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this is halloween
Oct. 31st, 2005 11:19 amhappy halloween! today is the one day of the year when I can wear bats in the office. Well, not real bats; I suspect that probably wouldn't be okay even on halloween. But nice little silver Gorey bats are just fine.
Thanks to those of you who were able to make it to Mass Morgue last night! Seven Sunless Days rocked the house, I must say in all of my admitted bias. There was a special surprise appearance by What Time Is It Mr. Fox? who are one of my favorite Boston bands ever so that really helped make my night. I enjoyed Humanwine; they are pretty deriviative of the wacky Weimar Republic cabaret sound du jour but they are very talented musicians and do it well. At times they sounded like they should have been Tim Burton claymation creations. I was ok with my performances--the Skybar is a very strange place to dance, because my performance space was about 30 feet wide, 8 feet deep with a 8-10 foot wide dead spot in the middle of the audience because of the sound booth and a massive support pillar. I felt like I spent a lot of each set just covering floor so that I wasn't leaving out one of the sides of the audience. I also had definite issues with some of the band members and other performers not respecting my performance space (M actually had to intervene at one point), which for the moment at least is making me rather down on the whole concept of doing this kind of show, or at least with those particular people again. Also, I did not get paid, which I knew was a likelihood but still does not sit that well with me as it was a pretty full house and the audience obviously liked me. But--I did have fun while I was dancing, audience response and feedback was good, and my wings finally had their (somewhat cramped) debut. A Providence promoter who's been asking me to dance at his events reiterated that he really wants me to come down there despite having no shortage of dancers in RI, so that was nice. It makes me feel like I'm not just a gothic belly dancer, but I'm Badriya the gothic belly dancer who people specifically want to have at their events. Yay ego.
Saturday was our fifth wedding anniversary. We had wanted to change our rings to meteorite bands this year, but the vendor who has them couldn't get my size in time. So Christmas, maybe. We spent a nice quiet day together, exactly what we needed amidst all the hectic activity of the weekend. Delicious dinner at Prose in Arlington--M had succulent sea scallops with truffles and I forget what kind of greens and special mashed potatoes, I had potato and chestnut spaetzle with roasted brussel sprouts and califlower in a saffron-pumpkin seed sauce, yum yum. They also had an amazing butternut squash soup that involved that Mexican corn fungus stuff and various mushrooms and walnut oil. It's a nice place, and you can get a pretty fancy meal for under $100, including wine and dessert.
The big news I received on Saturday was that Seyyide is taking a break from teaching--her postdoc at MGH is ending and she is intensively job hunting right now, so that has to be her priority. But I am very sad, obviously, as I relied on her for development of my technique. The teachers she recommends are pretty inaccessible by public transportation, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. As![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nepenthe01 knows, I'm debating just going to Amar Gamal down in Bridgewater once a month for a private or semi-private lesson; that will probably cost as much as an entire month with anybody else, but should also be well worth it. I'm not entirely clear on whether Troupe Sarab will still be active while she's not teaching once we're past the contest on Saturday, but I wouldn't mind a break from that for a bit. I'm loving the music we're using for the contest, but the rest of our repertoire is generally Egyptian pop songs, and that's just not where my heart is at these days. I'm dichotomy girl, give me old school Egyptian or techno-goth-fusion!
Back to work... tonight I have Amira Jamal's class, and then I think a get-together with Shira of shira.net, so no Ceremony for me tonight. M might go, though. Have fun, all of you!
Thanks to those of you who were able to make it to Mass Morgue last night! Seven Sunless Days rocked the house, I must say in all of my admitted bias. There was a special surprise appearance by What Time Is It Mr. Fox? who are one of my favorite Boston bands ever so that really helped make my night. I enjoyed Humanwine; they are pretty deriviative of the wacky Weimar Republic cabaret sound du jour but they are very talented musicians and do it well. At times they sounded like they should have been Tim Burton claymation creations. I was ok with my performances--the Skybar is a very strange place to dance, because my performance space was about 30 feet wide, 8 feet deep with a 8-10 foot wide dead spot in the middle of the audience because of the sound booth and a massive support pillar. I felt like I spent a lot of each set just covering floor so that I wasn't leaving out one of the sides of the audience. I also had definite issues with some of the band members and other performers not respecting my performance space (M actually had to intervene at one point), which for the moment at least is making me rather down on the whole concept of doing this kind of show, or at least with those particular people again. Also, I did not get paid, which I knew was a likelihood but still does not sit that well with me as it was a pretty full house and the audience obviously liked me. But--I did have fun while I was dancing, audience response and feedback was good, and my wings finally had their (somewhat cramped) debut. A Providence promoter who's been asking me to dance at his events reiterated that he really wants me to come down there despite having no shortage of dancers in RI, so that was nice. It makes me feel like I'm not just a gothic belly dancer, but I'm Badriya the gothic belly dancer who people specifically want to have at their events. Yay ego.
Saturday was our fifth wedding anniversary. We had wanted to change our rings to meteorite bands this year, but the vendor who has them couldn't get my size in time. So Christmas, maybe. We spent a nice quiet day together, exactly what we needed amidst all the hectic activity of the weekend. Delicious dinner at Prose in Arlington--M had succulent sea scallops with truffles and I forget what kind of greens and special mashed potatoes, I had potato and chestnut spaetzle with roasted brussel sprouts and califlower in a saffron-pumpkin seed sauce, yum yum. They also had an amazing butternut squash soup that involved that Mexican corn fungus stuff and various mushrooms and walnut oil. It's a nice place, and you can get a pretty fancy meal for under $100, including wine and dessert.
The big news I received on Saturday was that Seyyide is taking a break from teaching--her postdoc at MGH is ending and she is intensively job hunting right now, so that has to be her priority. But I am very sad, obviously, as I relied on her for development of my technique. The teachers she recommends are pretty inaccessible by public transportation, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. As
nepenthe01 knows, I'm debating just going to Amar Gamal down in Bridgewater once a month for a private or semi-private lesson; that will probably cost as much as an entire month with anybody else, but should also be well worth it. I'm not entirely clear on whether Troupe Sarab will still be active while she's not teaching once we're past the contest on Saturday, but I wouldn't mind a break from that for a bit. I'm loving the music we're using for the contest, but the rest of our repertoire is generally Egyptian pop songs, and that's just not where my heart is at these days. I'm dichotomy girl, give me old school Egyptian or techno-goth-fusion!Back to work... tonight I have Amira Jamal's class, and then I think a get-together with Shira of shira.net, so no Ceremony for me tonight. M might go, though. Have fun, all of you!
