alonewiththemoon | (no subject)

Last night's Oojami rehearsal was actually a lot of fun. We danced together pretty well for a group of randomly-thrown together people, though I guess I've previously danced with two of the others in a troupe situation. We went through the first part of the Morocco choreography to the Amr Diab song it's supposed to go with, and then Za-Beth announced that after the rehearsal we should go home and listen to the Oojami cd and pick a couple of songs that we could dance to instead of Amr Diab. My first thought was "that's crazy," both because of the dissimilarities of the music and also it seems odd to dance to a song by the band that's about to go on stage and presumably play that song. One of the dancers suggested we skim through the cd quickly to see if any songs immediately stood out, and I mentioned that I really liked the song Ali, the one with the Spanish bits interspersed. Za-Beth likes that one too, so we tried the choreography to that song, and it worked very well, much to my surprise. I guess a pop song is a pop song, to some extent. We have the framework nailed down, so all we really have left to do is sort out arm placements and that sort of thing. I think it will end up being pretty cool and come across as Boston's little welcome to Oojmami.

Za-Beth made a point of telling us that it was her idea to do this, and when she went to Miles with the idea, he didn't ask what our ages were, what we looked like, or anything like that. She seems to feel that this is really showing him something. I don't know; I don't think he's particularly biased against older or heavier women personally, but he knows what sells to the public, and having us on stage for a few minutes before a concert isn't going to change the body type that will always be hired for the Bellydance Superstars. But hey, I'm dancing at the Oojami show, I'm not going to worry about politics and patriarchy and all that. I should have my leopard costume by then, so I'll feel like the hottest thing on the planet, regardless of the reality of it :-)

Anita Christina of the Goddess Dancing gave me a ride home--it was nice to get a chance to talk to her. I do think she's pretty cool, even if we come at dancing from different perspectives.

I am so looking forward to sleeping tonight. Hopefully I'll be breathing well enough to sleep through the night. I hate that decongestants make it impossible for me to sleep deeply--I'm left in a damned if I do, damned if I don't situation when I'm sick. If I don't take the decongestants, then I can't breathe at all and definitely won't sleep much. If I do take the decongestants, I can breathe, but I feel like I'm just skimming the surface of sleep all night, like snacking on rice cakes when what you really want is a nice big plate of risotto.

I hope Giacomo wins the Preakness tomorrow, but I'm not at all sure he could win the Belmont. You never know, though. I probably won't be able to be home when the Belmont is aired (I'll be at the Sonia workshop working on drum solo technique), so this will probably be the year we have a Triple Crown winner. Because it's a well-known fact that the outcomes of major horse races are determined by what some random woman in Massachusetts is doing on a given afternoon.