History of Salon Darbuka Salon Darbuka is a trade name of artists Anji and Pete Jackson-Main, and began in 2003 as a club night. It arose originally out of the ashes of their performance group Shamaal, a dance theatre company specializing in Arabian and Oriental dance and music, that had for many years staged major events in the city, notably a series of highly popular and well-attended dance theatre productions at the Cambridge Drama Centre. Club nights were held at Cafe Afrika at the Howard Mallet Centre in Cambridge, and incorporated dance, music (live and DJ), video and film, and featured many prominent guest artists, especially Egyptian musicians Ibrahim El Minyawi and Sheikh Taha El Sekeley, as well as dance music from a variety of popular world-music DJs, including Cambridge’s celebrated DJ Skunk (himself a founder member of the Salon), and DJ Darbuka aka Pete Jackson-Main. With the closure of Cafe Afrika in 2005, Salon Darbuka found itself without a home. We had always prided ourselves that Salon Darbuka events were family-friendly, a place where people could come with their children and other family members to enjoy an exciting evening out together. It proved impossible at the time to find such a venue in Cambridge. We are still looking! Salon Darbuka soon became a header for a variety of activities spinning off from the old Shamaal days, and of course from the multimedia Salon events at Club Afrika. These included music events and concerts, classes (dance and percussion), performances for private parties, multimedia and video installations, and dance video productions, notably those completed in recent months for Dance Offensive, extracts of which can be viewed here. Recent high profile performances have included our appearances in 2005 and 2006 at Cambridge City’s World Music Day, on Parker’s Piece, Cambridge, and the appearance of Sheikh Taha at the Cambridge Art School degree show benefit concert, at the Mumford Theatre, Anglia Ruskin University, in February 2008. If you are organizing an event that you think might benefit from our particular flavour, please do contact us!

History of Salon Darbuka

Salon Darbuka is a trade name of artists Anji and Pete Jackson-Main, and began in 2003 as a club night. It arose originally out of the ashes of their performance group Shamaal, a dance theatre company specializing in Arabian and Oriental dance and music, that had for many years staged major events in the city, notably a series of highly popular and well-attended dance theatre productions at the Cambridge Drama Centre.

Club nights were held at Cafe Afrika at the Howard Mallet Centre in Cambridge, and incorporated dance, music (live and DJ), video and film, and featured many prominent guest artists, especially Egyptian musicians Ibrahim El Minyawi and Sheikh Taha El Sekeley, as well as dance music from a variety of popular world-music DJs, including Cambridge’s celebrated DJ Skunk (himself a founder member of the Salon), and DJ Darbuka aka Pete Jackson-Main.

With the closure of Cafe Afrika in 2005, Salon Darbuka found itself without a home. We had always prided ourselves that Salon Darbuka events were family-friendly, a place where people could come with their children and other family members to enjoy an exciting evening out together. It proved impossible at the time to find such a venue in Cambridge. We are still looking!

Salon Darbuka soon became a header for a variety of activities spinning off from the old Shamaal days, and of course from the multimedia Salon events at Club Afrika. These included music events and concerts, classes (dance and percussion), performances for private parties, multimedia and video installations, and dance video productions, notably those completed in recent months for Dance Offensive, extracts of which can be viewed here.

Recent high profile performances have included our appearances in 2005 and 2006 at Cambridge City’s World Music Day, on Parker’s Piece, Cambridge, and the appearance of Sheikh Taha at the Cambridge Art School degree show benefit concert, at the Mumford Theatre, Anglia Ruskin University, in February 2008.

If you are organizing an event that you think might benefit from our particular flavour,

please do contact us!