Nothin' but glamour
(cross-posted to my Facebook page, yo)
The New Year's experience has been kind of a crazy obstacle course of dance madness this year. The lovely Roxy Van Doren asked me to perform at her big NYE bash at Neighbours, and I had happily accepted the offer. But a few days later, Jim from channel 5 news called to ask if I'd come dance at the Space Needle party as part of his live NYE broadcast. I tried to work out the logistics, but it quickly became clear that I wouldn't be able to do both events. Since being on TV is the American Dream and all, I had to tell Roxy I couldn't make it for the Neighbours party after all -- I still feel bad about that, cuz Roxy has always been so good to me. That gal is the bomb. I hope she'll let me redeem myself by dancing in her show again sometime soon.
I've never been to the Space Needle on New Year's Eve before, so I was completely unprepared for the crowd. The place was packed. Who knew? I got to the channel 5 tent (they have a tent to protect the camera, but humans get to stay out in the rain) and checked in around 11:30pm. The reporter dude had me set up my boombox (more on that in a bit) on the grass, and then I took off my coat and shoes (wah!) and danced around for the camera and the attendant crowd of drunken revelers in that chilly Seattle winter rain for about a minute while the reporter interviewed some kooky jogging women in powder blue velour tracksuits. Voila, my moment of glory! Shivering and sniffling, I then shoved my muddy feet back into my shoes, packed up my soaking wet boombox and fought my way out through the crowd. Made it out just in time to watch the midnight fireworks they shoot off from atop the Needle.
Anyway yeah, there's no sound system outside at the bottom of the Space Needle, so the TV reporter asked me could I bring a boombox for my rainy night performance. Seeing me leave for my big television debut with boombox in hand caused Michael to raise his eyebrows and rightfully observe, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." Back when I was just getting started as a bellydance performer, I did a string of gigs at this little art gallery warehouse space in SoDo. For those shows, I used my Jeep as a dressing room and I brought along a boombox to play my performance music, because all they had in the way of a sound system was a clock radio behind the bar. Ah, the good old days. But now I'm a big star and I have a book out and I perform on TV and I'm... yeah, still carrying a boombox around to my gigs. I'm telling you, man, the life of a bellydancer is just nothin' but glamour. Then again, I have to say that probably the most inspiring dance performance I've ever seen was by some hip-hop kids in the New York City subway terminal a few years ago -- those kids don't even have boomboxes, they just clap their hands and rap to accompany each other's dancing. That's what I call art.
After the Space Needle wackiness, Michael and I headed round to Rick and Laura's place to do our own New Year's partying. Fortunately, they just live a couple blocks away, so Michael and I were able to stumble home safely in the wee hours.
Next day -- New Year's Day 2010 -- was set aside for video. Deidra and I have been working on a new double-sword duet over the last couple of weeks. We'll debut that piece at our show at the Funhouse on Wednesday 1/13, hint hint. It being New Year's Day, we elected to take advantage of the fact that Annex Theater would have nothing on their calendar, leaving the space open for us to go videotape a few practice runs of our new sword routine. Watching ourselves on video when we're choreographing a new piece is the most helpful thing I can think of -- it consistently enables us to catch and correct problems we'd never notice while simply watching ourselves in the mirrors in the studio. Seeing yourself on video can be pretty painful, though. The video images of myself I see on screen are nowhere near as awesome as the images of myself I carry around in my own brain. But hey, the truth shall set you free, right? Even if that truth hurts sometimes.
But I digress. The point I was trying to get to is this: Two hungover women swinging around 2 swords each on New Year's Day is hilarious. We're lucky we made it out alive. If I were to stab Deidra during practice, do you think she'd still want to be in a troupe with me?
Now, as we move into 2010, the floor of my dance studio is covered with glitter and various props and bits of wet costume and empty champagne bottles and a couple of fat sleeping kitties. Ahhhhh. Happy new year, everyone!
The New Year's experience has been kind of a crazy obstacle course of dance madness this year. The lovely Roxy Van Doren asked me to perform at her big NYE bash at Neighbours, and I had happily accepted the offer. But a few days later, Jim from channel 5 news called to ask if I'd come dance at the Space Needle party as part of his live NYE broadcast. I tried to work out the logistics, but it quickly became clear that I wouldn't be able to do both events. Since being on TV is the American Dream and all, I had to tell Roxy I couldn't make it for the Neighbours party after all -- I still feel bad about that, cuz Roxy has always been so good to me. That gal is the bomb. I hope she'll let me redeem myself by dancing in her show again sometime soon.
I've never been to the Space Needle on New Year's Eve before, so I was completely unprepared for the crowd. The place was packed. Who knew? I got to the channel 5 tent (they have a tent to protect the camera, but humans get to stay out in the rain) and checked in around 11:30pm. The reporter dude had me set up my boombox (more on that in a bit) on the grass, and then I took off my coat and shoes (wah!) and danced around for the camera and the attendant crowd of drunken revelers in that chilly Seattle winter rain for about a minute while the reporter interviewed some kooky jogging women in powder blue velour tracksuits. Voila, my moment of glory! Shivering and sniffling, I then shoved my muddy feet back into my shoes, packed up my soaking wet boombox and fought my way out through the crowd. Made it out just in time to watch the midnight fireworks they shoot off from atop the Needle.
Anyway yeah, there's no sound system outside at the bottom of the Space Needle, so the TV reporter asked me could I bring a boombox for my rainy night performance. Seeing me leave for my big television debut with boombox in hand caused Michael to raise his eyebrows and rightfully observe, "The more things change, the more they stay the same." Back when I was just getting started as a bellydance performer, I did a string of gigs at this little art gallery warehouse space in SoDo. For those shows, I used my Jeep as a dressing room and I brought along a boombox to play my performance music, because all they had in the way of a sound system was a clock radio behind the bar. Ah, the good old days. But now I'm a big star and I have a book out and I perform on TV and I'm... yeah, still carrying a boombox around to my gigs. I'm telling you, man, the life of a bellydancer is just nothin' but glamour. Then again, I have to say that probably the most inspiring dance performance I've ever seen was by some hip-hop kids in the New York City subway terminal a few years ago -- those kids don't even have boomboxes, they just clap their hands and rap to accompany each other's dancing. That's what I call art.
After the Space Needle wackiness, Michael and I headed round to Rick and Laura's place to do our own New Year's partying. Fortunately, they just live a couple blocks away, so Michael and I were able to stumble home safely in the wee hours.
Next day -- New Year's Day 2010 -- was set aside for video. Deidra and I have been working on a new double-sword duet over the last couple of weeks. We'll debut that piece at our show at the Funhouse on Wednesday 1/13, hint hint. It being New Year's Day, we elected to take advantage of the fact that Annex Theater would have nothing on their calendar, leaving the space open for us to go videotape a few practice runs of our new sword routine. Watching ourselves on video when we're choreographing a new piece is the most helpful thing I can think of -- it consistently enables us to catch and correct problems we'd never notice while simply watching ourselves in the mirrors in the studio. Seeing yourself on video can be pretty painful, though. The video images of myself I see on screen are nowhere near as awesome as the images of myself I carry around in my own brain. But hey, the truth shall set you free, right? Even if that truth hurts sometimes.
But I digress. The point I was trying to get to is this: Two hungover women swinging around 2 swords each on New Year's Day is hilarious. We're lucky we made it out alive. If I were to stab Deidra during practice, do you think she'd still want to be in a troupe with me?
Now, as we move into 2010, the floor of my dance studio is covered with glitter and various props and bits of wet costume and empty champagne bottles and a couple of fat sleeping kitties. Ahhhhh. Happy new year, everyone!