shanmonster | My Weekend in a Big-Ass Nutshell

Frantically spent Friday night unpacking stuff from the truck and setting up my tables.
Finally make it to the Delta Beauséjour, only to find out littlekeltie and snowy_kathryn have been in a car accident, and won't be making it down that night.
Relief when I realize they're both ok.
Fear when I realize the hotel bill is going to be much more expensive than anticipated.
random_echoes gets one bed, and I share the other with Mom. Mom has three modes: snore loudly and irregularly, hop about all over the bed, and sit up to check the clock obsessively. I figure I get a maximum of four hours of sleep.
Up before 6:30 AM in order to finish setting up for vending. I feel as cognizant and peppy as a zombie. I have four tables, a clothing rack, and a couple sets of shelves. The tables look great, and shopping begins at 8:00. Unfortunately, the usual storming of the vending area does not happen, and sales are frighteningly minimal.
At 9:00 sharp, the workshop begins. Morocco starts us off with her usual warmup to music by Light Rain. It starts off deceptively gentle and relaxing, but by the end, I somehow feel awake and ready to go.
After the warmup, we begin learning the choreography for Hakim's "Efred." Much to my surprise, I find I'm not as choreographically-retarded as usual.
Morocco is as wonderfully idiosyncratic and outspoken as I remember. She has the strange habit of pulling out the top of her top so she can ogle her own boobs whenever she talks about the importance of proper posture. She talks about gesture in dance, and how many North American dancers see something in a dance, think it's cute, and beat it to death. One example would be the touching of one's own hair. In subtle moderation, it is ok. But when it keeps happening, to folks from the Middle East, you'll look like a "full-service professional." She didn't say what they'd think about the auto-ogling. Heh heh....
She uses a couple of metaphors I've heard her say before: when you're shimmying correctly, it should feel like two cats fighting in a bag back there; you never lose your nervous butterflies, but you can teach them to fly in formation; a pelvic drop is called an un-fuck.
Lunchtime, and I'm called to a meeting with the other performers. I am to open the second act, and will be followed by Naji. This means that if I want to watch his performance, I'd better have a coverup really handy!
I rush back to the souk in the basement so I can sell more stuff. I sell a couple of things, but not much at all.
Mom goes to pick up littlekeltie and snowy_kathryn at the bus terminal, and they make it back in time for the afternoon sessions. I'm relieved to see each of them aren't missing any parts.
We finish up the rest of the "Efred" choreography, but Tarik still isn't there. Morocco goes a half-hour overtime and a flustered Tarik finally arrives. Apparently, he had some sort of trouble at customs or the airport. I'm not sure which. Maybe both! The poor guy doesn't even have enough time to go take a pee and he has to begin teaching us his choreography for Hakim's "Ya Ho!"
I love this choreography. It's challenging, high-energy, and a whole lot of fun. Even as tired and cranky as he must be, Tarik is an excellent instructor and is very charming, to boot.
I have a difficult time understanding the mechanics of a movement Tarik calls "the evil step." My choreographic retardation has returned! But no matter, because Tarik is to the rescue. He jumps down off the stage, grabs my hand, and slaps it onto his arse. While forty pairs of dagger-filled female eyes glare at me, he demonstrates the movement with my hand firmly placed on his shaking little butt. Somehow, I still don't get the move.
We end at 4:00, and after rushing back down to the souk in the hopes to sell a few more things, I zoom back to the hotel to eat and get ready for the performance that night. I have to be back for 7:00, and that really doesn't give me much time.
random_echoes, littlekeltie, snowy_kathryn, Mom, and I eat at The Windjammer Restaurant, which is supposedly one of the top ten hotelier restaurants in Canada. We get a 50% discount because Keltie works for the hotel (hoorah!). The food is good, but certainly doesn't rank as one of my top ten dining experiences.
I rush back up to the hotel room to grab a shower and start tarting myself up for the stage. I look like a total whore up close, but know that I'll look just fine from the audience's perspective. No matter how often I don stage makeup, it still looks nasty to me. It looks great in photos, though!
I boot it back over to the performance venue, find a quiet corner, and obsessively listen to my music over and over again. I'm doing an improvisational dance, and want to be sure of all the changes. I'm using a difficult piece, and doing an experimental style of dance. I do not want to fuck up.
The show finally begins! I can't remember the names of everyone who performed, but the night opens with Kahaz of Bangor, Maine, USA. I'm really glad to see her up and dancing, because the last time I saw her, she could barely walk. She has no problem hopping about in the sauciest manner.
Sephira does a beautiful dance with a silk veil. Her costume is green, and the veil is pink. She's so beautiful when she dances that every time she lifts the veil up, I can feel myself also straining upwards in my chair. She looks like a wild rose dancing in a breeze. She still does the best veil dancing I've ever seen.
Tarik does his Moroccan tea tray dance. I don't know what to say about it other than wow. Wow. Wow a lot. I've got to learn how to do that kind of balance, floorwork, and absolute precision of movement. He's still the best dancer I've ever seen.
Morocco does a cane dance wearing a crazy red beledi dress covered with a fine red beadwork fringe (I'd seen the same choreography a couple of years ago in Bangor done by Kahaz). She has some problems with her cane in the balancing part of the dance. Apparently, her cane may have been damaged in transit. I think this dance will cut from the DVD.
The intermission begins, and I put on the uncomfortable parts of my costume: the big tassel belt and my bullet belt. Yes, they're real bullets, and they're not at all comfortable to sit around in. The change room is filled with women in various states of undress. I'm wearing my penny bra, a black fishnet top with long sleeves which cover the palms of my hands, a black circular panel skirt, black and gold pants, and several black and silver necklaces. I have faux henna tattoos on my flanks and abdomen. My hair is up in two pony tails up high on the back of my head.
Sword in hand and wrapped in an opaque veil, I wend my way to a coat room behind the stage. I limber up a bit and wait to be announced.
I drop the veil and walk very carefully to centre stage and stand in a kung fu ready position, sword at my side. The music begins, and I start doing my sword form. My piercing gaze and equally-piercing sword thrusts are aimed directly at people in the audience. These people look suitably nervous. Lest the dance be strictly Chinese, I add Middle Eastern dance elements. I switch back and forth between the kung fu and the oriental dance, mixing dragons with undulations and a kick with shimmies. I hear snowy_kathryn scream as I do the dragons. At some point, I end up doing a caterpillar crawl and a staccato backbend to the floor, both of which elicit gasps from the audience. I have no idea what else I did, but I guess I'll find out when I get the DVD.
At the end of my dance, I make my bows (kung fu bow, and a nice, sweeping curtsey for good measure) and leave the stage with an outwardly stern and martial demeanour. I can't help but crack a big cheesy grin at a couple of friends in the audience, much to Sephira's delight.
I get to see the whole of Naji's dance. He knows how to move, and he looks good in those green pants!
A new dancer to the area (Ginette, I think) does a spirited Yasmina Ramzy drum solo choreography. Her movements are nice and crisp. At the end, while taking her bow, her wig fell off. Everyone got a good laugh out of it, and she got plenty of cheers for her excellent performance. I'll betcha she's happy the hair didn't fall off somewhere in the middle of her dance.
The positively voluptuous Pandora did an uncharacteristic dance to a song by James Brown. I could see Morocco off to the side really getting a huge kick out of the performance, her face split in two with an enormous grin.
Tarik did the "Ya Ho!" choreography while wearing gorgeous red velour pantaloons. They flared out fabulously during the high-speed spins, and once again, I thought "Wow!" a lot. Yup, he's still the best dancer I've ever seen.
Morocco does the "Efred" choreography in a terrific red dress, plus a choreography for the next day's dance, "Ya Salaam al Belady." She's an absolute master with the zills.
Tarik and Morocco end the show with a spectacular duet. Their choreography is tighter than a frog's arse.
Afterwards, I run up to Tarik so I can check out his wonderful red pants. I look up and see he's absolutely shagged out. Poor guy! I don't know how they can manage all this travelling, dancing, and performing on next to no sleep. I'm sure I'd be a zombie. Hmm. Wasn't that how I started out that day?
It's time to go back to the hotel. We all excitedly talk about the things we saw, and then there's a knock on the door. A man says in a calm voice, "I can hear you girls laughing and talking through the air vent, and it's keeping me awake." I feel immediately chastened. We certainly hadn't meant to wake anyone up. But then he adds, "You're totally fucking up my entire fucking weekend." I think this swearing was wholly unnecessary. All he had to do was ask us to keep it down. He didn't need to be so rude about it. Sheesh.
Morning comes all too soon, but this time, I had a decent sleep. Back to the workshop I go, and this time, I don't sell a single frigging thing in the morning. What's with this?
The workshop begins with Morocco's "Ya Salaam al Belady." The choreography is mostly very easy, although there's one particular layered move which I don't entirely conquer: a vertical hip circle with one hip whilst tossing on a vibration from the opposite side. I can do it with the circle on the right, but not on the left. I guess I have something to work on, hmm?
Lunchtime, and once again, hardly a thing sells despite the warning that the vending tables will be closing after lunch. I'm very disappointed. I didn't even come close to breaking even. This has been one expensive weekend, especially for someone as broke as me.
Tarik calls us all back for the afternoon session, and we finish the "Ya Ho!" choreography. Once again, he makes me grab his butt, and once again, I get evil glares from the other women in the workshop. The glares continue when he pokes my left arse cheek to make me move it right, and also when he gets me to grab onto his hips. By the end of the workshop, I think I've finally gotten the basics behind "the evil step." As he says so frequently, "Veddy-veddy goooood!"
The workshop finally ends, I get my goodbye hugs from all my dance buddies, and I finally get to go home and go to bed.