/arts/artbound/counties/riverside/coachella-valley-middle-eastern-fantasies-desert.html

For more on the date festival and this blog, click the label marked "Date festival Indio" on the right side of the blog under labels.

Date Festival Indio 2009 - Videos

Check my post on the Date Festival with its 1001 Nights theme in Indio California here: http://journalofthenights.blogspot.com/2009/02/riverside-county-fair-and-national-date.html.

I think it would make a perfect place for an annual Nights conference! Maybe one day...

I also think we were some of the only out-of-towners at the festival/fair, which made for a very authentic usa county fair experience complete with 1001 Nights fare and a nightly show.

Here are some videos of the show, they are not good quality but I took them with a digital camera, I wanted to give an example of the songs featured in the stage production of Ali Baba that they did. Sorry for the shortness as well.

If anyone's interested I can upload the program for the festival and the play in pdf.

The most interesting part was the frame story that they gave before the Ali Baba show (and after the nightly "tribute to the troops" which I missed because we were late) - they didn't leave out any of the details of Shahriyar's wife cheating on him (though racial details were out) - and you can see from the first video the violence was left in even with the young age of the actors:



shahriyar catches his wife



ali baba and the 40 thieves intro song (abba! with thieves wandering through the audience)

this clip also has plenty of crying babies in the audience!



whoever wrote this script was pretty clever with the inclusion of some random songs, this one from the smiths!



and amy winehouse



and "kiss kiss" the remade turkish song into english pop dance hit!

you can see the audience has thinned out some, including those that i made come with me to the festival (meet you later...!)

Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival 2009

This fair is held annually in Indio, CA and showcases the Coachella Valley's agricultural production with its date crop as the fair's highlight (perhaps in name only as there are few (though the ones they do have are quite interesting) date-related exhibits). They also have the area's famous date milkshakes which are super sweet and very tasty.

If you didn't know the area is known for its date (as in date tree) production with original tree lineages from Iraq and the Middle East. There is even a city/"census-designated place" called Mecca, California! One of the more prominant farms has a video show about the area's history and several date dessert packages and date shakes.

The fair's theme since its start in 1947 has been the 1001 Nights (aka Arabian Nights) and each year they present a live story from the collection and crown a local teen "Queen Scheherazade" along with Princess Dunyazade and a Princess Jasmine. They also have daily camel races.


This year's (2009) festival's play was "Ali Baba and the Den of Thieves" which was quite interesting to see performed in the rural arena of Indio (we may have been some of the only out-of-towners who travelled to the fair). The play incorporated several pop songs (ABBA, the Smiths, even the Turkish song "Kiss Kiss") which gave it a contemporary/ironic feel ala Moulin Rouge (the film). The production and music was quite good although several scenes felt a bit high-schooly and the microphones failed a couple of times.

The story began with the frame story of the Nights, fairly faithful and replete with the wife's infidelity and Shahriyar's subsequent beheadings (although no mention of who the original wife was unfaithful with).


The story of Ali Baba was a basic morality tale of the power of greed, money and evil vs. the power of love, with love winning in the end. In these economic times it felt appropriate.

Overall ok, a bit long at an hour and 20 mins or so. Will take some convincing to get the family to return next year I fear. We missed the show's opening prologue "A Tribute to the Troops" unfortunately.


Here are some pictures (click on them for full picture):

gates featuring lamp and genie

the show

Queen and Princess

2009 Riverside County Date Festival - Indio

The Date Festival is up and running in Indio, CA until Feb 22.

If you haven't been, you must give it a visit if only to see contemporary re-imaginings of American pop Orientalism at its finest, including a daily Arabian Nights show, date ice cream shakes and camel races.

I'll try and get over there next weekend and post some pictures.

Here is an article (also I pasted it below) from the Desert News about opening day:

http://www.mydesert.com/article/20090215/EVENTS06/902150333

Information about the festival:

Food, Fun and Entertainment
What: Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival
When: Continuing today until Feb. 22
Hours: 10 a.m to 10 p.m. On weekends the carnival is open until midnight.
Where: Riverside County Fairgrounds, 82-503 Highway 111, Indio
Cost: $8 general admission, $7 for seniors age 55 and older, and $6 for children ages 5 to 12. Children younger than 5 admitted free.
Parking: $7
Information: www.datefest.org or 800-811-3247


Arabian Nights celebrates music, dance, costumes
Aldrich M. Tan • The Desert Sun • February 15, 2009

When the sun goes down, the spotlight rises on the mid-sized Arabian Nights set for the Riverside County Fair and National Date Festival.

For months, the set remained unused on the empty fairgrounds in Indio.

But during the fair, the stage comes alive with a nightly pageant full of music, dance, and shimmering costumes.

The Arabian Nights-themed musical is at 6:15 p.m. nightly and free with fair admission.

It is a major part of the festival's tradition, said Richard De Haven, one of the show's producers.

“It is one the oldest shows in the valley,” De Haven said.

Each year's show focuses on a different tale from “One Thousand and One Nights,” De Haven said.

This year's tale is “Ali Baba and the Den of Thieves.”

The pageant organizers installed a large cave on the stage that contains at least 100 shimmering lights specifically for the performance, De Haven said.

Auditions for the show took place in October, De Haven said. The rehearsals started on weekends in January.

The performance starts with an American salute to honor the military, De Haven said.

On opening night, the 158th Battalion of California Cadet Corps from Indio High School presented the colors.

“This is good for my students,” Battalion Lt. Ed Ogimachi said. “All my students are very patriotic and this is to show they are proud of their school.”

Leroy Vesper, 73, stood up and saluted as the U.S. Air Force anthem was played on stage.

Vesper, a winter resident of Palm Desert, said he served in the Air Force for 40 years.

“I was pleasantly surprised,” he said. “This was wonderful.”

The pageant begins following an introduction by Queen Scheherazade Madi DiPietro, Princess Jasmine Amariz Mendoza, and Princess Dunyazade Stacy Jones.

The Ali Baba tale has been modified from the original to be less violent, De Haven said.