wheeeee!!!!!!!!!

Just tried spinning while spotting on the ceiling for the first time--hoo boy!  I would like to be able to do this someday (by October, say) but it's going to take some work.  Haven't felt that kind of dizzy in a long time, not even while working on zar!

Really happy with my edits to Voodoo Dolly though.  I slashed about 45-50 seconds out of the second half of the song--it's great stuff to listen to, but it's too much noodling for dancing purposes.  I've run through it a few times now, and if I had to get up on a stage and perform to it tomorrow I'd do ok with it.  Hopefully it will only get better from here!  It's a bit refreshing not to be using any props* at all, just me and my interpretation.  And Bela for inspiration, of course ;-)

*I will have ankle rattles, which I suppose are sort of a prop.  Not a very active one, though.

New World Order

I just bought some VCDs from a Lebanon-based company and when paying was brought to German PayPal.  All this so an American belly dancer can watch a few of her favorite Egyptians (Aza Sherif footage that maybe I don't already have!!!).  It does somewhat boggle the mind when you stop to think about it.

Did I mention previously that I asked Yasmina Ramzy if she knew what had happened to Aza Sherif, since she seemed to know all the dish about Cairo dancers of the 80s and 90s?  Aza quit dancing when she was relatively young, I'd guess in her 30s.  I've heard somewhat conflicting things about her either becoming an alcoholic or taking the veil, though I suppose the two aren't mutually exclusive.  All Yasmina knew was that she was living in Detroit for a while.  If I were a filmmaker I would go to Detroit and look for her and document it all.  A quick superpages search tells me that there are far fewer Sherifs and Sharifs than one might expect in the entirety of Michigan, maybe finding her wouldn't be all that hard.  But who knows if that was her civilian/married name.

Darn it, now I really wish I were a filmmaker with a grant.  It would be a wonderful movie about her, about looking for her, and about being an American trying to learn to dance like an Egyptian.

Didn't make it to the Dreamchild, etc show tonight.  I didn't wake up until 1:30 and didn't make it out of bed until after 2:30, but I sincerely needed the 12+ hours of sleep.  Then I got so wrapped up in music editing and dancing that it was too late to go before I quite knew it.  I've been wanting to check out the Nave Gallery as a venue for a while so hopefully I'll have another opportunity to go there soon.