Cairo in Columbus '08, or, How I Rocked the House
Happiest of happy belated birthday wishes to the wonderful grf(lovelovelovellama), the fantastic-and-oh-so-edrudite yuki_onna and a happy-early-birthday hug for vrax!
I totally forgot: no class today, because it's Finals Week! Aaaaaaaaafinalsaaaaaaaa! Ok... that's enough of that... time to tell the story.
Wow. And I mean wow.
This weekend was a blur, and yet a good blur. Such frenetic activity! Friday night, while Jer went to the Carol and John's Free Comic Book Day party, I frantically worked on my ANT 493: Ohio Archeology final paper. (5 different topics, 11 pages, single spaced, total word count 6,865. Holy jumpin' jellybeans.) I finished it up by about 5:30 AM, and crawled into bed for a few hours of sleep.
Saturday morning, we got up at about 9 AM, and I packed like a madwoman while Jer showered. Thank goodness I'd made a pack list. Makes it so much quicker. When ofmagdalena showed up, we got us all packed into the car and headed off to CSU to drop off my paper. Thankfully, my prof didn't want to chat long, and gave me back my other research paper, "Reflections of Hopewell Culture from the Grave". I got a 96%, which is so whoo-hoo, and yet, I'm peeved that he took 4% off for incorrect in-text citations. [Essentially, you're supposed to do them like this: ... end of sentence. (Author 19/20XX: p.#) and I did them like this: (Author, 19/20XX: p.#)] 4% off for COMMAS??? WTF? All right, whatever, still an A paper, and no doubt an A in the class.
After CSU, we scampered off to Lakewood to pick up habari and set off. After driving in the rain nearly all the way down there, (me sleeping for most of it) we got to the hotel, checked in, and then Jer and A. droped me and Habari off for Laylia's master class seminar. Great class; I learned a lot of useful, interesting things about audience interaction and balancing props. I wish I had a sword... could have learned more if I had a sword. Anyhoos, after the class, we scampered back to the hotel to get ready. ofmagdalena helped out immensely by doing my hair, which is far too long for me to curl by myself, and she did an excellent job of it, too. We got back to the venue just in time for the start of the show.
(Warning: all photos and video are unedited.)
The venue was pretty damn good; I can see why chandara was so excited to get it. It was huge! There were a lot of audience members, more than I expected. And oh the food! malaechi put out quite a tasty spread, which I was unable to eat any because of nerves. The show began with the fabulous chandara's troupe. They did a lovely number *waves at amani_gamal Awesome job, hon!* and later did what I heard was an excellent cane dance, but sadly I didn't see it due to changing for my solo. There were a lot of great dancers there that night: my good friend shiva_the_diva did a beautiful solo to a Loreena McKennit song...
Jennifer Rose did an awesome tribal fusion number to a medley of "Fever" and "Minnie the Moocher", my troupemates loreleibunny/Ahava, Soraya, and Rana did their trio number, Troupe Benazir performed the now-infamous Habibi-Dah number...
Soraya did her "Promiscuous" solo, and habari pulled out a nicely-done improv solo. shiva_the_diva and habari did a interesing tribal fusion duet...
There were other great dancers and numbers, but I can't remember them all now... because it was my turn.
It's kind of odd; I think the dj must have sped up the music just a tad, because boy oh boy it seems fast. Doesn't sound right, I mean, it doesn't sound like the cd. But I loved it, I really did. I had a killer choreography that I had practiced enough that the different speed didn't bother me all that much, although I did improv a few bits that I couldn't have fit in at the faster speed. But boy oh boy... the audience reaction... I've never had an audience react to me like that. You can hear them cheering and clapping along on the video! Ohmigod! It just blows me away... I've watched the video like, four times already today, and every time I get this lift in my heart and a huge smile on my face. Normally, I'm pleased with my performances, and a little proud, but this number... I'm so happy and damn proud of it that my chest feels like it could burst from being so puffed up. I can't wait to do this number again. Jer got some really excellent action shots from my number that I love. He's such a good photographer.
After I performed, it was chandara's solo, and as always, she was frickin' awesome. I love watching her dance; she's so beautiful and graceful. Then it was Laylia's solo to close the show; she, as always, was mindblowing... she did a floor backbend OVER the edge of the stage balancing a sword on her CHIN. *boggle* Ohmanohmanohmanohman... I can only hope to be as great a bellydancer as Laylia or Chandara someday.
When it was all over, we retired to the hotel for fun, booze, and hot-tub time! Chandara and Malaechi joined us and much fun and good conversations were had. I can't wait to see them again, and I can't wait to dance again. It was a GREAT show, and I'm still riding the high.
(All these photos and more can be seen at my flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bec1976/ )
I totally forgot: no class today, because it's Finals Week! Aaaaaaaaafinalsaaaaaaaa! Ok... that's enough of that... time to tell the story.
Wow. And I mean wow.
This weekend was a blur, and yet a good blur. Such frenetic activity! Friday night, while Jer went to the Carol and John's Free Comic Book Day party, I frantically worked on my ANT 493: Ohio Archeology final paper. (5 different topics, 11 pages, single spaced, total word count 6,865. Holy jumpin' jellybeans.) I finished it up by about 5:30 AM, and crawled into bed for a few hours of sleep.
Saturday morning, we got up at about 9 AM, and I packed like a madwoman while Jer showered. Thank goodness I'd made a pack list. Makes it so much quicker. When ofmagdalena showed up, we got us all packed into the car and headed off to CSU to drop off my paper. Thankfully, my prof didn't want to chat long, and gave me back my other research paper, "Reflections of Hopewell Culture from the Grave". I got a 96%, which is so whoo-hoo, and yet, I'm peeved that he took 4% off for incorrect in-text citations. [Essentially, you're supposed to do them like this: ... end of sentence. (Author 19/20XX: p.#) and I did them like this: (Author, 19/20XX: p.#)] 4% off for COMMAS??? WTF? All right, whatever, still an A paper, and no doubt an A in the class.
After CSU, we scampered off to Lakewood to pick up habari and set off. After driving in the rain nearly all the way down there, (me sleeping for most of it) we got to the hotel, checked in, and then Jer and A. droped me and Habari off for Laylia's master class seminar. Great class; I learned a lot of useful, interesting things about audience interaction and balancing props. I wish I had a sword... could have learned more if I had a sword. Anyhoos, after the class, we scampered back to the hotel to get ready. ofmagdalena helped out immensely by doing my hair, which is far too long for me to curl by myself, and she did an excellent job of it, too. We got back to the venue just in time for the start of the show.
(Warning: all photos and video are unedited.)
The venue was pretty damn good; I can see why chandara was so excited to get it. It was huge! There were a lot of audience members, more than I expected. And oh the food! malaechi put out quite a tasty spread, which I was unable to eat any because of nerves. The show began with the fabulous chandara's troupe. They did a lovely number *waves at amani_gamal Awesome job, hon!* and later did what I heard was an excellent cane dance, but sadly I didn't see it due to changing for my solo. There were a lot of great dancers there that night: my good friend shiva_the_diva did a beautiful solo to a Loreena McKennit song...
Jennifer Rose did an awesome tribal fusion number to a medley of "Fever" and "Minnie the Moocher", my troupemates loreleibunny/Ahava, Soraya, and Rana did their trio number, Troupe Benazir performed the now-infamous Habibi-Dah number...
Soraya did her "Promiscuous" solo, and habari pulled out a nicely-done improv solo. shiva_the_diva and habari did a interesing tribal fusion duet...
Click to viewThere were other great dancers and numbers, but I can't remember them all now... because it was my turn.
It's kind of odd; I think the dj must have sped up the music just a tad, because boy oh boy it seems fast. Doesn't sound right, I mean, it doesn't sound like the cd. But I loved it, I really did. I had a killer choreography that I had practiced enough that the different speed didn't bother me all that much, although I did improv a few bits that I couldn't have fit in at the faster speed. But boy oh boy... the audience reaction... I've never had an audience react to me like that. You can hear them cheering and clapping along on the video! Ohmigod! It just blows me away... I've watched the video like, four times already today, and every time I get this lift in my heart and a huge smile on my face. Normally, I'm pleased with my performances, and a little proud, but this number... I'm so happy and damn proud of it that my chest feels like it could burst from being so puffed up. I can't wait to do this number again. Jer got some really excellent action shots from my number that I love. He's such a good photographer.
After I performed, it was chandara's solo, and as always, she was frickin' awesome. I love watching her dance; she's so beautiful and graceful. Then it was Laylia's solo to close the show; she, as always, was mindblowing... she did a floor backbend OVER the edge of the stage balancing a sword on her CHIN. *boggle* Ohmanohmanohmanohman... I can only hope to be as great a bellydancer as Laylia or Chandara someday.
When it was all over, we retired to the hotel for fun, booze, and hot-tub time! Chandara and Malaechi joined us and much fun and good conversations were had. I can't wait to see them again, and I can't wait to dance again. It was a GREAT show, and I'm still riding the high.
(All these photos and more can be seen at my flickr account: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bec1976/ )