narni shakas

In the last year and a half a four figure dance sensation have exploded on to the rave scene bringing their raunchy and steaming hot moves to parties up and down the land. Charlotte, Kelly, Marina and Sarah will be best known to you as the Narni Shakas. Kelly and Charlotte reveal the source of their name, tell us about their new found craze – the ‘Numce’, double-jointed punarnis and their fascination with Ali G.

“I am good friends with Lipmaster Mark from the Rat Pack, he was the one who gave us our name” affirms Charlotte. Kelly interrupts, “Charlotte is always shaking her narni, if you ever see her dancing her punarni is always going ten to the dozen! So he was like ‘you lot are the Narni Shakas!’. We always used to say ‘hear me now’, ‘ride the punarni’ and all that Ali G shit! So that’s how we’ve become known as the Narni Shakaz.”

The Narni’s started busting their moves whilst at parties and when they noticed a lot of attention was being shown they decided to make a proper go of it and sign up for dance lessons. “I used to go to the TNT dance classes about two and a half years ago when they were still all together. I phoned Terri from TNT up and she said ‘why don’t you come under our management?’. Then she started teaching us.

They performed their first rave on Valentine’s Day, 2001, in Surrey and are now managed by the Urban Agency as well as TNT. Currently Charlotte confesses Innovation are the girls favourite rave. “Everyone seems really happy, just up for it and the promoters are really nice as well. When they set it up they really do make an effort, get the good lasers, do the stage up proper and make sure we’ve got enough room to do our routines properly. Mickey will ring me up and say ‘I’m going to do this and do that to the stage’, it’s really sweet”.

So how do you differentiate between the girls? “Charlotte’s got a double jointed punarni, it travels at uncontrollable speeds and tends to hypnotize the ravers at the front of the stage, that’s her little trait. Then there’s Sarah who’s the most serious out of us all, she’s the laid back one and we call her ‘sec’. That’s short for secretary because she sorts out all the little business bits for us and she’s a seamstress, she makes the outfits for us. Marina is the Thai girl - the Oriental Narni, she’s a nutter really.”

It materialises that the ‘numce’ is actually a complex facial expression. Charlotte explains how it’s done, “it’s like when you see ravers gurning, you have to really push the back of the chin and go ‘ooooh’, really stretch it out! We go around raves and get people to do the ‘numce’, we explain it to them, say ‘can you do it?’ and then take photos of them. They have to have the thumbs up as well so they can go ‘ooooh’ with the thumb and all!” Well I hope that was clear – so now you know!

It is clear the girls like to have a lot of fun and enjoy what they do but insist there is a serious side to it all. Running through their routines religiously once a week and having to perform for hours on end just go to prove that - but as said they do have fun as well! “You do get these girls that go out there and feel they have to rub their tits, rub their arse and be really sexy. But at the end of the day you’ve got ravers out there and we just put on a really comical show - we just don’t take ourselves too seriously.”

Like every person they rejoiced at the arrival of Ali G on-screen and joined in with the nation in the obligatory mimicking of the G’s catchphrases. “When Lipmaster Mark gave us our name it just kind of stuck. When Ali G first came out everybody loved him and it was the biggest thing wasn’t it? Without Ali G we wouldn’t have had our name, we do love him.”

The Narni’s can be booked for shows through either Terri Martinez at TNT Management or Tasha at The Urban Agency. Don’t forget to check more ‘numce’ shenanigans with the girls amongst other things at www.narnishakas.com. The Narni’s would like to thank friends Randall and Ellis D who have helped them with contacts in the scene and Quiff from Total Science “who comes out with us when he’s not working, puts up with our madness and looks after us!”