Weekend of Dancing

My weekend of dancing was a fun and educational time. On Friday night, I went down to the Black Rose Caffe to watch and perform in the hafla. It was a great evening, lots of talented tribal style and tribal fusion dancers and a very enthusiastic and supportive audience. My performance didn't go quite as well as I had planned; I started out a little nervous and as such, I forgot some of the things I was going to do and all the flaws that I had been working through in my practice came back in my dance. But people seemed to enjoy it, so that's the important part. Unfortunately, I can't post the video here on my blog, as it's 10MB over Blogger's tiny limit, but if you're one of my Facebook friends, you can view it there.

The guest of honor, Oracle from Atlanta, performed twice and was a real treat to watch. Amazing physical skill and really in touch with her music and the audience. Also, abs that I would consider selling my soul for. You know, if anyone out there is in the market for a soul...

A bit shout-out to Brandye for organizing the hafla, inviting me to dance, and gathering such a great assortment of local performers!

Saturday had a serious lack of dancing fun times and is honestly not worth talking about.

But then Sunday rolled around! And off I went to my workshop with the amazing and talented Ava Fleming, who is based out of the Phoenix area. I had been warned that Ava would probably kick my butt, and the workshop was in fact pretty hard. There were moments when my muscles were crying for a reprieve, but luckily I didn't have any lasting ill effects. Thank goodness for CrossFit, it's really helped my endurance for belly dance workshops.

Ramona, the lady who organized the workshop, did a great job. The workshop itself was held at a ballet school, so there was a good floor, lots of mirrors, and good lighting and sound. There was water and snacks to keep us hydrated and energized for our 3 1/2 hours of drilling techniques and then rolling them into combos. I'd like to publicly thank her for putting on such a nice event!

After a quick trip home for a shower and a pretty dress, I was back out the door again to watch the showcase, which featured Ava and an assortment of local Tucson dancers. While Friday was all about the tribal gals, Sunday night was heavy on the Egyptian style, with a little debke (a social line dance from the Middle East) and one awesome Turkish dancer. It was nice to see all aspects of the Tucson belly dance community in one weekend -- though it would have been even better to see them all together in one show!

And to think I was worried that my dance life would slow down to a boring crawl when summer rolled around. I actually had to choose between a workshop with Ava and a workshop with Oracle, and I have more difficult choices ahead of me as the summer just gets hotter!

Dancing this Friday

One of my goals for 2010 was to find more opportunities to dance in public, and I'm happy to say that I'm succeeding so far. I've been invited to perform at a small hafla (belly dance party) here in Tucson this coming Friday. I'm excited, because it's my first Tucson performance, and a bit nervous, because I won't have my huge Plaza de Anaya dance family there to stroke my ego. But I will have my real family, some friends, and the Tucson dance community there, so it should be fun.

Mostly I'm happy for the chance to get to meet more local dancers, and see them perform. I had already intended to attend the hafla before I was invited to dance, as I'm really trying to get more involved with the local community. There's talk of more workshops, haflas, student nights and other fun dance-related events, and I want to make sure that I don't miss any of it, and that I do whatever I can to help make them successful. It's my dream that someday the Tucson dance scene will be just as vibrant as the Phoenix area one, even if it is smaller.