Stage Space

The first choreo I did, I was dancing in my living room. At the time, I thought it was a terribly cramped tiny space, because I was unable to take real steps in any direction. After doing this choreo in the ludicrously small cranny of the mudroom, I realized just how much of a luxury being able to take steps, however stunted, really was.

I drilled my new choreo in a large space for the first time tonight, and I had so many problems with stage space usage. I stuck mostly to the middle, was unable to spread out to give the left and right any love, and had a terrible time not crowding the front of the room. It's better now, and I'm glad I had the time and opportunity to fix it before performing it. Tripping over the audience would have been awful.

I also made a few last minute tweaks to the movements. Hopefully I can remember them, and they won't backfire on me or look weird or anything like that. We shall see!

A fit of pique

I performed my very first self-choreographed solo almost a year ago, and still haven't received the video for it yet. In a fit of pique, I wondered if I could create, and perform, a second choreography before I receive the first one. I vaguely felt that maybe it would compel the videographer to "get a move on" and motivate him to get me that video.

While I don't seem to be having a whole lot of luck with the video for my first solo -- he's found the raw vids, and is now working on them, but it's still not done yet -- I did manage to finish a second choreography. Admittedly I've only done two now, but at 2 weeks and change, this is the fastest I've ever finished a choreography. Now I just have to drill, drill, drill until I get all my transitions down pat.

The show is coming up in just 10 days, and I'm all a-jitter with nerves and anticipation. It's a little out of my range of expertise, but I'm hoping I can pull it off and make it work. Tell your friends, and come see me dance!

I dream of Manson

Choreography for this has been really slow -- I started working on it months ago, and it's still not done yet -- but I showed what I had to my current dance instructor and one of the girls in class, and they both seemed to like it. My instructor has threatened motivated me with doing this solo at the upcoming studio recital in mid-June. *laugh* I hope I can finish it, polish it, and groove to it all in the next 6 weeks or so. This is gonna be interesting. :3

First Solo Video

I've been super lame, but I've finally posted the video from my first solo. Enjoy!

Winter Recital

I found a new teacher! Her name is Melina, and she is a belly dance and aerials instructor (among other things). So far I'm really enjoying it, but the 2 classes I attended before the holidays were mostly concentrating on preparing the choreography for the recital. After the long break, I'm eager to go back and see what classes are like when we're not preparing for a show.

The recital was nice. I managed to get through our piece with only very minor errors which, I was told afterward, were not even noticeable. Our choreo was simple, but it was fun, well-matched to the music, and had enough variety that I didn't feel like we were just doing the usual "do this for x beats, do that for y beats" thing that I've been seeing altogether too much of lately. I'm hoping to see photos or videos from this -- there was definitely someone taking footage, but I don't know who it was, nor how to get to it.

Open Mic Night -- Unexpectedly Dancing

On my first visit to the Middle East Restaurant and Club (the Corner), we saw a troop of dancers who were, in a word, disappointing. As we were leaving, I stopped to talk to the MC, who told us that while they did have "house" dancers, the club also interspersed these sets with "open mic night" dancers. In short, anyone can dance. I also met another girl, Alayisha, who had just moved into town, and was interested in dancing.

Fast forward two weeks. I get an email from Alayisha saying that she would be dancing at the Middle East, and would I like to come and be moral support. Of course I would. The evening began with a dancer who had a lovely smile, but not so much in the way of isolations or technique. Next was Mahsati, a better dancer with a gorgeous shimmy. Finally -- after the MC harangued me into dancing with her a few times, just for kicks -- my friend Alayisha came out and danced. It was quite lovely, and I was well pleased with my evening.

After that, we all gathered around to chit chat. When I saw the second dancer hanging out with the MC, I sat down next to her and asked her if she had any thoughts on local belly dance teachers. One thing led to another, and before I knew it, the two of them had conspired together, tied a hip scarf around my jeans, and were creating a playlist for me to dance to.

The MC gave me a brief introduction, explaining how she'd just hauled me up from my dinner table and thrown me out on the dance floor, put on (a different version of) Aziza (because of course there are about a zillion of them) and off I went!

After I stumbled through Aziza, the MC dragged me back onto the floor to improvise a drum solo. It was one that I recognized, but had never learned choreography to, so um..... I shimmied a lot. A LOT.

Mahsati, Alayisha, and various members of the audience (including J) gave me lots of smiles and encouragement, two $1 tips, and a decent amount of cheering and whistling. I'm still kind of in a daze of "What did I just do?" but I had a good time, and I hope the audience enjoyed it too. (I mean, I'm assuming they did, 'cos one random elderly couple slipped a dollar into my pants, and a cluster of young men were all making ogly eyes.) Woot!

First solo!

Today, I danced my first solo piece at a restaurant full of strangers. :) It was a lot of fun!

The evening began with group pieces. I was in 2 groups, performing a total of 4 pieces. Our teacher Maria made a surprise last-minute appearance, and we all had a lot of fun. Then it was time for the quick-change.

I started trembling halfway through the first soloist's piece. I admit, I spazzed out before I went on stage. Maria came and comforted me, telling me good luck, and relax. Sandra came over to hug me and give me some last-minute advice, for which I was very grateful: camera's over there, and try to stay in the spotlight.

When Sandra announced my introduction, I eased out into the ready area. The sound guy looked over at me. We exchanged solemn nods and the music began.

Sure, I made a few mistakes, but who cares? I had a blast. The audience was super, they cheered, they clapped, they whistled. It was awesome!

When the music ended, the adrenaline hit hard, and it was all I could do to keep my balance while bowing. After I made it safely out of sight of the audience, I clung desperately to the wall to stay upright. My hands shook. My legs shook. Even my face was quivering.

Then suddenly Maria was there with her arms around me, hugging me and rubbing my back and telling me how proud she was of me -- her very first beginner-to-soloist student, who was hers and only hers. I was so happy that I'd made her proud, I nearly started to cry.

When I could stand again, I changed out of my jingly outfit and snuck out to join the audience. The rest of the evening was filled with amazing dancers, and I -- having faithfully discharged my duty -- had a great time watching the show. :D

Craziness

It's been a crazy quarter. The little February show got pushed back to early May due to lack of performers, so I caught a little break there. I skipped the Student Night at Chatanoga Restaurant to go see the circus with my friends from college. OVO!!! <3

Then the big March show happened, which was full of insanity. I spent 12 hours running around in the same theater (with almost no sunlight) on the day of the performance. This made me angry and depressed. Three days running, I danced until 11pm, and got home around midnight. This is not my style. Cramming at the last minute may be okay for exams, but this is not how I operate for performances. Either I've got the muscle memory down, or I don't, and the extra hours of rehearsal mere days before a show just makes me pissed off. Oh well.

There are three more shows coming up, but I don't think I can go to any of them. The next one I'll be missing 'cos I'm visiting my cousins in the mountains. After that, it's the little May show right before I go on a long trip, during which time I expect I'll be stressed and pretty busy planning the trip. The third one is in the middle of my trip, so that's right out too. I'm a little sad that I won't be performing, but just learning the choreography is super fun, so that's all right. :)

Speaking of which, I've uploaded a video of the choreography that we're learning at the moment. The song is Studio Ayoub's "Tabla Sukkarah". It's a lot of fun. :)

Dance With Intensity

One down! Many more performances to go.

It went fairly well. There was some confusion at first, and of course everything started late, and there was nobody on the dance floor in the beginning, but it turned out all right in the end.

M opened with a couple of songs for teaching the crowd some moves. They were reluctant at first, but after M dragged out a few guys and put them through their paces publicly, the crowd started to warm up to it.

Once the "lesson" was done, M came over and told us we'd have a 10 minute break. As soon as she turned her back to us though, our choreography music came on, so she ran back and waved us into our lines.

The actual group choreography went fine. I made a few stumbles, and stepped on my skirt a few times, but I don't think anyone noticed. When we finished with the group choreography, we retreated to the sidelines to enjoy M's solo.

There was some sort of weird musical blip, and the club DJ's cut one of M's songs off part of the way through, so we skipped straight to free dance for the rest of the evening.

Overall, it was a pretty good experience. The club's MC's and DJ's were not particularly skilled. There were a number of little things that made me cringe inside. The strobe lights were horrible -- it made me unable to see anything, and also made my eyes water. Even discounting the strobe lights, I had a pretty tough time seeing without my glasses. I'm definitely going to get some contacts in the near future. This whole dancing blind thing doesn't work so well. Apparently I also need to work on dancing with intensity. Well, better luck next time.

Dance Recital

It went well. I made a little bitty mistake at the end, but asking around, nobody seemed to notice. I definitely flirted with the camera throughout the piece, hehe. Hopefully the photos will come out well. :D