we done shimmied in the shadows

Wow.  So Shimmy in the Shadows happened, nothing went majorly wrong, we made a little money, the performances were beautiful each and every one and everybody seemed to have a great time.  Couple of small snafus but they will be learning experiences for next time (like not figuring out where the floor light switch was until the very end of the night--next time there will be more shadows!).  One dancer never showed, which meant the loss of one solo performer and also one troupe performance, since she never contacted her troupe mate about it either.  Pretty unprofessional and I don't imagine I would book her again.  Poor Nepenthe was visibly very ill and made the right decision not to perform.  But since I had somewhat overbooked things as usual, it all turned out ok and it meant we ended right on time.  I did a much better job of delegating this time around and it took a lot of the pressure off of me.

I think the best part of the event for me was seeing all the diversity that dancers brought to their conceptualization of gothic belly dance.  The music went from old school goth to modern dance club stuff but all of it belonged.  There were too many great performances to mention them all in detail, but Aepril Schaile's performance to Cris d'Avauge by Diamanda Galas literally raised the hair on my arms and neck and moved me to tears.  She is truly a force to be reckoned with.  I liked my piece--it's definitely still a work in progress but I'm feeling every minute of it when I'm dancing to it.  John Finn's Wife is a bad, bad woman and it's much fun to be her for five minutes ;-)  I should point out that my flamenco stylings were purely fictitious and not intended to bear any resemblance to any real flamenco dancing living or dead, and any such resemblance is purely coincidental.  People praised my shimmying in the middle part quite a bit, and I say to that:  people, that's what Raqia Hassan style raqs sharqi training will do for you!  Never forget the traditional basics!  I've also enjoyed learning the big skirt as a prop when I'm using music I like and not being forced into music I don't like.

The other best part of the event was looking around during the breaks between performances and seeing everybody mingling and talking and shopping--I feel very proud that I can help to create the strong and growing sense of community for New England's gothic belly dancers with my events.  Big thanks to everyone who performed and everyone who came to watch the show.  Events like this really bring home what a collaborative experience performance should be, a collaboration between performer and audience.  Call the curtain, raise the roof, spirit's on tonight!

Did some socializing afterwards, and then slept for 12 hours straight.  Now I am on vacation, woo hoo!  I am hoping that we will make it out to Down with Tempo tonight, but M is not on vacation yet and he worked about as hard as I did yesterday and had to get up early today so we'll see. 

you know it was an inspirational event when the next thing you want to do is go out dancing :-)

(no subject)

It's 9:15 and I am still in my pyjamas.  9:15pm, mind you.  And I've had half a bottle of wine.  So I'd say no Ceremony for us tonight, but boy did I need a day like this :-)

Blood and Chocolate is much better than you would expect.  Which is not to say exactly that it's good, but as cheesy werewolf romps go, it's entertaining.  Better than Van Helsing or Underworld, that's for sure.  And the soundtrack features Rachid Taha!