15 posts tagged “belly dance”
Well, another year, another Tribal Fest that I didn't get to go to, dammitall. Fortunately Dano is usually good enough to throw video of the best performances up on YouTube. And thusly I watched the Indigo perform. Brilliant and hilarious as always.
Oh no Mardi!
In other, non-Indigo related Tribal Fest news, there were some other bangin' performances that have been posted. Check out the tandem Turkish drop here by Hipnotic:
And the always fabulous UNMATA with Amy Sigil:
It was the Classic this weekend, and it was FANTASTIC! But I have hardly slept and I am completely exhausted.
Saturday morning the boys were up early, I tried to sleep but, bah, I wound up at the Classic site at 8am. I worked backstage until 5pm during the Rising Star, Troupe, and Headliner competitions, then Nadira and I ran to her house to get ready for the gala show. Gala started at 7, we left the site shortly after 10:30. Went to dinner (mostly margaritas) and came home around 1am. Back up again Sunday morning at 6:45 and was on site again by 8 - but nobody was there yet. Got some breakfast, etc, back at 8:30ish and was backstage again - except for running out to get lunch for the judges - until 5:30. Did the cleanup, prizes both days, met tons of good people and managed to catch a few of the performances. Some of those Grand Champs were just frigging amazing! It was a great venue, a really good year for the show - competitors really brought it, the gala show was a ton of fun. To The Earth rocked it as always - to 80s music! Michelle Joyce was so incredible I thought I might fall out. And Za'beth! Totally badass. She had a sequined beret over dreads, did double veil and zills, then pulled half the audience onto the stage. It was so much fun.
Our performance went over well. Everyone (including MICHELLE JOYCE OMG!) said they enjoyed it, and one of the Grand Champions said we made her cry because it was so obvious we're close friends when we duet. Very sweet.
The standout performances as I sit here thinking about it:
VIRAJ! He did not place, stunningly. He was the final competitor, the last Grand Champion. Came down from Canada. He did one-armed pushups and flipped onto his side straight into a shimmy. Incredible. He was a very powerful performer, great stage presence. He finished off with this incredibly emotional piece that had the five of us (me, Nadira, Rya - one of Kalaa's students, and two of the Grand Champion competitors) in a puddle in the wings, and Nadira, Liz of MJZ, and I think Zuleika too, were just crying. He was amazing.
Athallia of New York - she did Fantasy and Grand Champion, and her fantasy piece was so badass I was jumping up and down. She had FAN VEILS in THIGH HOLSTERS! I didn't even see her whip out the first one, she was spinning and the next second she had a fan veil! I was like where the hell did that come from? And then (I was in the wings, I doubt the audience saw) she whipped out the seconds one and I was squeeing heavily. It was fabulous. She was really sweet too, she was part of our Viraj-induced puddle.
Ruby of Washington - she brought it so hard it was amazing. Won People's Choice and first in Grand Champion - I was sure she would as soon as she got onstage. She had such great stage presence, she had the crowd completely entranced from the go. It was really amazing to watch. And damn her costume was gorgeous too!
I really didn't get to see any of the Rising Stars, Troupes, or Headliners perform, which sucked for me. I tried to catch them from the wings but only saw bits of a few of them. There were so many people in Troupe that I didn't get into the wings for any of their performances. Ruby Scarab did something while wearing leopard fur-trimmed red velvet pimp hats. It was fabulous. Sholeh did a sword routine.
The hubby was great - he didn't even get to come inside the building at all, poor guy, but he was so helpful. He fixed the signs that the printer messed up, hunted them down on the street. He got lunch for the judges on Saturday. He was very sweet.
I bought two new pairs of zills, cause I'm crazazy like that apparently. Persians and Tuts. Saroyan of course, from the Belly Dance Shoppe (NC). I'm going to clean my Ghawazees (they're bronze, I didn't realize it tarnished so quickly) and sell them on Tribe.
Anyway, I'm off to bed, I have to get the kids off to school in the morning, and then I might go back to sleep!
Woot! Got mine 95% done - just need to add some lace-ribbon trim to the top of the ruffles.
Nadira's are nearly done - she got one leg's ruffles done and is finishing up at home, she had to run home to pick up her son. But we're making progress! Tonight we'll do a dress rehearsal and make sure we can actually do all the floorwork with the ruffly pantaloons and the fluffy skirts in a bustle tuck. And then we'll be making millions of bindis for troupe prizes.
Show us what you're working on right now.
Submitted by yygall.
Two pairs of ruffled pantaloons for my duet this weekend at the
Classic: one pair for me, one for Nadira. I'm also working on
rehearsing for said duet. Also need to make about 20 bindis for prizes
at the Classic. And find some fabric to be a headwrap. I love my
tie-dye but I want to be a little more dramatic cause our music is very
dramatic. And we're doing sword. Sword is automatically dramatic.
Hubby hired a sitter for Saturday night so he can come to the show. I'm going to make him record our performance and take pics. It'll be fun. Lots of big names coming. I'm excited to meet Michelle Joyce.
Here's what I've been listening to over and over...
- "Apologize", Timbaland & One Republic
- "Hallelujah", k.d. lang
- "Mount Wroclai", Beirut
- "You're The One", The Vogues
- "Habanera", Aria
- "Blessings", Solace
Habanera & Blessings are our performance music for the Classic this weekend. Apologize I've discovered works REALLY WELL as a dramatic slow piece for ATS. Interesting. Can't wait for a hafla so we can bust that out.
Well I've found fabric for pantaloons for our performance at the Classic. Now I have to decide whether to keep them this color or try to dye them something more interesting. They're a sort of tan plaid gauze fabric, but I bought it at Walmart ($1 a yard!) and it said, and I quote: "100% Indeterminate Origin Fabric" *rolleyes* Yeah thanks, that's ever so helpful. It's probably a cotton/poly blend, may not dye so well. I bought enough that I can dye a swatch and see how it goes, and if it doesn't work out, I'll just leave it as-is or buy new fabric and do something else with that stuff (what? I have no idea). Tonight I'll cut out new cholis and whip them up tomorrow. We need to practice so I can learn the sword choreography, and rehearse our improv.
Totally awesome 
The dance surface was CONCRETE! Ouch. I whipped out one Egyptian Half-Turn and was like 
We never did practice with all 3 of us together 
But it was fun, we danced all right, people were kind and said we'd done well, and then we did some mini-classes: duets and zills with Dvora, listening to the Tahitian drumming downstairs. It's a very chill event, so we just did our thing, watched the other dancers, and had some vino afterward 
There's a huge jam session after the performances, we had a fabulous time dancing to the live drumming. I drank for a bit and then had to sober up so I
could drive us home. We didn't leave until 1am. Got home around 3.
I didn't take pictures, we were busy dancing and drinking, but Brett
said he got some good ones and would email them to us. Anyway, so DH is home - he kept the boys while I was in Richmond, and
he's taking a nap now. His internal clock is all screwed up of course,
Guam is 14 hours ahead of Eastern time. He brought home a bunch of
shells and dried starfish so the boys are happy 
Well my mother is en route back to Utah now, we dropped her off at the airport (my nephew too, obviously). So now I have to get back to our usual routine, get shit back together in my house, and get caught up with all the crap that's going on, and get ready for Hubby to return from his 6-week stint in Guam this Saturday. Tribal Jam 7 is also on Saturday up in Richmond, my troupe is going up, and if the husband's plane gets in on time I'll be going as well. Then I've got approximately 2 weeks to learn the choreography for our performance at the East Coast Classic. Normally choreography and I are not friends, hence my proclivity for American Tribal Style, but this is short, swords (used to be my specialty when I was cabaret, years ago), and largely ATS moves, so I'm not really worried. The ECC is going to kick ass, or raq if you will, this year. Michelle Joyce is coming to vend and perform, To The Earth is performing, and the competitions are always excellent. And I'm going to be stage manager, aka Head Bitch Backstage. And I'm going to buy myself new zills, since my Ghawazees lost their decent sound rather quickly, and my poor old Nefertitis are now approaching their golden years (I bought them around 10 or 11 years ago). I think I want the Arabesque II or Tutankhamun.
But the Vox Hunt is stupid (show us a key? Actually I do have a cool Hawaiian-print key, maybe I'll do it after all, but seriously, a key? Who cares?) and I haven't had any recent epiphanies, so I suppose I'll just have an actual post.
I'm very disappointed that I won't be able to dance at Carmen's hafla due to the family's usual poor planning. *insert rolleyes here* But I'm not bitter. I have a private lesson with To The Earth the weekend after Carmen's and I'll definitely be doing that. Damn I need to practice so I don't look a mess then. Anyway, and then a few weeks after that is the East Coast Classic, and Nadira and I are dueting in the gala show. I also need to practice for that, and get her to write down the sword choreography already, or record it, because Michelle Joyce is going to be performing, and TTE, and we mustn't look a mess there either. Maybe I'll make a giant poster of all the moves in the FCBD repertoire because I always forget a bunch of them when I get going and default to Egyptian half-turns. I love Egyptian. Anyway, yes, must practice, performances upcoming, need to sew costumes for the Classic too. I'm the costume director for the troupe, which means I tend to get distracted by clothes and shiny baubles and forget that I ought to be practicing.
Ok, must get moving for the day. I need to vacuum the den, do a little practice, and get a CD burned of music for the hafla for Nadira and Zuleika, who are going without me *sob* but that's ok, at least Fleur Ebene will make an appearance with one person short. I'm off to Get Things The Fuck Done, buh-bye!
Video: Show us some great dancing.
Oh, you had to know I'd post belly dancing.
The incomparable Fat Chance Belly Dance at the Ansuya Salon. Glorious!
Black Sheep Belly Dance, another tribal improv group (not ATS in the strict definition, but a spinoff thereof). Love them.
And because I do like dancing other than belly dance, some beautiful hula:
