excitement about belly dance! watch out, may be contagious!

[prosewitch]

Wow, so our Bloomington Belly Dances event was truly fabulous! I didn't get to see every performance due to scurrying around backstage, but what I did see was awesome. So many well-thought-out pieces, so much good energy both on and off the stage!

Better yet, doctorcurly captured a number of the pieces and posted them to his Youtube channel. I was thrilled

Comments

[rhiannon76]

watch out, may be contagious!
Hee hee! :D

It was a great evening, and as I already said, I really enjoyed your solo-- you definitely seemed to be enjoying yourself, which meant you were projecting your energy out to the audience and getting us to have a good time too. (That's what I meant when I said it was nice to see you smile. ;) Plus, your assassin turns kicked ass.

[prosewitch]

Thank you! Yes, I am combating my inner goth for the right to smile every now and again; glad to hear it's paying off. ;)

And... I'm guessing "assassin turns" = those slow turns on the floor with one knee over the other? Just not familiar with the term...

[rhiannon76]

Yep! Onça called them "assassin turns" in her floorwork workshop at Tribal Rev last year-- that was the first time I'd ever seen them, so the name stuck with me.

[prosewitch]

You're right--I was in that workshop too! For some reason I thought it was something I'd picked up at Tribal Fest, silly me... :)

[luna_casablanca]

I love your performances! I loved your fusing of styles in your solo a lot. I also loved the variety in it and the floorwork in the beginning is beautiful. The duet was great, too! I like the combos that you came up with. Really cool. I especially liked the last transition you did, with connecting in the circle. :)

[prosewitch]

Thank you so much! Yes, that last combo in the circle is one of our faves... we call it "boob kiss, air kiss" because once the lead has signaled the follower(s) to do a full turn, but the lead remains facing them, the lead initiates the move by doing an Arabic step forward, coming in so close that our chests almost touch (hence the "boob kiss"). We repeat the Arabic one more time but at a distance (hence the "air kiss"), and then we do one count of Arabic hip twist, using it to step around each other clockwise. Then repeat. Arms are positioned loosely at chest-level in front of the body rather than raised as is normally the case wit Arabic.

Er, maybe that made sense... if not I can show you next time we're at the same event! :)

[prosewitch]

Aw, thanks! I really appreciate how much detail you went into, since that's helpful for me to evaluate how much of my intention actually got translated into movement and performance. I totally agree that I could've done slightly more interesting things with my arms in the second piece... but I'm just happy I managed to do as well as I did! :)

And yeah... smiling is something I've always had trouble with, this is definitely one of my "better" performances in that regard!

[anaar]

Big fat zaghareet to you!!! That totally rocked! I really like how you layered over your shimmies! Post more!!!!!

Hey! If I figure out how, can I use one of these to post to my Tombo Studio tribe? Full credits to the very lovely dancer of course.

I'm glad you had a good time, but we missed you at the Gothla. A couple of folks asked about you. Will you be able to come down for Tribal Fest?

[prosewitch]

Thanks! :D

You're totally welcome to post any of these to your tribe... I guess you could always just post a link and hope people follow it? I really don't know how to embed things. And these are some of the only videos I have of my dancing... I don't tend to be too pleased with how I look on film, which is something I'm only recently coming to terms with (or maybe, hopefully, I'm also improving as a dancer?).

Aw, I was bummed to miss Gothla, and I'll probably have to skip Tribal Fest too... such is the cost of out-of-country travel this year! Hopefully I can make it out to CA to hang out with y'all next time there's an event... :)

[anaar]

Aw that's too bad, we'll miss you!

"I don't tend to be too pleased with how I look on film" That's normal! These youtube videos are great fun, but doesn't really seem to capture everything. That's part of the reason I decided to do a dvd.

I'll try to figure out how to embed it this weekend. I know I did it once, shouldn't be too hard to figure out. Thanks for the permission!

[heathencorp]

Gorgeous!

Based on what I know I suck at, I can say you rock the traveling steps, and those little isolations while shimmying were wonderful.

I always love to see your dances.

~:D

... and i really need to get off my butt. i wanna be as pretty as you!

[prosewitch]

Thank you! I'm glad the traveling steps worked for you... I practiced those a good bit and I think they're really fun, too. :)

[heathencorp]

They look fab, and you make them look flowing and effortless. I'm jealous.

~;)