Various odds and ends
My back has been really unhappy ever since OLA-- they had the most uncomfortable chairs ever there, which made my old back injury flare up. It was really just sore for a day or two, and not incapacitating like when I injured it, but still. It's made me really aware of my posture, and how my work setup is not the most ergonomic; my back was already being strained from 40 hours a week of this, and the bad OLA chairs just sent it over the edge. I think I need to ask for a new desk chair, because both of the ones I have are old and ratty and hard and not very ergonomic. But I'm also trying to be more aware of how I sit/stand/walk, trying to adjust my posture when I find myself sitting hunched over with my shoulders rounded and head forward, and trying to get up and walk around more to stretch out and move my muscles (am also trying to drink more water to encourage this last one, with the added benefit of hydrating better than I have been.) Ideally I should also try to walk more and do some yoga and/or back exercises every night, but baby steps. Still, my low back/pelvis/hips have felt so grumpy today that I went ahead and scheduled a massage for Saturday. And now I cannot wait until Saturday comes.
I haven't heard how the person who won my tart yesterday liked it. The person who won my tart said it was amazing, and not overly sweet, and wanted to know if I was a pastry chef because of the precision of the arrangement of the sliced berries on top (it's not hard, sheesh.) *preen* I enjoyed my individual portion, though the crust stuck in the baking dish a bit (not an issue for the real version, which I'd removed from the tart pan with no problem), and I thought I'd put too much clove in the crust (it said a pinch, and I put in probably close to 1/2 a tsp. I like clove, but it kind of took over the flavor of the crust instead of being a subtle element.) I'd make it again, though.
Tonight I start Sabine's Level 4 class. Woo! I'm wondering how much different or harder this one will be, and if I'll know people in it. I know some of the other Level 3 students are taking it for the first time, and I think I might know one or two of the current Level 4 people, but I'm not sure.
Lindsey's Level 2 ATS has been sort of mixed. She's had low and sporadic attendance to her classes, an issue about which we've chatted before, since I've been there. But it means that the makeup of the class is really different from week to week: often there's another student who's a lot newer to the dance, so we kind of stick to the syllabus when she's there; a couple times a month Lindsey's troupemate Jenny comes to class, and that's fun cause we can bust loose with some more advanced things; and more than a few times I've been the only student, which I always feel bad about. (She has to pay for the studio regardless, so usually when that happens I'll stay and we'll either just freestyle or I'll pester her with questions and pick some moves apart, and then we'll bugger off a little bit early.) The first class of our current session, I was the only one there and it was right after Cues & Tattoos, so I talked her into teaching me the new FCBD moves she learned in Carolena's workshop at C&T (though she didn't have her notes with her, so it was kind of spotty in some places, but fun.) The second week of the session, the other regular student was there, as well as another one who was even newer and who was very nice and enthusiastic but also kind of spotty on some of the basic moves. So, a totally different pace and style of class with that dynamic. And that's fine-- I love that we can have so many different levels working together in one room, and I can always stand to clean up my basics and focus on clarity in cuing. But I miss just being able to dance, without wondering if the person I'm dancing with will understand a fade or if she knows the move I want to cue, or if things I take for granted in ATS are even kosher in Sabine's style. Happily, it sounds like Lindsey and Jenny are excited to have another experienced ATS dancer around, and we've talked a little about rehearsing those new moves together and me performing with them, which I'd love to do.
Last Friday night, Lindsey and I went to this bar downtown, where several of the local cabaret dancers/teachers were performing. (It was kind of an odd venue, not Middle Eastern at all, sort of randomly decorated like a cross between a 1970s airport and a Star Trek convention.) One of the local dancers teaches at Sabine's studio and also teaches flamenco, so I've been wanting to see/meet her; the other local dancer I didn't know at all, and the third dancer was a former local who now lives in London, but comes back to Eugene a few times a year, so she was sort of the special guest of the night. The two locals each did a full multi-song Egyptian set, then there was a short break, then they each performed another set with more specialty work (Elena did some zill work, Amani did an awesome melaya leff-- I took a workshop on that once, but I've never seen it really done, with the veil and the minidress and the high heels and everything [no bubblegum though, but Mahmoud Reda says no to that and he would know, since he invented it]). Razia, the special guest, performed last.
And, ladies and gentlemen, I was blown away. By all three of them. Now, I like cabaret, I respect cabaret, but I long ago realized that the tribal aesthetic was where my body and soul wanted to be. And I must admit, I started to find cabaret fairly boring. In Bloomington, even the good/expert dancers struck me as "oh, that was very nice" or "gosh, I really like her so I enjoy her dancing" rather than blowing me away. Maybe it's the midwest, or maybe it's that I stopped moving in cabaret circles a long time ago so I no longer attend shows where the really high-level pro dancers would be. But at any rate, the other night I found myself mesmerized by each of these dancers and wanting more, and simply delighted by it all, and that was something I've not experienced in a long time. Each of the dancers was a little different, but all three had excellent technical chops, absolutely impeccable musical interpretive skills, and played the coy/flirty line perfectly, without either overdoing it ("did you see what I did there with that clever thing? DID YOU?!?!") going into barfy harem fantasy "Make Your Husband a Sultan!" territory. I was so excited to see that there's such a wealth of skill in this town, and that there are teachers who make me want to revisit cabaret again. After we left the bar, Lindsey and I went to a waffle place and had a long chat about the things that left us both cold about cabaret dancers in the midwest and the things that we both adored about these dancers, and trying to parse out all of the aesthetic and personal interactions in our responses-- a pretty much identical list, as it turned out.
I haven't heard how the person who won my tart yesterday liked it. The person who won my tart said it was amazing, and not overly sweet, and wanted to know if I was a pastry chef because of the precision of the arrangement of the sliced berries on top (it's not hard, sheesh.) *preen* I enjoyed my individual portion, though the crust stuck in the baking dish a bit (not an issue for the real version, which I'd removed from the tart pan with no problem), and I thought I'd put too much clove in the crust (it said a pinch, and I put in probably close to 1/2 a tsp. I like clove, but it kind of took over the flavor of the crust instead of being a subtle element.) I'd make it again, though.
Tonight I start Sabine's Level 4 class. Woo! I'm wondering how much different or harder this one will be, and if I'll know people in it. I know some of the other Level 3 students are taking it for the first time, and I think I might know one or two of the current Level 4 people, but I'm not sure.
Lindsey's Level 2 ATS has been sort of mixed. She's had low and sporadic attendance to her classes, an issue about which we've chatted before, since I've been there. But it means that the makeup of the class is really different from week to week: often there's another student who's a lot newer to the dance, so we kind of stick to the syllabus when she's there; a couple times a month Lindsey's troupemate Jenny comes to class, and that's fun cause we can bust loose with some more advanced things; and more than a few times I've been the only student, which I always feel bad about. (She has to pay for the studio regardless, so usually when that happens I'll stay and we'll either just freestyle or I'll pester her with questions and pick some moves apart, and then we'll bugger off a little bit early.) The first class of our current session, I was the only one there and it was right after Cues & Tattoos, so I talked her into teaching me the new FCBD moves she learned in Carolena's workshop at C&T (though she didn't have her notes with her, so it was kind of spotty in some places, but fun.) The second week of the session, the other regular student was there, as well as another one who was even newer and who was very nice and enthusiastic but also kind of spotty on some of the basic moves. So, a totally different pace and style of class with that dynamic. And that's fine-- I love that we can have so many different levels working together in one room, and I can always stand to clean up my basics and focus on clarity in cuing. But I miss just being able to dance, without wondering if the person I'm dancing with will understand a fade or if she knows the move I want to cue, or if things I take for granted in ATS are even kosher in Sabine's style. Happily, it sounds like Lindsey and Jenny are excited to have another experienced ATS dancer around, and we've talked a little about rehearsing those new moves together and me performing with them, which I'd love to do.
Last Friday night, Lindsey and I went to this bar downtown, where several of the local cabaret dancers/teachers were performing. (It was kind of an odd venue, not Middle Eastern at all, sort of randomly decorated like a cross between a 1970s airport and a Star Trek convention.) One of the local dancers teaches at Sabine's studio and also teaches flamenco, so I've been wanting to see/meet her; the other local dancer I didn't know at all, and the third dancer was a former local who now lives in London, but comes back to Eugene a few times a year, so she was sort of the special guest of the night. The two locals each did a full multi-song Egyptian set, then there was a short break, then they each performed another set with more specialty work (Elena did some zill work, Amani did an awesome melaya leff-- I took a workshop on that once, but I've never seen it really done, with the veil and the minidress and the high heels and everything [no bubblegum though, but Mahmoud Reda says no to that and he would know, since he invented it]). Razia, the special guest, performed last.
And, ladies and gentlemen, I was blown away. By all three of them. Now, I like cabaret, I respect cabaret, but I long ago realized that the tribal aesthetic was where my body and soul wanted to be. And I must admit, I started to find cabaret fairly boring. In Bloomington, even the good/expert dancers struck me as "oh, that was very nice" or "gosh, I really like her so I enjoy her dancing" rather than blowing me away. Maybe it's the midwest, or maybe it's that I stopped moving in cabaret circles a long time ago so I no longer attend shows where the really high-level pro dancers would be. But at any rate, the other night I found myself mesmerized by each of these dancers and wanting more, and simply delighted by it all, and that was something I've not experienced in a long time. Each of the dancers was a little different, but all three had excellent technical chops, absolutely impeccable musical interpretive skills, and played the coy/flirty line perfectly, without either overdoing it ("did you see what I did there with that clever thing? DID YOU?!?!") going into barfy harem fantasy "Make Your Husband a Sultan!" territory. I was so excited to see that there's such a wealth of skill in this town, and that there are teachers who make me want to revisit cabaret again. After we left the bar, Lindsey and I went to a waffle place and had a long chat about the things that left us both cold about cabaret dancers in the midwest and the things that we both adored about these dancers, and trying to parse out all of the aesthetic and personal interactions in our responses-- a pretty much identical list, as it turned out.