Saturday, February 27, 2010

Bellydance Street Team

This is my favorite shot from last night... Chris managed to catch my classmates and I in the middle of an Egyptian 1/2 turn, resulting in beautiful swirling skirts, perfectly posed arms, and everyone looking dramatically off into the crowd. My two lovely and well-dressed classmates who are dancing with me are Meghan and Jen. Shortly after this photo was taken, our teacher Tiffany jumped in. Fun times!

The entire Street Team event was just a lot of fun. We spent about an hour and a half making our way up and down Mill Avenue. It was a Friday night, so there were lots of people out and about, enjoying various restaurants, clubs, and the few shops that were open late. Most of them reacted positively to the experience, though some people seemed annoyed about us taking up sidewalk space, and we actually had a small run-in with some bicycle cops (I didn't hear most of the exchange, but apparently they were just asking us to stick to larger spaces and leave more open sidewalk, which was fine). There were quite a few dancers and musicians, as well as significant others and friends along for the fun, and even a few random people who followed us for a bit (including a couple of steampunks!).

It was a great experience for me, as a student dancer. My classmates and I danced together twice. The rest of the night I spent either watching, or standing in a U Chorus-type formation, doing simple moves to provide a pretty backdrop for the main dancers. I got to deal with the General Public, practice dancing to live music, and deal with the "fun" of realizing that I messed up in the middle of a move, then smiling and making the best of it. I hope to go up to Tempe for another one of these monthly events!

4 comments:

  1. that sounds and looks like a riotous bit of good fun! you look beauteous :D

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  2. That's a great picture! I'm glad you had fun!

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  3. Glad you had fun and hope it wasn't too cold.

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  4. Thank you all! I felt beauteous, too, Julie, although also a little drab next to some of the ladies in their vibrant colors!

    SaraBeth, it was a little cold, but since we were constantly moving, I didn't start to feel cold until the end. The entari was perfect to wear, the long sleeves kept me warm, but since it's cotton, it breathed nicely when I heated up from dancing :) So glad I didn't go with a stretch velvet gahwazee coat over it, I would have been sweating and yucky.

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