Taking it easy

Day 66 of practice.

I'm still sore, tired and dehydrated from my weekend at Wild Wild West Con, so today's practice was broken up into manageable chunks. Breakfast shimmies, chair dancing to various music, and then just now a shimmy warm-up and some veil performance practice. I'm feeling pretty good about my veil piece! Now to figure out a costume already.

The above picture was taken at WWWC. The fun thing about having a convention at Old Tucson Studios (a former movie set where many westerns were filmed, before most of it burnt down in the '90s and was rebuilt and turned into more of a theme park), is that costume photos have fun, authentically old-timey backgrounds. Here, Miss Sophia Freelove Greene seems to be saying "Really, you expect me to ride in this?" It's easy to get spoiled by airship travel! This costume was inspired by Victorian-era Orientalist paintings, but of course I gave it a steampunk twist.

Wild Wild West Workshop

Today I got some real, quality practice. While at Wild Wild West Con, I was able to take a workshop from Lori, aided by her fellow Lykiska dancers. There were three combos, including a special Clock Combo that they developed especially for the convention. It was my first time learning from Lori and I really enjoyed it!

The only strange part is that the workshop was held in front of one of the performance stages, which meant we had a lot of random people just sitting there watching us! Luckily most of them left, but it was still really weird to have an "audience" while learning. And just like last night's concert it was a concrete floor, which was less than ideal. I saved my feet by hopping onto the stage itself (wood!), which had the bonus of allowing me to see over the other students' heads.

Over all, WWWC was a fun event, and I may still head over to the hotel for tonight's after party.

Squeeee + Owwww = me right now

Day 64 of practice.

I have come to accept that some days, dancing at a party or concert is the only way I'll get to practice. Today was one such day, and wow, did I practice! Mostly, I practiced dancing in a tiny space and trying not to get stepped on, because I was on the dance floor at the Eternal Source of Steam concert at Wild Wild West Con! A delicious hour and a half of Abney Park playing live, and I was just a few people away from the stage! It was nothing short of awesome.

Ok, well, maybe a little short of awesome. Whereas Thurs and Friday's concerts were held in the hotel's ballroom, where they have linoleum dance floor, tonight's show was held in the saloon at Old Tucson Studios, which has a concrete floor. I have pain running from my feet to my lower back. It kept me from spending long at the Tesla Masquerade Ball, even though that was back at the ball room and there was plenty of room on the dance floor.

Anyway, I literally danced for hours today. I need sleep. Wonderful healing sleep!

Weeee!

Ta da! A pic of me, in steampunk finery! I'm quite pleased with how I look, especially since I pulled it together out of separates from my costume closet.

Today's practice consisted of breakfast shimmies and dancing to The Mission Creeps at Wild Wild West Con. I also danced a tiny bit to The Strand, and I danced to Voltaire, but the floor was so crowded for his show that it barely counted as dancing.

So... tired...

Class, finally

Day 55 of practice.

Ahh, dance class. It's been too long. Tonight it was off to Plaza de Anaya for two hours of Anaya Tribal classes, wrapping up the New Year session. We reviewed all the moves that had been covered in Fun-Duh-Mentals, and Cari talked about room for improvement. In Advanced/Performance Prep, we went back over some moves that people (me chief among them!) needed more work on, and then practice performing with audience members scattered throughout the studio.

Next week I will have to miss class, due to Wild Wild West Con, which is a bummer since it's a new session and I am planning to take the drumming and dancing class. I hate to miss the first night of a new session, and even more so of a completely new class... but I bought the tickets for the convention back in Autumn and I intend to take full advantage of them. I just wish I had a clone so I could be in two places at once!

Still in a bit of a dance-related funk, but I did get some compliments on my dancing and assurances that my practice is showing, so I guess I should soldier on even when I am feeling bleh about my own progress and chances as a dancer.