So in the spirit of Halloween a fellow photographer offered to take some of my dance images and turn them creepy for Halloween. Halloween is in fact one of my favorite times of the year. The first image is from an ‘Autumn Goddess’ Photo shoot I did last last year in my Organic Armor and the second I am modeling my new chainmail belt. I am posting the before image too so you can see the difference.
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!
Here is the birthday video from the performance last night. What a fun group.
Happy Birthday Brad!!
I performed tonight for the first time at Babylon in Downtown Raleigh. It is a wonderful Moroccan Restaurant with gorgeous brick interior and a private room with a DJ booth. A huge outdoor seating area with a lighted ‘pool’. The ambiance and decor is gorgeous and the staff was very helpful and friendly. Everyone was just getting served dinner when I arrived and I did my show, sword dance, drum solo, ect, birthday song and then got about 8 brave souls up to join me to dance. Everyone was very welcoming and having fun. What a fun crowd and a great place to have a party!! Love Babylon!!
DAY 2
Just because one day wasn’t enough we decided to go their twice! No seriously, the Lost Nomads were playing at 3 and they are awesome! Plus I did have fun on Saturday, but did not get to see everything. The music was great, some of our Turkish friends from the ATA-NC were there, so they helped me motivate people to get up and dance about half way through the set. Lots of kids dancing and having fun. The kids wanted to see the “Africa” booth so we made sure we did that and learned about there. I only wish I had time to get a Henna tattoo. Russia was my favorite bazaar with all the different babushkas. Just before we left, we checked out the dance and demo booth one last time, but whatever great act was in there, just finished up, so we headed over to the drumming circle to see our friend Greg Whitt facilitate a fun drum circle for kids. We saw a guy on a giant unicycle and that was it.
DAY1
We arrived downtown and it was a madhouse. Thank goodness I had someone with me because I get lost so easily. We arrived around 1:30ish and got signed in and set up in the lobby area in a little alcove before the ticket area. Andrew started drumming and I danced while people were waiting in line. It was nice to see people enjoying that. I could tell because people did not want to move up in the line because they were too busy watching. I saw lots of videos taken and photos, maybe I will find them on the internet cloud somewhere that people tell me about. Afterwards we made our way inside. What a setup! Gorgeous Bazaar! I could have spent a small fortune on costuming and decor. The booths for the countries were decorated nicely so I decided after my performance I had to come back and take my picture in some. We arrived at the Dance and Demo stage and saw a wonderful Mexican group dancing and teaching. They have really pretty costumes. (The ladies even stayed afterwards for my lesson.) I started with a short demo to the popular Turkish song, “Kalenin Bedenleri”. Then on to Ani Fi, but decided to get the crowd up early at that point and just start the lesson. There were alot of people and they looked eager and I didn’t want them to leave. Alot of people were dancing at first. It dwindled toward the end and we were left with only the die hard fans. But I think everyone had fun. Afterwards, I visited “Egypt, Portugal, and Lebanon for photo ops”
Another great night at Fullsteam Brewery last night and it was packed!!!! What a great crowd and lots of dogs! That was the first time I have seen so many dogs there. LOL. I guess they like beer and bellydancers and live music too. I love my furry friends too!
So my plans unfortunately changed on the car ride there. I had planned to dance to one of Andrew’s cool more dark, tribalesque sounding songs, but then he informed me that he hadn’t practiced it and could not play it. “What do you mean you can’t, we had already discussed it, and you told me to do it for Fullsteam”! so I assumed that it was agreed. How soon people forget things. Sigh. I had even wore my more “tribal looking” stuff. LOL. Well as Tribal as a Cabaret dancer can get. Well half tribal maybe. You can never take the glitz and glam out of the American Cab dancer!!!!
So 10 minutes before showtime I picked “Mariam Mariamti”. I still loved it. There’s the story.
The End!
well not really….
I wish though. So tomorrow is Bellydance night at Fullsteam. It is always pretty low key. Easy performances, no stress, lots of open dances. Just fun.
This is our last class of the session. We learned a fun choreo and everone did GREAT!! I am so proud of my class!
Friday night is Rhythimicity at Crossroads. Fun West African music in Front of Coffee and Crepes. Dancers are welcome. (Albannach is also coming to Raleigh this weekend!! woohoo!! They will be performing at the International Festival on Friday but also at Tir na Nog Friday and Saturday night at 10 pm.) Then this weekend is the 26th Annual International Festival of Raleigh. I will be there on Saturday performing at the Dance Demo area at 2:30-3pm. I will do a short performance followed by a mini lesson. Before this, Andrew will be drumming up in the lobby and I will dance while people are checking in. Then on Sunday, the Lost Nomads will be performing at the International Festival at 3 pm.
Next Friday, I am dancing at Spartacus: Shows at 7 and 8 pm. Saturday night I have a private birthday gig at Babylon in Downtown Raleigh.
My new session of classes start up on October 12th and run until November 16.
Then Halloween stuff: Oct 22 is Dark Shadows in Fayetteville and on the 29th is Monster Mash in Durham.
Bluemoon Hafla on Nov 5th. NCBellydance Anniversary Fundraiser on Nov 12th with weekend workshops with Amani Jabril and another Fullsteam on Nov 29th.
…and then…..I think…I see nothing…absolutely nothing on the calendar for December…YEAH!!!!!
maybe then I can finally work on some new stuff!!
Fullsteam Brewery
Tuesday September 27, Show starts at 8 pm, please arrive early for best seating. Wonderful live music by the Lost Nomads and bellydance performances by local dancers.
Yesterday was the Raleigh Drum Circles 9th Anniversary. I have been invited to dance at this party for quite a while now and it is always so much fun!!! All the performances were outstanding. This year we were able to not only have live drumming, but incorporate one of my favorite melodic Middle Eastern instruments, the Oud. Many thanks to Brian Beaman and Andrew Shakinovsky of the Lost Nomads for providing live Middle Eastern music for this performance.
This past weekend, I traveled to Fayetteville for a show featuring the wonderful and talented Ahava. She is a beautiful dancer. The show was alot of fun and it was great to see my friends down there and meet some new people. I did a new wings dance, that I am hoping to teach a choreography to eventually.
Amara is a professional bellydance artist specializing in American Oriental Style Bellydance.
