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alonewiththemoonhours of sleep, windows open and fresh air coming in, music playing, ferrets frolicking--it's a good day.
What an amazing party last night--everybody was talented and beautiful and we all shone like stars, performers and partiers alike, even when things weren't going exactly as planned. The aerial silks people were amazing. I'd never seen that outside of the Cirque du Soleil before, and it was fascinating to watch up close, to see how the silks were used to create tension and borrow power. That must require so much strength, not to mention grace and agility. Most of the other performances I unfortunately could not see, being backstage, but they sounded great and the positive audience response was evident. Mine and Nepenthe's piece was obviously underprepared, but we knew that would be the case going in to the night. Putting my toes right into a tangle in my fringe while getting up from the floor was distinctly not good, I had to hobble through the rest of the performance. note to self: trim fringe, and never ever go on stage without thoroughly detangling it first, especially if doing choreography where there's no way to really stop and detangle. The other thing that I really wish we had done differently was that I wish we had performed down on the floor rather than on the stage. There was a large space, maybe 25 or 30 feet it seemed like, between the stage and the audience, and I felt very removed and distant and unable to gauge audience response, which in turn made my dancing flat. Now that I've been dancing in restaurants and parties for several months, I find I really like the immediacy of being up close to people. As I remarked to someone later in the night, performance is in part about the synergy between performer and audience, we feed off each other. I wouldn't have understood this in the same way before last summer, but now I find it's vital to me. For my wings solo, I used the space on the floor and felt much happier about the way the performance felt. I could see people, look right at them, know that they could see my facial expressions, etc. Plus the stage floor surface was horrible, and the nice smooth regular floor was much easier to work on, and the lighting was actually better. Also, being on the floor meant being in front of the speakers rather than behind them. In theory one should know one's music well enough that this isn't a problem, but it does affect one's performance when one can't hear the music clearly.
DJs Arcanus and c'ris played awesome music for the rest of the night, and I have it on their authority that they were actually trying to kill me at one point ;-) I left my Melodias on after peforming because after the wings I was too sweaty to put on any nice clean clothes (dancing with wings is one heck of an aerobic workout, I tell you), and I will totally wear them clubbing more often. Slowly all my wardrobes are merging...
ok, now for some yoga to try to work out the residual soreness in my legs, some dance practice for tonight, and then get ready for tonight's show at the Middle East. Good old fashioned regular old belly dance tonight, Lama Bada Yata Samai, Taht al-Shibbak, drum solo. Comfort music :-)
What an amazing party last night--everybody was talented and beautiful and we all shone like stars, performers and partiers alike, even when things weren't going exactly as planned. The aerial silks people were amazing. I'd never seen that outside of the Cirque du Soleil before, and it was fascinating to watch up close, to see how the silks were used to create tension and borrow power. That must require so much strength, not to mention grace and agility. Most of the other performances I unfortunately could not see, being backstage, but they sounded great and the positive audience response was evident. Mine and Nepenthe's piece was obviously underprepared, but we knew that would be the case going in to the night. Putting my toes right into a tangle in my fringe while getting up from the floor was distinctly not good, I had to hobble through the rest of the performance. note to self: trim fringe, and never ever go on stage without thoroughly detangling it first, especially if doing choreography where there's no way to really stop and detangle. The other thing that I really wish we had done differently was that I wish we had performed down on the floor rather than on the stage. There was a large space, maybe 25 or 30 feet it seemed like, between the stage and the audience, and I felt very removed and distant and unable to gauge audience response, which in turn made my dancing flat. Now that I've been dancing in restaurants and parties for several months, I find I really like the immediacy of being up close to people. As I remarked to someone later in the night, performance is in part about the synergy between performer and audience, we feed off each other. I wouldn't have understood this in the same way before last summer, but now I find it's vital to me. For my wings solo, I used the space on the floor and felt much happier about the way the performance felt. I could see people, look right at them, know that they could see my facial expressions, etc. Plus the stage floor surface was horrible, and the nice smooth regular floor was much easier to work on, and the lighting was actually better. Also, being on the floor meant being in front of the speakers rather than behind them. In theory one should know one's music well enough that this isn't a problem, but it does affect one's performance when one can't hear the music clearly.
DJs Arcanus and c'ris played awesome music for the rest of the night, and I have it on their authority that they were actually trying to kill me at one point ;-) I left my Melodias on after peforming because after the wings I was too sweaty to put on any nice clean clothes (dancing with wings is one heck of an aerobic workout, I tell you), and I will totally wear them clubbing more often. Slowly all my wardrobes are merging...
ok, now for some yoga to try to work out the residual soreness in my legs, some dance practice for tonight, and then get ready for tonight's show at the Middle East. Good old fashioned regular old belly dance tonight, Lama Bada Yata Samai, Taht al-Shibbak, drum solo. Comfort music :-)
