My Dance Life

Since I know that not all of you read my other blog, Confessions of a Dance Pants Addict, I thought I would take a few minutes and update you on my belly dance life -- after all, things get kind of boring around here when I post nothing but Treasuries!

The above photo is from the Healing Through Dance benefit this past weekend. I'm pleased to say that we raised over $600 for the Sessoms family, and Plaza de Anaya allowed us to leave the rack of donated costumes in the store, so that number will probably go up!

Things are going very well in my dance life. I was recently invited to join The Anaya Tribe, Anaya Tribal's new student troupe. It means lots of extra drives up to Tempe and very little free weekend time (because Autumn is the busy season for dancers here, due to the lovely weather), but it also means lots of fun, lots of time with my dance friends, and lots of performance experience! We're performing at a charity thing this Sunday, but our first open-to-the-public performance will be at the Desert Shakedown on October 8th.

And don't forget that I will also be vending my jewelry at the Shakedown! I will have everything that is in my Etsy shop, plus things that I haven't listed yet. I am hoping to have Square set up on my phone so that I can finally accept credit cards, too! But if you can't wait that long for a jewelry fix, please visit Handmade Jewelry by Erthe Fae Designs and do a little shopping. You'll be supporting my costume and workshop addictions!

Oh, and lest you think that Phoenix gets all the belly dance love, I also have a student performance coming up here in Tucson next month! For most of my classmates it will be their first time performing. I'm so excited for them! I wonder if they'll get hooked like I did?

Back from an amazing weekend!

I am back from an incredible weekend up in Tempe! On Saturday and Sunday I spent 4 hours a day in class with Fat Chance Belly Dance, the founders of American Tribal Style Belly Dance! It pretty much rocked my world. I learned SO much and spent so much time dancing, with my friends and various people I know from the dance community and people who were new to me, but all of them were great.

There was also a performance on Saturday, with Fat Chance and a lot of great tribal troupes from the Phoenix area. I'm not sure if there was a single group performing where I hadn't either taken a class alongside or from at least one of the dancers, so it was a lot of fun to see them all dressed up and performing, and to cheer them all along.

Now I am back home and my head is swimming with inspiration to dance better, and harder, and more often, and to come up with more costumes and jewelry to go with.

Happy World Belly Dance Day!

Today is World Belly Dance Day! And I didn't know until yesterday. What a bummer. If I had known ahead of time, I would have made plans. Instead I need to settle for dancing at home. Alone.

But! Here's a little celebration in my blog... a celebration of how much I love tribal jewelry. Last weekend, I noticed that Beads Galore was conveniently located on the route between my hotel and the studio. I have to avoid their gigantic booth at the gem show (it's larger than most of my local bead stores), because my budget simply can't handle it. But I couldn't just drive by and not stop in... especially not since it was my birthday and I had birthday money to spend! So I told myself that I was only allowed to buy tribal stuff, and not even look at their fabulous selection of Czech glass, and this is what I found!

Amazing green vaseline glass. Most of the other vaseline glass was $50-70 a strand. These rondelles were only $15. I'm pretty sure it was fate.

Black horn beads with metal. The silver-tone metal has a floral design. Very pretty and versatile, and rather lightweight for the size, too.

Horn and bone hairsticks. All but the eye-patterned one have horizontal holes near the top, which will make it easy to attach dangling strands of beads. The eye one has the more standard vertical hole for gluing in a headpin.

Afghani coin pendants and button. All with green glass "gems" set in them. Probably destined for a green coin bra, except the button which will either be a bracelet clasp or get used as the button to fasten an entari (a jacket-vest thing that we dancers wear under a bodice or a gahwazee coat).

Big Afghani pendants. One might also become part of the green bra, one will go with the vaseline glass. I haven't decided which will go with which yet.

Stretchy black skull bracelet. Will remain a bracelet until such a time as I decide to cut it up and use those awesome little skullies for something else.

Since I bought all of this swag with birthday money, it will mostly go into jewelry for me, but I have a feeling that the leftovers will trickle into stock for the Etsy shop! I can't hoard all the gorgeous tribal stuff to myself!

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!

Party Time!

Tonight I'm driving up to Tempe for a black light belly dance party. It will be my first time driving up to Tempe by myself... good practice for the weekly drive I'll be making for class.

Should be a fun time... I still haven't decided what I'm going to wear. I'll have to open my costume closet and see what jumps out at me. I'm thinking it might be a good evening for my 25 yard green skirt.

Wish me luck!

Tonight I'm going to drive to Tempe for the first time. It's about a 1 hr 45 minute drive from my house. I've only driven on the highway once before, so this is a pretty big jump for me -- but it's something that I have to start practicing since I'll be doing it at least once a week for the next year or so.

I'm trying not to worry about it too much, and am focusing instead on this zill rhythm that we're supposed to master by the end of this class. I've been mostly just practicing the finger movements at various times and places, because let's face it, it's not very feasible to break out finger cymbals at the gym. But today I actually put them on and walked around the house practicing. The dogs ran away and hid, which is better than what I expected -- barking and jumping. Perhaps I can actually practice dancing without crating them now, so long as I'm also zilling.

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!

Stupid ankle

Back on Tuesday, I hurt my ankle at the gym. I don't know if it was too many box jumps, or if I stretched it too far doing dead lifts, but it definitely feels like I jacked up my Achilles tendon. That tendon, by the way, is my body's main way of trying to sabotage my attempts to work out. I would have expected my lack of upper body strength to be the big hurdle, but no, it's my stupid, short Achilles tendon, which keeps me from being able to squat and which now is keeping me from doing anything more active than limping back and forth across the house.

In all fairness, my ankle would probably be fine by now if I hadn't had the brilliant idea to take my injured ankle up to Tempe and dance on it for an hour. I didn't want to miss my belly dance class, since next Thursday I'll be in Tahoe. And honestly, it was an awesome class. Something clicked and I didn't really struggle with any of the moves, and my arms never got tired, and I had fun. The four students in attendance were doing so well that Cari, our teacher, kept picking faster and faster music and changing up which moves we transitioned to and from to keep us on our toes. It was amazing. I feel like I'm really progressing in my goal to dance well enough to perform and teach, instead of stumbling my way through class. I still have a long way to go, but the forward momentum is there.

Now if this stupid ankle would just catch up with the rest of me!

Another night in Tempe

In a few hours I'll be off on my weekly trek to Tempe for dance class. Yay! With any luck, the class DVDs will be back in stock. The problem with practicing during the week is that I have to rely on my mental image of the move, and sometimes I get to the next class and find that I've been doing it wrong all week. It also doesn't help that I don't have a mirror to work in front of -- I rely on my shadow, and my reflection in the TV screen. That problem will soon be in the past, at least, as my friend Helen is going to trade me a mirror for some dogsitting. Hooray!

I'm also trying a new restaurant tonight, one which is right next to the studio and comes highly recommended by the folks at the studio. It will be very convenient if I like them, as it will mean that we won't always have to drive around Tempe to get food.

Tomorrow I'll probably have another Cthulhu post. I got some work done on him last night and intend to do more today, in between housework and class.

Oh yes, and in honor of dance class, Spiral Journey is today's Daily Special!

Big Discount Today

Today's Daily Special is Turtle Talisman! I've marked it down by $50, because well, the original price was really high, and I thought maybe someone out there might be looking for a deal. In fact, with the $50 you'd save, you could buy the matching bracelet and earrings and have the entire set for the original price of the necklace!

I'm just a few minutes off from needing to get dressed and get ready for my weekly trek up to Tempe. Since Chris is out of town, a friend of ours agreed to drive me, and in return I'm buying him dinner. I've found a Hawaiian BBQ place not too awful far from class that looks pretty delicious, so I'm looking forward to it. I know I'll have danced up an appetite!

Dance class tonight!

Today's Daily Special is Celestial Celebration! The earthy neutral colors of this necklace really make it perfect for year-round wear. I'm hoping it will find a lovely new home soon.

Tonight is my first class at Plaza de Anaya up in Tempe. I'm so excited! Finally, after several years of being largely self-taught (working from a great foundation from my friend Helen), I'm going to go learn a codified set of moves (or a "language" as its often called) that will allow me to do choreography both pre-planned and spontaneous, and perform with other dancers.

This is the first step in my big plan for my life, which is to become Tucson's premier teacher of tribal-style belly dance. If anyone is teaching it here, they're keeping pretty quiet about it. With what I've already learned about on-line self promotion from running Erthe Fae Designs, and the sites I've discovered while trying to find a teacher, I'm certain that students will have no problems finding me, and learning to love tribal as much as I do.

My plan is to be teaching by the time I'm 30 (I'm 27 now). I know 30 is a time when a lot of people look back at their life and see what they've done so far -- and right now, I wouldn't see much. I want to hit 30 and say "I've built up the skills to do what I love for the rest of my life."

The day I steamed it up in Tempe

Today Chris and I drove up to Tempe to meet an on-line friend Serge and his wife Sue. Like me, Serge is into steampunk, and he was dressed up to attend FiestaCon/WesterCon. I couldn't attend the convention, so I chose to do what I am told is "ghosting." And to make myself easier to spot, I dressed up in steampunk gear as well. But let's face it, we all know that I love an excuse to dress up!

I'm developing a steampunk persona for myself -- a dancing girl who was abducted by airship pirates, and decided that she liked the pirate life better. It's a good excuse to combine glamorous elements like my bronze bustle skirt and gorgeous feather headpiece with the military-influenced styles of my pseudo-corset (with brass buttons) and suede short-sleeved jacket. Next I need a name for my persona. I think she'll be showing up as a character in my steampunk jewelry stories, too!

Anyway, we had a great time hanging out with Serge and Sue. We all had a lot to talk about, and we stayed in Tempe longer than I expected, only leaving because I didn't want to leave the corgis home alone for too long (Mom did come and give her "grandcorgis" their dinner and some love). It was so much fun to get out of town and kick back with some new friends and chat about sci-fi, writing, work, pets, and childfree life.

By the way, back to the costume. I love sharing my resources! The gorgeous bustle skirt is from Damsel in This Dress on Etsy. I really love my bustle skirt (I may have mentioned wearing it to the Swarovski party back in February). Unfortunately, she doesn't have any in her shop right now, but you could probably request a custom order.

The feather, flower, and clock-hand headpiece came from The Gypsy's Kiss. I clipped it onto a lace headband that I bought at Target. A gentleman at the convention even came over and asked to take a picture of it. It really is that beautiful! Amy does fantastic work, I'll definitely be buying more.

The socks are of course from Sock Dreams. I'd forgotten that last time I wore the skirt, I wore either black lace tights or my brown-striped thigh highs. I can't remember which, but knee-highs are not high enough. That doesn't make the socks any less awesome, though!

And that's about it. The shoes are just from Payless, and the pseudo-corset and leather jacket are both lucky finds from Buffalo Exchange, our local resale boutique. Plus my steampunk cameo necklace, and a brass bracelet that Chris gave me for the holidays.

I'm off to edit more photos and upload them to Flickr. I'll post links tomorrow!