Things that make me happy

Three things that make me happy!

First, I'm featured in the treasury A little bling by AnikasArt. Anika is a really talented fellow FAE, so please make sure to check out her shop after you're done admiring the treasury!

Second, I had a fun day exploring the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum with Andrew Thornton. I'd tell you all about it, but my guess is that Andrew will blog it more eloquently than I will, and with better pictures (I left my camera at home because I'm paranoid about it dying again). I will say that my inner Goth was very pleased that the first birds in the raptor free-flight were a pair of Chihuahuan ravens!

Third, by the time I got home I had a new water heater and a fully-operational shower (and a new bathroom faucet to boot)! Oh, happy day! I can finally take a hot shower in my own home again! And my water heater won't make weird sloshy noises any more.

Vending! Dancers! A Parade!

Here it is, the result of all of my crazy running around last week... my booth at the Fall Festival! Big props to Evan and Meghan who helped me with set-up and tear-down and were around throughout the day to keep me company.
Meghan was getting ready for her performance when she realized that she'd left her necklace at home. Oh no! What's a girl to do? Naturally, she came over to my booth and asked to borrow a necklace she'd had her eye on. After the show, she decided that said necklace had to be hers, so now Necromancer's Mirror has a new home!

Unfortunately, Meghan was my ONLY customer. Sales were down for everyone. Other than dismal sales, it was a fun event... a beautiful day, lots of my belly dance friends around, live music from the drum circle, and I took a couple of breaks to go watch the dancers on the community stage.
Of course, I had to go see Meghan and my other friends Jacque and Rosemary, performing under the wonderful name Vorpal Shimmy! Meghan and Rosemary did a beautiful sword performance to Endless Reverie by Azam Ali (currently my favorite song), and then all three of them did a very energetic skirt dance to a rap about Ganesh. A lot of my pictures came out blurry because of how fast they were moving, but I think this photo is beautiful.

You'd think that after a busy day of vending on Saturday, I'd spend Sunday relaxing... but then you'd be forgetting that I live in Arizona, and that we cram all of our fun events into the few months when the weather is actually nice! After visiting the MZ Glass Open House (I'll post my glass goodies tomorrow!) and eating a big lunch, I hastily put together a costume and headed downtown to meet a group of Tucson belly dancers for the All Souls Procession. The costume theme was aquatic, and as you can see, I embraced it whole-heartedly. Not only am I wearing water colors, but my belt has shells and my hat and necklace have fish.

The parade was a lot of fun. I've never walked in a parade, let alone danced one. I have no idea how long the Procession was... it didn't feel too long at the time (though my arms sure got tired!), but walking back to the car felt like it was about 100 miles. The parade terminated in a huge finale, complete with fire dancers and stilt walkers and aerial silks performers and live music and did I mention fire? It was hard to see through the crowd, but still very impressive.

And now it's back to life as usual... except that TusCon and workshops with Mahin are this weekend, and next weekend is Phoenix Faerie Festival... I guess busy is the new norm for me!

Dance Recap

I may go back and edit this post later to add a pic or two, but the pics from the workshops haven't been posted yet.

My dance weekend in Tempe was both invigorating and exhausting at the same time. There's nothing quite like a great show and 6 hours of workshops to really inspire a dancer, but by the same token there's nothing like excitement-fueled insomnia and 6 hours of workshops to wear a dancer out!

After my usual two hours of tribal class with Anaya Tribal, I went home with my awesome friend and classmate Meghan, who has generously offered up her sofa as my home-away-from-home for belly dance weekends (I say generous because I'm going to be up there for 3 weekends out of 5!). We had fun times talking about dance, costumes, jewelry, and all the things that make tribal dancers happy.

Friday was shopping with Meghan and Jen. We went to Beads Galore, where I picked up some great tribal beads. I guess I could have photographed those and used them on this post! We also went clothes shopping, where I picked up a couple of scarves, because being a dancer makes you a scarf addict. It's true.

Friday night was the super cool and amazing show! Many of Plaza de Anaya's teachers and the workshop instructors took to the stage, each doing what they do best. There was Egyptian style belly dance, ATS, ITS, Tribal Fusion, Bollywood, and fire-spinning-without-the-fire. I even got to see Helena Vlahos, who you may be familiar with even if you're not a dancer -- she holds the world record for flipping coins on her belly, and can do crazy things like line up a row of quarters on her abs and flip every other one. But for this show, she focused on good old fashioned belly dance.

And Saturday was workshops! Dance Therapeutics with Deb Rubin, focusing on the upper body, gave us some great yoga and stretches for warming up and taking good care of the spine and shoulder girdle. It reminded me how badly I really need to get back into yoga on a regular basis. Supah Saucy Spins and Kicks with Zafira featured Spanish-inspired choreography and lots of fun belly dance roleplay exercises, including a belly dance gang fight. Ooey-Gooey, Slow and Slinky with Jill Parker wasn't nearly as slow as I expected, but Jill taught us some great traveling moves inspired by vintage belly dance, two fun combos, and gave us some time to just play with gliding around the room with whatever traveling steps we wanted and then dropping into the combos.

Because I'm really used to workshops that cram too much info into my head, causing me to forget all the combos, I loved that Zafira and Jill both gave us the chance to take what we had physically learned and apply it creatively, and explore our personalities as dancers. All of the teachers and their assistants did a great job, and I'd happily take workshops with any of them again.

Now it's back to normal life as we know it... of course, there's a three hour Turkish Romany dance workshop I'm considering this weekend!

Fire and Tribal and Swords, oh my!

That's my plan for the evening. Sounds pretty awesome, doesn't it? Classes were a lot of fun last week. I'm enjoying learning Palm Flame and Sword, as they're two props that I'd love to be able to perform with someday (not at the same time!), and Tribal is always awesome. This session we're focusing on honing technique even more, layering shimmies, adding zills, and still learning some new moves, because Anaya Tribal has a huge vocabulary and we want to know it allllll.

I also got some new beading books in the mail today, which I've only had a little time to flip through, but hopefully I'll read them this weekend and get a chance to post some book reviews next week, as well as probably posting my Egg Moon necklace, which I got back to work on this morning.

Recital Number Two

So, the recital this weekend was fun but crazy. The drum solo performance was canceled last-minute, so I only danced with two classes, which was actually better for me in a way because it meant one less costume change. We had several people just not show up, which threw off our formations, and there was some confusion on exactly what we were doing for zill class... but in the end, it all more or less came together, and if any mistakes were made, well, we all made the same mistake, so only we know that it wasn't supposed to be that way :)

Even though there was a bit of stress involved, I found myself feeling really refreshed as I drove home to Tucson. There's something about spending the entire weekend with my dancing friends and classmates that just makes me happy. I get a real sense of community, especially as we all help each other get ready and congratulate each other on a job well-done (and convince each other that the audience didn't notice that little misstep).

Video is forthcoming. My parents loaned us their nice camcorder, which should have taken some nice footage, it just needs to be transferred to the computer and such.

Dancing at Faire

Look who danced on stage with the dancers and musicians of Ghazaal Beledi! It's me! And my classmates Jacqueline (in the orange), Meghan (in the magenta) and Jen (behind Meghan)! The other magenta skirted dancer in the corner is Jen Bentz, one of the Ghazal Belede dancers, and the blue skirted lady in the back is the dancer who spotted us in the audience and came up with the idea to pull us up... I didn't catch her name because I was too excited.

This photo comes courtesy of Jen's husband Sam, who took a lot of pictures and a little video while we were dancing. My Mom has video, too, but she hasn't sent it to me yet. I'll share it here when she does.

Sorry that I haven't had time to actually post much this week, it's been crazy and now I have to finish getting ready for class.

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!

New Jewelry Tomorrow

I made two necklaces today, but haven't had a chance to photograph them yet. They're both bound for Etsy tomorrow, however! Hopefully it will be nice and sunny again so I can get some good outdoor photos.

Tonight, I went over to Reid Park where the SCA meets. Though I still don't want to join the SCA, I did enjoy meeting some fellow dancers and dancing to some live drumming. It was really cold out, so I only stayed for an hour, but I'm going to try to go back often. It was fun to see where our dance vocabularies were the same, and where they were wildly different. I even learned a new move, though who knows if I'll remember it tomorrow, since I only did it twice :)

Fun and Sun at Ren Faire!

Here's a picture of me with my awesome mother-in-law Marlyn at the Renaissance Faire! I'm a woodlands belly dancer and she's a mischievous imp -- the horns and ears are from the NY Faire, but the awesome wings were purchased yesterday at our Faire. The skirt and belt are from my closet, we're close enough in size that I was able to help her with an impromptu costume. However, while we were there she picked up a couple of skirts, so she'll have her own costume when we return to the NY Faire in August!

This was my first time doing Tribal buns. I put my hair up in two little buns, wrapped the yarn falls around them once, clipped them into place with little barrettes and then added all of the flowers and sticks I could. I really love this new pair of falls, they're perfectly earthy and have more texture than my green and black pair. I could see myself getting addicted to wearing my hair this way. I just have to remember to sunscreen my scalp...

Yes, as usual I got a little too much sun with my fun! But it was worth it. Mediaeval Baebes were back again, this weekend only! We saw their show, two belly dance/world music troupes, and the falconry show, in between all our shopping. What a great time! The weather was perfect, the performers were all at top form, and the booths were well-stocked with beautiful goodies. And I even got my first henna tattoo! Yay!

Lunch time fun time!

Today I had the pleasure of sharing lunch with two of my FAE Team compatriots! Aquariann was visiting from DE, and she wanted to meet 88Links and I while she was in town -- so of course we agreed to lunch. Aquariann brought her sweet and geeky boyfriend along, and we had a wonderful time chatting about Etsy, business, travel, and comic books. A very pleasant diversion from an otherwise cold and gray afternoon.

The overcast weather has kept me from taking photos these past couple of days. I think I'll have to do some indoor shots, so I can show off my Queen Anne's Lace bracelet, the mushroom pixie necklace, and the trilobite pendant.

A good day

Today was a fun day. Chris and I went to the gym, where he managed the workout despite only having one usable arm. This impressed quite a few people there. I just hope that he didn't over-do it with his right arm. We'll see how he feels tomorrow!

Then after we cleaned up, he dropped me off at Margaret Zinser's open house. You may already know that Margaret is one of my favorite lampworkers, which makes it even more awesome that she lives just 5 minutes from my house, and has open houses a couple of times a year. This time she also had the lovely and talented Anne Mitchell there displaying her beautiful fine silver jewelry. I spent an enjoyable couple of hours chatting with them and the other bead and jewelry people who came in and out of the house while I was there. And of course I bought a few pretty things, which I'll take pictures of tomorrow.

Chris left his usual Saturday game long enough to pick me up, say Hi to Anne and Margaret and tell his broken thumb story, then he took me for a quick deli dinner, ooohed and aaahed over my goodies, and dropped me off here at home, where my puppies were happy to have me home.

Now I'm going to kick back with a bead magazine and a mug of tea, and maybe get my zillage on in a bit.

Fun times not as advertised

Here's a picture of my Mistress of Ghosts earrings. Blogger is being dumb and rotating pictures for no reason again, but we can pretend that I just took the photo at an artsy angle.

So, as the title of this post suggests, last night's concert was not quite what I and my fellow belly dancers expected. First of all, despite the fliers saying that the show started at 9pm, they didn't let people in until after 9, and then we had to sit through 2 hours of the house DJ, who was playing very loud hip-hop. Things at least got interesting after an hour and a half, when the previously empty dance floor became the stage for a few hip hop/break dancers to show off their very impressive moves. At around 11, the opening act came up. Unfortunately, this was another DJ, and his music wasn't that great.

Finally, Beats Antique took the stage at somewhere between 11:30 and midnight, and the dance floor filled up. It was an interesting mix of belly dancers, burlesque dancers (and some bleed over between those two groups), break dancers, normal people at a club dancers, people standing on the floor just swaying a bit, and one annoying trancy guy who was taking up more than his fair share of floor space.

The music was pretty good, though much more skewed towards the hip-hop end and not so much the Middle Eastern and Gypsy influenced pieces that I've seen belly dancers performing to. They also didn't have Zoe Jakes dancing for them, which was a big disappointment. I still managed to have some fun dancing (after all, I've applied my moves to disco, metal, and classic rock), but it was really not what I expected.

After a bit, the breakdancers pretty much took over the floor, and I got shoved into a corner as everyone else crowded in to see what was going on. Now, admittedly, those guys had some awesome skills and I really enjoyed watching them... But I came there to dance as well! Maybe if the club hadn't set up tables on more than half the dance floor (most of which were not occupied), there would have been room for everyone to have their own little space to dance.

I think I'd probably see Beats Antique live again if given the chance, but only if I knew they were actually coming on stage at a decent hour, and with a reasonable sized dance floor.

Fun times tonight!

After class tonight, we're heading right over to a Beats Antique concert that happens to conveniently be happening just down the road 40 minutes after class. I'm pretty excited, as other than shows at Ren Faire, I have not seen a concert since I was a kid. I'm looking forward to some good music, some dancing, and hopefully a bit of socializing with my fellow dancers.

Of course, I have to leave in a little over an hour and I'm still having an internal debate on what to wear -- decisions, decisions!