Change, It's a Comin'!

Over the last 6 or 8 months I have lost about 25lbs. This has had the result that I must alter EVERY LAST ONE of my costumes so they don't simply fall off. It's not very exciting work but it must be done. In the meantime, I've moved. Twice. That's twice in the last month and a half. I'm ready for stability and some order in the chaos. I'm also ready to tackle one of my #1 dance goals- zils. I have been incorporating zil drills into class for the last several weeks and in a week and a half I will be attending THREE Karim Nagi workshops :D *does little dance of excitement* One is on zils, one is a rhythm training workshop and one is folk dancing. I'm plotting where and how to tuck little micro cassette recorders in my dance gear so that I can get audio of all 3 classes. The idea being that I can focus on the moment instead of furiously trying to memorize (which I'm no good at). I don't think I actually know anyone else who's going. Hopefully I'll recognize someone while I'm there.

Finally Dancing on the Web!

I have finally completed the unexpectedly epic struggle to get a video of one of my improvised performances up on the net. *whew* First I had to covert the iDVD movie my student graciously gave me into mp4 format with new software just for that purpose. Then I needed to split it in two so I could separate my performance from my student Vashti's drum solo. That meant going through 3 more pieces of software until finally using iMovie (with much struggle). If you should ever find yourself about to embark on this journey, learn from my efforts. YouTube has a handbook with all sorts of useful information about file size, format, camera angles, lighting, uploading, etc. IMovie works with iPhoto. Import your newly converted mp4 file into iPhoto and then you have easy access to it in iMovie. You can copy/paste the selected section of the clip that you want into a new project and then in the Share menu you can select a number of options including YouTube.

Reflection and Goal Setting

I have been thinking quite a lot about my dance lately and about how I want to grow as a dancer. I haven't seen a lot of workshops come through my area lately and while I love teaching my students, I miss having a teacher of my own. When time and resources allow, I travel an hour to Denver to study with Eva Cernik. Her 7 week class on zils was a major challenge for me. I have a few goals that I can work on in the immediate future but that will likely be areas for growth for many years.
I stink at zils. Or at least, I think I do. I must find a practice routine that works for me and USE IT! I owe it to myself, to my audience, to the art and most of all to my students! So far they aren't good enough with them to have exceeded my ability to teach but that day will come and I feel it's my job to grow as a dancer so that they have more to continue learning from me. Part of my reluctance is that I don't like the sound... it hurts my ears *whine* If I ever find a pair of zils that have a low sound perhaps I will fall in love :)
I want to deepen the emotive quality of my dance. I'm already a fairly emotive dancer as far as it goes but I'm so used to dancing to live instrumental music that I haven't pushed myself to research song lyrics so that I could bring that new layer of understanding to my dance. I have begun looking up lyrics for my restaurant sets. We will see where it takes me...
My ability to choreograph and not just improvise... Well, I've made some strides there too but I must push myself further. I have found Garage Band to be remarkably helpful in noting the phrases within the music. I can also record additional tracks for counting and calling cues which makes for an excellent learning tool. Recently I have also rediscovered how much easier it is for me to build a choreography when I have a partner to help me visualize and bounce ideas. My near goal is to finish the veil poi choreography I started. Then perhaps at least one other new piece for our proposed student show in June 2010.
It's not all weakness and faltering. I am grateful for the strengths that I have already developed. My students have access to pretty extensive costuming and construction and I'm pretty good at organizing. We've got a Yoga for Belly Dancers workshop lined up for mid-January and a whole list of interesting workshop topics like bead embroidery, silk veil dyeing and others for skirts, harem pants and arm ornamentation.

Let the Steampunk Influences Creep In!

The brown velvet Eman style costume is really starting to take on a life of its own! My students have decided that they want to try to put together little top hats for the Cirque du TribalTique show and I wanted to add something around the neck that filled the space better than a choker...

Eman Inspired Brown Velvet Belly Dance Costume

As you know, my dance company has been invited to participate in a circus themed belly dance show. We aren't fusion dancers so my challenge was to come up with something theme appropriate that we could use again at other venues. Each of us chose a different color/combination of velvet and sheer sparkly knit. We'll all have the same basic shape but each will be ornamented differently. Here is my brown and red/gold costume.

Status Report- Aka, I'm still alive!

Well, October is over and I'm still breathing :) I think I may have had a different costume for every weekend of the month! Let's see... First we had the Rock Star Party:

Then there was the Corn Maze Craziness:

The following weekend there was the Wild Goose Masquerade Ball where we dressed as Beauty and the Beast:

And for the last weekend of the month, there was our 1940's theme party where I wore my grandmother's evening gown and my boyfriend wore his grandfather's WWII uniform:

After all of that crazy wonderful costume goodness you'd think I'd be done for a little while but FAT CHANCE! Now my students and I must prepare for Cirque du TribalTique which happens in a month and a half. My costume is more than half-way done and the choreography is off to a good start. Barring disaster we should be on track for something fantismo! :D

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Cirque du Tribal Tique

My student dance troupe has been selected to participate in Tribal Tique's annual Holiday Hafla which has a circus theme this year. Last night I finally pinned them down on a costume choice and we all went fabric shopping. Since then I've been working on my digital pattern (printable on letter sized paper, then pieced together). It's not quite where I want it yet. It needs a how to for construction, the tiled pages need to have numbers so you know how to tape them together, and I couldn't seem to get the crop marks to show on every page so you'd know where the overlap was. I'm thinking I'll print it out tonight and give it a test run. Stay tuned for construction stories!