A Treasure Trove

Get yourself over to Larissa Archer's Facebook page and check out the album chock full of photos of her mother, Masha Archer, and the San Francisco Classic Dance Troupe (AKA the link between Jamila Salimpour/Bal Anat and Fat Chance Belly Dance®/ATS®). Look for a young Carolena Nericcio in some of the photos! Head over here for the pics!

Blast from the past, looking to the future

While reading our local paper online the other day I saw a link to a story about an older belly dancer. Clicking over confirmed my suspicions, that it’s about Baltimore area dancer Samara. Kallisti Tribal had the pleasure of meeting Samara at one of our first performances. A local restaurant hosted haflas for awhile and we were lucky to perform at a couple of these incredibly fun (and supportive to our baby troupe) gatherings.

I remember watching Samara dance and thinking thank goodness I’d taken the plunge to try classes and keep up with them, to find other people I enjoyed dancing with, to get involved in this community. When I am Samara’s age I hope I am still doing my dance thing! I also hope I have her attitude too; after our performance she declared, with a big laugh, that Kallisti was “sexalicious”.

Here is the story with a lovely pictures of Samara dancing and zilling away.

And here is a link to our 2006 photo gallery which has pictures from some of those Amer’s shows. Nine people, nine!, in the small performance space in the middle of of the restaurant, with audience on all sides. I’m so proud of how hard we worked for these shows and that we took the plunge and put ourselves out there.

Being here, now

Yesterday I headed down to the southern part of our state to attend Troupe 'Hip'notic's annual Summer Solstice Hafla. The Hafla is a gathering of dancers, friends and family who get together to socialize, perform, and welcome in the summer months (which for many of us are dance intense!). Kallisti was not dancing, though Flissy performed with her other troupe Verve Tribal (a fun ATS piece to a Gogol Bordello song). We saw all sorts of dancing, different styles and skill levels, as the idea is for everyone to get together and have fun and enjoy themselves. There as an after party at Becca's house, with dance talk and good food and cute dogs and Becca's awesome new dance studio. The only problem is that 'Hip'notic is based 1 1/5 hours away from where I live, so we don't get do hang out more often.

As the show started I had this realization that I would not have wanted to be anywhere in the world at that moment but there, at that hafla, watching those dancers and hanging out with people I love. I had this sudden overwhelming feeling of being so fortunate to be doing what I am doing with the people I am doing it with. I was incredibly peaceful. Dance can be stressful. I worry about doing a good job, learning new things, finding the time and money to do what I want, trying to get people to appreciate what we do. Sometimes the fact that most of the dance scene is "for dancers, by dancers" can be frustrating when you wish a wider audience would take note of what's going on. Not that I don't like that aspect of belly dance! No, I love it, but sometimes it can be annoying.

At that moment yesterday, though, I was perfectly happy to be a part of one area belly dance scene at one of our regular local events, cheering on the dancers, being inspired and entertained. Seeing beautiful people dressed up in their gorgeous costumes, having a good time doing something they love? Isn't that a sight we should see more often?

A Balkan Beat

This past Saturday my SO and I made the very, very, VERY smart decision to attend Balktoberfest in Silver Spring, MD. Oh, it was awesome. It was held at a Ukrainian church, the first part outside and the evening show inside. The location made me think of church events I went to as a kid, though this was a LOT more fun than anything I attended at St Mary of the Mills Catholic Church.

Halfway through the evening, hanging out with J and some of our marching band mates, I made the comment that I really, really wish I saw more belly dancers there. In particular, I'd love to see some tribal/fusion dancers, particularly with the recent Balkan music craze going on in the scene. I didn't want to see them there belly dancing, I wanted to see them there absorbing the music and dancing in a back-to-the-roots way. Get at least a little closer to the source, then work from there.

Highlights of the evening, for me, were seeing a number of women rocking out on the tapan, whipping my head around towards the stage at the first amazing sounds of Elitsa Stoyneva, everyone crazy jumping up and down dancing to "Kalashnikov", and finally catching on to the patterns of the group line dances. On that last note, I managed to pull the muscles in both my calves while doing those dances. Next time I'm warming up first.

I grow old, I grow old

Today I randomly started reading the blog . . . in a bottle. Genie is a friend of a friend and she hosts a participatory blogging project called Living Out Loud. While looking back over some of the past round ups I found this video post by Megan of An Acorn Dreaming, put together for the "Don't Tell Me. Show Me." project.

Click here to see the entry titled An Old Dancer.

Megan's observation that she started Irish Dancing "old" (24) and has only been getting older struck a cord with me. I started belly dance at 27. That's not old in the scheme of things, really, but by 27 I was starting to get a glimpse of what getting older holds in store for my body, especially when it comes to my knees. Some days I think, "What if I had started dancing in high school or college? Think how good I'd be now?", wishful thinking that I am sure has gone through the heads of many practitioners of many hobbies. I turn it around with, "Well, if I live until at least 60 and I keep up the dancing that means I'll have been doing it for over 30 years and that's a pretty good run." I also tell myself, "Shut up and be glad for each and every day you get to do something you love because you never know what's going to happen tomorrow, much less 30 years from now."

So perhaps I'll never be a fabulous dancer or do some of the crazy dance tricks I'd love to master. I do know that all I can aim for is approaching each day of dancing with commitment and love and passion. As Megan says: "I lay my heartbeat down on the floor every time I dance."

Best Intentions

I have two barely started posts I'm sitting on right now. I want to post, I really do! But right now I'm in the full on crunch to get ready for The Spoutwood Farm May Day Fairie Festival. This will be my 8th year volunteering at the festival, my 7th where I've camped and been there all weekend. On Saturday this year my SO will be playing with his group The Barrage Band Orchestra (he's on the left in the top left photo); I may sit in on repurposed-kick drum-duval, even though really? I have no idea how to drum. I watch the bass drummer and follow along. Or add some zills to the mix. Around playing I'll be running around being useful and catching up with friends I only get to see at the festival.

So I'm trying to finish costumes, cook, pull out the camping gear, do laundry, borrow my parent's SUV, and generally get my act together around trying to finish up some work for a project and (reminder to self) paying bills. When I'm back I'll make sure to get working on those posts, and I'm sure the festival will inspire lots of new thoughts.

Now for something completely different

My non-dance life has been a bit crazy lately, which doesn't leave me with much room for coherent blogging thoughts. One the other hand, vegging out to YouTube videos has helped me de-stress a bit. Here's one of my current favorites. What I love most of all is the sense of fun that comes out in this video, even though it's looks like a copy of a copy. And when the conga player really starts rolling around 3:20? Awesome!

Talk about commitment

My work life has been very stressful lately. I'm working mostly 6 day weeks, with a couple of dance commitments a week. I finally managed to engineer a shift swap with a coworker so I have one more night free and can finally take a class with Shems. I'm also trying to set up a private lesson with a local ATS certified teacher so I can brush up on my ATS skills and have some questions answered. That one's going to be tricky because she lives about 45 minutes away from me. I was feeling a little whiny about that drive, until I overheard a dancer last night in class. She lives in Delaware, but every Thursday she is driving down to Baltimore to take two classes. She said there is nothing in her area that is quite what she wants, so she is dealing with the drive (I think about an hour and a half on a good day) and considering it "her" night out.

I was really impressed, listening to her. So many of us (and I've done this) complain about having to drive to classes that are not close to us. It is hard to deal with this in an urban or congested suburban area, and it is hard to take the time from our busy schedules. I admit I am always amazed to hear from dancers who are traveling hours to take a class, who sometimes have to commit one entire weekend to travel and dance study because they have no local opportunities. It makes my own dance "problems" seem pretty minor.

A very happy post

I am very happy to post this video of my teacher Lisa Zahiya. This is the same performance she did at Baltimore's Bellypalooza, and I'm happy I get to watch it again (and again and again). At around 4 minutes the camera changes so you get to see her up close.

It gets better, but you have to make it happen

My SO and I know a photographer/author/blogger/all around excellent and interesting person in Philadelphia by the name of Kyle Cassidy. He is currently working with Amanda Palmer from The Dresden Dolls on a new book project, which is being written my Neil Gaiman. Those two names involve a bit of "Squeeee!' in my brain, and I think about how cool it is that Kyle gets to meet, work with and befriend such interesting people. Kyle wrote about the experience today, and I want to highlight something from his post:

" ... then we hied back to Castle Amanda and climbed up through the cloud club, through a skylight, and onto the roof where the cool air washed over us and the city was wide open before us. i felt like i was a part of something grand. and not because of who i was with or what we were doing, but because i was alive and a great metropolis streatched before me like an awaiting tableau saying "write your life here" ... we climbed to the peak of the house and all sat in silence looking out for a while. the tempertaure was perfect.

"Since I left high school," I said, after a long, contemplative silence, "my life has been going up, and up, and up. I feel like every day is better than the one before."

"I'm happy," said Amanda, looking at me, and then out across the cool vastness, with a lone skyscraper in the distance as witness.

"Life is really wonderful," said Neil.

And sitting there, looking out over the rooftops of Boston, I thought about all the hard work -- all the crap I put up with in jr. high school -- from all those jerks who peaked in 11th grade and spent their time trying to come up with new ways to make me feel miserable, all the bad times, and how everything just seemed right now to be exactly where it should be. neil was right.

Life is really wonderful.

Work hard, believe in yourself, enable your dreams, seek out creative people. Hang on. Tenaciously. Always be a force for good. "

It's true. I've felt my life has been one climb upward since the miserable days of my adolescence. Personally I'm a lot happier than those days of aimless yearning to do something, ANYTHING! with myself. I've enjoyed the modest amount of notoriety I've achieved due to my life (from the knitting, fire and belly dancing). I haven't chased my happiness, but I've worked at it. Or really, I've worked at things I love and the happiness has unfolded from that work.

I want to print this out and hang it up and pass it along to everyone I know particularly the teenagers in my life who may need the reassurance that yes, life is amazing and it can surprise you, but you will have to put some blood, sweat and tears into it.

TGIT (Thank God It's Tribal!)*

I wrote this for my regular blog, to amuse my friends and show them what things we go though as dancers. Of course I have to repost it here.

This past weekend our friend Cathy hosted Zafira for 2 days of workshops. It was incredible. I've taken workshops with Maria and Olivia twice before, at Triboriginal in 2006 and 2007, and even though some of the material this weekend was familiar I still walked away with so much new knowledge, so much inspiration, and so much of my a$$ being kicked (in a good way). I love them. Or lurve them. Or luff. With two effs.

Saturday night was the gala show. Cathy scored the Theatre Project, which I feel was (physically) an awesome venue, even with the tiny backstage (and tinier backstage restroom, which really makes you understand the term "water closet"). There were a lot of people in attendance, and though it was not a dance crowd (i.e. very quiet while you danced) they were very receptive and appreciative. Also, very patient and gracious with the sound mess ups. I'll get to that in a second, but first:

The good: Piper rocking her solo even with the horrible sound, getting to finally see Sammati from the audience (go zills!), Piper and students dancing with drums!, Levialora's beautiful basket dance with live music, Naimah showing us her softer side and endless shimmies, the huge group improv set with baby dancers to seasoned pros all dancing together even though most of us have never danced together before, Shems' glittering veil solo, getting to dance with Lyra and knowing that no matter what happens we've got each other's backs, Mavi being an incredible sword goddess, and Zafira working an amazing spectrum of dance from a saucy vaudeville number straight through to heart meltingly romantic belly dance.

Now, let me tell you about the crazy parts!

I have this part under a cut on my other blog, titled "You thought we would stop dancing, but you were wrong"

There were sound problems all through the show, starting with some of the CDs not working during the sound check. Piper's music from her CD was barely audible, full of static and the sound person cut it early, who knows why!! The crew didn't seem to understand that Zafira wanted their music to start and then took their time turning it up loud enough. Even though the sound guy said our CD worked, I ran for my iPod during the intermission, which was good because the CD of music for the large group set wasn't working and I thankfully had let the practice playlist on the pod. I didn't trust our CD to work, and I was worried even with the pod.

At first, despite the crew not understanding "Bring up the music and lights at the same time", it went well. But then, well, here's what was going on in my head:

First song done! Why are the lights going down? We have another song. It rocks! What? Okay, we'll stand here. And smile. Smile more. What is this! Okay, I'll start to taqsim just to do something. Hey, people are clapping, and it's a 4/4. We can dance to this! This is okay! Maybe the music will be fixed! Wait, this could go on forever. Thank you Mab for wrapping that up. Standing. Fine, I'll go up into the booth. *hike up skirts, run up the steps, pull up the exact song we need (the performance was single tracked)* "Don't hit play until I get down there!" *climb back to the floor* "Brooke, you go first!" Man, I am out of breath, but smile! Uh, why is our first song playing again? Okay, we'll dance to it! These poor people. I am so hot and sweaty. My arms hurt. Hi Brooke, look at us dancing! Hello people in the front row, are you tired of me yet? Okay, that's over. Pose, smile. Why are the lights going down! *scowling* Sound guy: "There's only one song", Me: "It's single tracked!" Suddenly! Our second song! Yeah! But it's too low. Make turn it up motions. Both of us yell: LOUDER! Hey, there it is! Me: Shimmy shimmy shimmy! Brooke: Shimmy shimmy shimmy! Both of us: dance dance dance dance. Totally rock the ending! Pose! Applause! Smile! Bow! Walk off. Sweat, gasp, gulp water.

So yeah, have I told you lately about the glamorous world of belly dance? On the other hand, improv rocks my world!

*Tribal group improv, that is

New dance crush

I've developed a new dance crush. No, I'm not going to give up on my old crushes, I have space for many of them. My new one is on n.o.madic tribal. I've been aware of them for awhile, and I love Ali's intelligent and thoughtful posts on various Tribe.net groups, but I'd never sat down and watched a bunch of their videos. I love what they are doing both with their ATS-derived improv (and how they've made it their own) and the choreographies they create (which keep the feeling of the improv while allowing for more ambitious staging). Here's a clip:



I also love how they bow to each other at the end, we should honor our dance partners!

My dance lineage

Head over to the Gilded Serpent and check out the vintage pictures of Masha Archer and her San Francisco Classic Dance Troupe. Masha would be my something-great-dance-grandmother. I love looking at these photos; the troupe blends what I love about the presentation style of both 1970s American belly dance and ATS.

Also, I am coveting the jewelry. Coveting!

Dance Crush Part 2

OK, so I've never seen her dance in person, and I have never met her, but I've been hearing for years that Nanna Candelaria is a fantastic dancer. I checked out her (few) YouTube videos, and now I have a coast-to-coast dance crush. Watch how she makes her belt fringe dance with her!

The practice is the dance

A dance friend of mine recently linked to a Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley sermon where dance is used as a metaphor for life and for the keeping of clear and focused intention in both spiritual practice and day to day matters. It was a good thing for me to read right now, when I find my self separated and distracted from what I truly intend to do for my dancing and myself.


We get up. We take some steps. We fall down. We get up. We take some steps.
Practice is it. The practice is the dance.
There’s no big performance we’re gearing up for-only our lives.
This is it. This is the dance.

Why You Should Be Dancing

I've had these posts linked through my LJ for awhile, but I think they can always be reread:

Eleven Reasons You Need To Be Bellydancing Right Now

Part I
Part II