Part Two of the Shoot

Here are more photos from the shoot a week or so ago. These ones were taken by Mary Ellen Nealis using a digital camera and natural lighting. I made and hand-painted the purple and gold bedlah. f00dave made the gold and black chainmail circlet. The chiffon skirt was a lucky thrift shop score!

( Once again, the photo titles are very spur-of-the-moment. )

March of Dimes Performance

Last night, I danced at the March of Dimes Martial Arts and Multicultural Show. In years past, the show was predominantly made up of martial artists. There were karate-do, kung fu, t'ai chi chu'an, judo, tae kwon do, ju jutsu, and aikido demonstrations. This year, only one of the acts was martial, and I didn't even get to see it. The rest of the very short evening comprised of Highland dancers, Middle Eastern dancers, Chinese dancers, a break dancer, a drummer and piper, and an Irish folk band. Kathryn, Keltie, and I made up a big part of the evening with our three short songs.

I'm not sure what political mess happened, and I don't think I want to know. I'm aware that the previous organizing group all quit the event. I also know a lot of the acts lined up to perform dropped out. And something must have gone horribly awry with the promotions, because there were only about twenty-five people in the audience, and I'm willing to bet most of those were friends and family of performers/organizers. It's a shame, too. The entertainment was pretty good. And even if the troupe of little Chinese girls didn't know the choreography for their traditional dance, they were so cute in their confusion and pink and red silk costumes that they were very entertaining, anyhow!

The breakdancer was interesting. She was about seven years old, tops, and completely self-taught. She reminded me enormously of myself at that age. She's a classic ADD girl--extremely hyperactive and loud. Backstage, she ran back and forth constantly, thwacking the walls and floor and anything else with a plastic coathanger. She was a scrawny kid with enormous, bushy hair. When the show actually started, she became more quiet, but positively thrummed with energy. She finally danced to Aqua's "Barbie Girl," doing an absolutely insane amount of high-energy movements. She cartwheeled, flipped, did backspins, shook her hair around frantically, and hopped about on hands and knees. She robot danced, and shimmied her bony little butt from side to side. And when she was done, she hadn't lost any of her intensity. I'm sure she hopped around as much afterwards as she did before. If she keeps up with her dancing, she's going to be incredible.

I danced to "Warda" in a red, gold, and blue costume. This was the first time I've danced to this piece in public, and I plan on using it again. I love the changes in the song, and I especially like the segue into zaar. I screwed up on the timing in one spot in the song, dropping to the floor two beats too soon, but I recovered easily. It's just a shame I was off, because the drop would have been much more dramatic had I placed it properly. I'm not sure why I got ahead of myself. It's not like I don't know the song inside out and backwards. Ah well!

Up next was Kathryn with "Habibi Dah (Nari Narien)" by Hisham Abbas. She wore a black and royal blue costume, and this was her first performance with a sword. During rehearsal, when the sword slipped three times, she appeared to have been possessed by a demon when she shrieked "FUCK!!!!" shrilly. The outbreak was hilarious! Luckily, the sword behaved much better during performance, and the apparent bout with Tourrette's didn't resurface. She did wonderfully.

Last up, Kathryn, Keltie, and I danced a Gamaal Gomaa drum solo together. This was Keltie's first dance performance, and I can tell she's been bitten by the performance bug. While we danced, I looked over at her, periodically. She wore a silver, black, and blue costume, and an enormous grin. Her little sister was in the audience, cheering mightily. I expect Keltie will be doing solo performances before long.

Beware the Jubjub Bird

I am now the proud owner of a Jubjub Bird. That's what I've named the plastic owl effigy which now dangles from the balcony ceiling. I've yet to determine whether or not it is effective in scaring off my disowned pigeon family. I frightened them away when I took Jubjub Bird out, and they haven't returned. But that doesn't necessarily mean a thing. I guess I'll find out how well my plastic birdy is working within the next day or so.

( Baby Jubjubs )

Juggles

I'd like to teach myself how to juggle this summer. I'd also like to learn how to ride a unicycle (although not necessarily at the same time I'm learning to juggle), but I don't think unicycles come cheap. Ah well. Juggling seems like a good sport for a penniless pauper such as myself. And then, once I've figured out juggling, I can incorporate it into my fire dancing. Hmm....

I'd Like to Sleep Now, Please

I experienced a long, drawn-out modelling session tonight with MEK. Once again, we were working on the Leonardo da Vinci shoot, trying to recreate something along the same lines as the Cecilia Gallarani portrait. After a series of frustrating technical difficulties (including an exciting incident with cotton almost bursting into flame on a light to my rear), I think we finally got some good shots. And I even took a few portraits of MEK. A couple of them aren't too bad. I hope she lets me have copies of those, too. At the end of the shoot, I got her to take a picture of my bad side. You see, in order to get my hair looking as sleek and elegant as in the painting, I had to do a whole lot of duct tape and baling twine-esque work on the other side of my head. Hair is sticking up all over the place, and I looked like a total freak!

My back is sore from holding a stiffly-upright yet twisted pose for the past few hours, and I'm enjoying just slouching back in my comfy computer chair. I have to go to bed really soon, though. My morning comes extra early. I need to be at school a half hour early because my class is going on a field trip. We will be visiting Aitkens Pewter studio. Afterwards, we're having an exam (it'll be a breeze), and then we'll be getting instructions on beading from Trudy. That's an awful lot of stuff for one day.

But today was a lot of stuff for one day, too. I started off at school, went to Shirley Mellish's funeral, walked in the cold rain, spent the afternoon doing schoolwork, and modelled all evening. Talk about an emotional rollercoaster of a day....

Oh, and just because fourcorners seemed to want it so bad, I've added a new user icon. Whattya think?