Tucson Festival of Books Recap

Photo by CR Reardon with Ashley Grove's camera

On Saturday, Fire & Gold Belly Dance performed at the Tucson Festival of Books, which is a HUGE event hosted at the University of Arizona featuring local and national (perhaps international?) authors, performing arts, vending, food, science education and a whole lot more.

Even though I LOVE books I'd never made it to this event, due to the fact that it always seemed to conflict with other scheduled events this time of year. So I have to admit that when I heard we were going to perform at it, my first thought was "Cool" but my second thought was "What does belly dance have to do with books?" When I actually got to the event and saw that we were next to a circus (!) and followed by Colombian dancers, it made a lot more sense. It may be the Festival of Books, but there's a whole lot of general "festival" atmosphere to go along with the books. This is actually a smart move because it probably makes it easier for bookworms to get their less-bookish friends and family to come along with them, and gives some exciting diversions for little ones who might have a short attention span.

A word about outdoor events in Arizona: you never know what you're going to get when it comes to weather. Friday was windy, cloudy, and even cold at times, so I was pretty worried about Saturday. Sure enough, although it was warm and clear, Saturday was SO WINDY! In the picture above you can actually see the back wall of our stage blowing in. This made prop work a little difficult, and there was grass and cotton candy blowing in the wind, too. But despite this weather we managed to draw a sizable and enthusiastic crowd, including a bunch of little girls who were excited about the idea of belly dance lessons.

My original plan was to wander the festival for a few hours after performing, but the wind made that a less-than-attractive prospect, so instead a few of us found a restaurant for a bite to eat. I did get to see some of the booths on the way back to the car and I was really impressed by the variety! It seemed like every genre under the sun was represented. There were self-publishing authors, local book stores, large publishers, artists, local organizations and so much more! I hope that next year the weather will be more cooperative and I can really browse and find some new reading material. 

Busy Season!

Dancing at Sky Bar, one of the many places you'll see me performing this Spring

 

We have two busy seasons here in Arizona: Spring and Fall. Bookending our harsh Summer, each of these seasons is about a month and a half to two months long, and organizers cram in as many events as possible to take advantage of the beautiful days when people actually want to be outside. This leads to a lot of schedule juggling for belly dancers and other entertainers, as we try to balance the events that we're scheduled to perform at and the events we'd like to attend as spectators.

I've just updated my upcoming performances side bar, and you can see that in addition to our regular appearances at Sky Bar, Fire & Gold Belly Dance will be dancing at the Festival of Books and the Pima County Fair. That's awesome! But what you don't see is the list of events that I'll be attending as an audience member... I've got Wild Wild West Con this weekend, a couple of trips out to Ren Faire with different people, The Body Love Conference, maybe a little get-away with my husband, and a whole stack of events that I've had to turn down due to scheduling conflicts. Seriously, I've turned down 4 events in Tucson this weekend due to already having tickets for WWWC.

All of this AND I'm waiting to hear back about my Tribal Fest performance application! In fact, I should probably be practicing for all of these gigs instead of blogging about them.

Perform less, watch more

One of my favorite performance photos from 2013

You may have noticed that I haven't posted about a lot of upcoming performances lately, and I'm OK with that. After attending a few shows as an audience member at the end of the year, I made a conscious decision to cut back on performing for the first few months of 2014, for a few reasons:

1. I feel like in my rush to reach my goals as a dancer, I got into a habit of chasing after performance opportunities.

2. I'm currently in an inspiration lull, where I'm a bit bored with my music and in need of something new. For a while there I felt like I was constantly coming up with new solos and now I am drained, and I really need to go back and improve the things that I rushed through and then discarded.

3. When I'm focused on developing a new solo, I only work on the specific "new" technique or idea I'm playing with in it, instead of doing well-rounded practice. I feel like a lot of my basic technique has gotten sloppy and I want to spend the first 3-4 months of the year getting myself back into shape, and then moving beyond where I was.

4. I feel like right now I should be putting more energy into troupe stuff, now that we don't have a director to keep us on track, I really need to work on self-managing and making sure I'm not getting lazy about the choreographies we perform.

A nice side effect of not performing all the time is that I get more opportunities to watch dance. Faizeh just wrote a great blog post "Why You Should Watch Bellydancers Live and on YouTube" that I completely agree with. And when I get focused on performing all the time, I never get to watch other dancers. Either I'm dancing that night myself, or I feel like I have to stay home and spend time with my husband because I've danced every night that week, or I've blown my budget on costumes for new shows, so I can't really justify dinner out and a show ticket. It's no wonder I'm starting to feel uninspired, I haven't been out immersing myself in the art I so dearly love!

So while I will still be performing at Open Stage every month with my troupe (and probably as a soloist), I'm looking forward to spending more time in the audience than on the stage. 

Practicing vs. Performing

A photo from my Vegas performance, by Lee Corkett

As I was on the way to the show I was performing at on Friday, I was hoping that I wouldn't screw anything up, thinking about the things I did wrong during troupe practice, and wondering how it is that I always manage to pull it together for a performance. I mean, that's not to say that I never mess up on stage (in fact, I messed up on Friday), it's that I usually recover well and put on a great face and give an overall pleasing performance with a flub or two in between.

But at practice, one flub can suddenly snowball into half a dozen flubs! Taking the wrong step at the start of a choreo can mean feeling slightly "off" for the entire dance and thinking that I am screwing everything up.

So what is the difference?

I think when I'm in class, at troupe practice, or practicing choreography at home, I'm in thinking mode. There's a little track running in the back of my mind, reminding me of the things that I specifically need to work on, the things the entire group has been told to watch out for, etc etc. Then if I make a mistake, I'm now thinking "Wait, what did I just do? What was I supposed to do instead? Oh crap, while I was thinking about that, I just missed that other step and now I'm off by two counts and I am making a weird face and and and and..." Add to that an element of tiredness if I'm at the end of an hour of troupe practice after an hour of class and a busy day leading up to that, and I'm going to look and feel like a hot mess.

When I'm at a show, on the other hand, I am in performing mode. I know that at this point, there's nothing to be gained by worrying about what I'm about to do, because I've practiced as much as I can, and I'm as good as I'm going to be for the moment. I'm all dressed up, I've got my makeup on, and now it's time to give it my all. If I mess up, there's no time to think about what I did wrong, I need to be on top of what I'm supposed to do next so the audience doesn't catch on. Even if they realize at that moment that I screwed up, if I recover well I can probably make them forget about it by doing an awesome job for the rest of the song, giving them an over-all good impression of the piece in question.

I guess the point is, I'm allowed to fail in class or practice, so sometimes I do. I learn from those failures, and learn how to train my body, brain and face to respond to failures. But when I'm on stage, failure is not an option! So that might mean that when I'm at home, practicing a new solo, I might try some crazy method of getting down to the floor which results in me tripping, or some new fan veil trick that results in silk strangling my neck. Those failures show me that those ideas need some more work, so when I get on stage I stick with the safe stuff. I know not to try that crazy drop because I don't want to face-plant in front of the audience!

So if you mess up in class or practice, don't let it get you down. You have to screw up behind the scenes in order to know what works on stage! You'll be fine. 

Shakedown Rundown!

Photo courtesy of The Fantom Fotog/Santa Joe.

The title of this post is doubly accurate, because I'm going to give you a rundown of what happened at the Shakedown, but also I am feeling rundown from the Shakedown (seriously, what did I DO to my shoulders? You'd think those fan veils were made of of lead with how sore I am).

I got there bright and early for the Spanish skirt workshop with Rajani. I was happy to see that even though it was held at 9am, there was a nice crowd and we all had a good time learning a whole ton of moves and some historic/cultural context. My troupemate Melanie was there too, so hopefully there's some skirt work in Fire & Gold's future. Rajani provided us with a really good handout that should help me actually remember what I learned.

After that it was off to lunch with my BFF Jen, and then she let me take over her bathroom to put my face on, and she didn't even steal my new Kat Von D palette, so you know she's a good friend (stay tuned for a review of said palette on Friday, it's a goodie).

For my solo, I performed with my stunningly beautiful fan veils, to "Desert Dance" by Children of Paradise. I think I did a pretty good job, I'll have to wait to get the video to see how well it actually went, but I got a lot of compliments and not all of them were on my costume and fans. I feel like the painted background makes for nice photos, good job on dressing the stage, AZMECDA!

Then it was shopping time! I was finally able to get my hands on a really pretty new 25 yard skirt that I had ordered back at the Bisbee retreat (no big deal on the delay since Yasmina didn't ask for a deposit), and I also bought a cool barrette and some yummy tea. I had to restrain myself from buying more things, but I really should start saving up for the shopping bonanza that is Tribal Fest. Still, it's important to support your local dance vendors!

Soon my troupemates showed up, so we wandered around together, watched some performances, shopped, and got ready to dance. Jolie did a beautiful solo and then we had an 8 minute set with two of our favorite choreos and a mini drum solo from Brandye. The crowd enjoyed it and we got some nice photos. Success!

We finished out our night at Cracker Barrel. In true bellydancer form, we were wearing normal clothes but still had on our sparkly stage makeup, some jewelry and bindis. Probably more glamour than Cracker Barrel is really meant to handle. It was nice to sit down for a meal together, though, to chat and plan for the future and daydream about costumes and workshops.

I'm feeling really inspired by the wonderful dancers I saw at the Shakedown, and I'm looking forward to hitting my training hard this week, even if the first couple days may have to be focused on some yoga for my poor shoulders! 

Desert Shakedown on Saturday!

Ok, let's take a break from angsting about change and focus on something fun! This weekend I will be performing at the Desert Shakedown in Tempe Arizona! I will be getting onstage at approximately 2:05pm for my solo performance, and I will also be joining Skirt Full of Fire/Fire & Gold for a group performance sometime later in the day (around 5pm I think).

This will be my first time performing at Shakedown as a soloist, and also my first time not vending. I am looking forward to not being tied down to a booth, so I can wander around as much as I want, shop, spend time with my friends and troupemates, leave for food, watch performances, and generally relax when I am not on stage or getting ready to dance.

New troupe performance video!

I'm happy to be able to share with you this video of my troupemates and I performing one of our favorite choreographies! This video was taken at the Plaza de Anaya Fall Intensive show, featuring Wild Card Belly Dance. We had such a great time being a part of this show, carpooling there and back and eating a late-night dinner at Denny's (still in stage makeup, naturally).

LVBDI Performance Video

I have to tell you all, I am really excited about this video! My first out of state performance, my first solo at a bellydance festival, and my first time investing in a professional video! It makes me feel really good about where I am in my dance journey.

I always hesitate to say that I feel good about my dance, because I worry that people will see it as bragging and use it as an excuse to try to tear me down. Believe me, I know I have room for improvement, there are a couple of things in this video that I wish I hadn't done. But I feel like I am where I should be right now. I am neither lagging behind, nor rushing ahead blindly. I am making clear progress, and that is a really good feeling.

Oh yeah, and I made my bra and belt! I'm pretty happy about that too :) I used pre-made beaded fringe because doing that much fringe manually would drive me crazy, but I added some extra fringe dangles made from genuine freshwater pearls, Swarovski crystals, and Czech glass beads. It's nice to be able to raid my bead stash to add some special touches to my costuming.

Fire & Gold Performances

Lately I've been posting a lot about my solo performances, so I wanted to take a moment and let you know that of course I'm still dancing with these beautiful ladies! You have at least two upcoming opportunities to watch us perform:

First, this Thursday is Open Stage at Sky Bar. Not only is this an awesome event, but we will be debuting our latest choreography which has been in the works for quite some time.

Second is August 31st, when we will be dancing at Plaza de Anaya for the gala show as part of the Fall Intensive. This will be a big F&G/SFOF collaboration number, and there will be a lot of other great dancers performing, including the workshop instructors, WildCard.

If that seems like not a lot of performances, well, August is usually a pretty dead month in AZ! It's unbearably hot still, but everybody is getting back to school, so there's just not a lot of energy to go around for dancing. I think things are going to pick up significantly in the Fall! Remember to keep an eye on the Upcoming Performances sidebar on this blog!

A couple of exciting performance announcements!

Thank you Sam for taking this great shot of my performance in Bisbee!

If you've already looked at my Upcoming Performances sidebar since I updated it yesterday than these announcements are not a surprise to you. For that matter, I've also already announced them both on Facebook. But I wanted to make sure to keep shouting them from the rooftops.

First, for my local people you have the chance to come see me perform at Petra Mediterranean Grill and Hookah Lounge here in Tucson. This event will be held on August 10th at 7pm. The headliner is current USA Belly Dance Queen Samantha, but the show will also feature several excellent dancers from the Tucson and Phoenix area. There's no cover charge but if you come please support Petra by having a delicious dinner while you're there!

Second, my very first out-of-state performance! I will be dancing on the festival stage at the Las Vegas Bellydance Intensive on September 5th. My time slot is 6:03 but the show could be running late or early so if you really want to see me, I'd say you'd be best off getting your seat at around 5:30.

I'm excited about both of these opportunities and I hope I'll see some of you there. 

Why Open Stage?

I spent MINUTES working on this graphic, you bet I'm going to use it more than once!

Tomorrow is our monthly Open Stage at Sky Bar here in Tucson. Yep, we're having Open Stage even on 4th of July, because we like routine.

It's my opinion that every decent-sized dance community should have a regularly occurring open stage or hafla, whether it's monthly, every other month or quarterly. And let me tell you why: a dancer who has been bitten by the performance bug and has no appropriate performance outlets will start to make questionable decisions. We all know the logic: "I really need more practice performing so I'll go see if the manager at Chateau de Kebab will let me perform for free just for the experience" or "Sure I'll dance at your event, but since I'm just a student you only have to pay me $10."

The truth is, once a dancer has decided that she loves to perform, those once or twice a year student recitals don't cut it, especially for the dancer who wants to be a soloist but isn't given the opportunity to at recitals (because if everyone got to solo the recital would be 5 hours long!). If she hasn't been told about proper behavior and undercutting, she'll naturally start to have these thoughts (I know, because I did), and even if she has been told she might try to rationalize it by saying "Oh, it's OK because they don't normally have dancers so I'm not taking work from anyone..." etc etc etc.

Even if a dancer isn't directly taking work from someone, if she goes out performing on her own before she's ready, she can make a lot of mistake, get taken advantage of, and make the dance look bad. If the audience at Chateau de Kebab doesn't know that they're watching a student, they're going to think that they're watching a pro and they're not going to be impressed. They're not going to want to hire a bellydancer for their next big party.

Open stage and all-level haflas give those eager students an appropriate place to get their dance fix. And when the emcee says "Jill is a student who has been dancing for six months" and "Jane is a professional dancer with ten years of training" the audience can see the difference. They can see that Jill loves what she does but needs more work, and that Jane is a polished performer who would be ideal to dance at their company's New Year's Eve Soiree. Jill gets to dance, Jane gets to advertise, the audience gets to see what the city has to offer by way of dance (because in my perfect world, Open Stage spans the entire community, and tribal, Egyptian, and AmCab dancers perform, maybe with the occasional guest who does hula or tango or hip hop). Everybody wins at Open Stage!

Open Stage!

I've been really bad and I haven't blogged the new flier for Open Stage. Isn't it pretty?

Anyway, I LOVE the Open Stages at Sky Bar. We get such a great crowd... Dancers and their friends and families, bachelor/ette parties, trivia teams, sports fans, and so much more. To me, the best thing is when someone is there and they realize that they know one of the dancers from a different area of life! Ha ha! It's always such a surprise.

I am especially excited for this Open Stage because I will be doing something really fun -- Doing improv to a song I have (probably) never heard before. I had Chris pick a song for me and send it to Jolie, so I won't even know what I'm dancing to until it starts!

That's another thing I love about Open Stage... it's a chance to really experiment, to play with something that I wouldn't normally do at a regular gig. A lot of dancers also use it to test new material out, to get their fellow dancers' opinions, or just to step out of their box a bit. It's a really great community event and I hope to see a lot of you there. Here's the event page!

Fan veil performance!

Last Friday I had a big pile of firsts happen all at once... My first private party gig, my first time doing a full 10 minute set by myself, my first fan veil solo and my first time getting tips (and thus my first time making money dancing as a soloist. I've done paid/tipped gigs with troupes, but the money has always gone back into troupe expenses). WHEW! Oh, it was also my first time wearing those pants. I've owned them for something like two years and never had the right occasion.

Let me tell you, getting ready for this gig was really nerve-wracking. There's a big difference between being at an open stage, or doing a show with a troupe, and being solely responsible for entertaining people for ten whole minutes (ok, more like 9). Not only that, but I was going for a vintage-inspired look, which meant doing new things with my hair and makeup. Oh yes, and debuting a new-to-me prop. But everything worked out! The attendees of Kate's gem show party were entertained, they were entranced by the fan veils, and my hair stayed in place.

Also performing at this party was my friend and new Fire & Gold troupemate Sandy Tiss, who performs a more traditional Egyptian style bellydance. She wowed the guests with a veil entrance, zill playing, and a wonderfully sparkly turquoise and gold costume. She's a true professional and I was honored to share the "stage" with her. We even joined forces at the end for a little audience participatio.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the video of my very first fan veil performance, and look forward to more in the future!

Pretty Picture

The event I performed at this past weekend had a "photo booth" set up with this beautiful backdrop and a professional photographer, Pedro Romano (who also photographs a lot of the local fire dancers). I love it! The curtains and carpet really give it the look of an old timey stage from the early days of bellydance, a little bit of Orientalism. Makes me wish I had more of a vintage look going on with my costume, but I still love this picture. I'm wearing a hi-lo skirt and tie-top over my troupe costume pants and bra... I wanted a little pop of color for my solo, and this was easy enough to switch out between numbers.

I have been dancing a lot lately... Not just performing in a lot of events (I have two more this week), but doing a lot of numbers in each event. For our Mijana's troupe showcase, I was in all the troupe numbers, a duet with my troupemate Elyse, my own solo, and then Elyse asked the rest of us F&G girls to be part of her solo by standing on the sidelines and chasing her back "on stage." It was funny, you should have been there!

I really like it this way... Sometimes it is frustrating to spend 1.5-2 hours getting ready just to dance for three minutes! Even more so if I'm driving to Phoenix (which is why I've really cut down on performances up there). Plus dancing in multiple pieces per show is building up my stamina, and allowing me to really practice switching up the mood.

Oh, and if you like those candy-apple red lips, look forward to them being part of my next makeup review later this week!

Audiences and Narcissism

I am totally vain about my hair, so this seems like an appropriate pic for a post about narcissism. Photo by Sam Supowit.

Every time there's a conversation about audiences, whether it's yesterday's topic of community support, or a "question of the day" about whether you prefer a big theater audience vs. a small restaurant crowd, or dancing for fellow dancers vs. the general public, there's always at least one person who has to mention how they don't need an audience, they dance for themselves. Maybe I'm a little defensive (I often am), but it always comes across as so condemning of the rest of us. Oh, look at the narcissistic dancers who need someone to watch them dance!

I have a couple of things to say about this. First, in all areas of our lives we need to stop tearing others down to build ourselves up. Just because someone likes something, doesn't mean they need it. Just because you don't need or want something that others seem to want doesn't mean that you're somehow a better, more pure person. We're all pretty much okay, unless we're not, and if we're not, our lack of okayness is going to manifest in hurting people, not in wanting someone to watch us dance.

No, I don't need an audience. In fact, for the first few years that I danced, I thought I'd never want to perform. It seemed like too much stress, too much hassle, and shy early-20s me sure wasn't comfortable with being in the spotlight! Obviously I eventually got bit by the performance bug and I never looked back. But I still love to practice choreographies in class, and I love to put on music and jam around the house in my PJs. I don't need someone to watch me when I'm dancing, and in fact, oftentimes I need to be unobserved, so I can experiment without being self-conscious.

But do I want an audience? Oh goodness yes! If I spend hours and hours over a course of weeks or months practicing a troupe choreography or a structured improv solo, if I've stabbed myself a hundred times sewing a new costume, if I've primped and preened and made myself up, if I've given up yet another weekend night at home with my husband and pets, then YES, I want to have an audience. And I don't feel bad saying so. Anyone who performs wants an audience. Without an audience, live theaters shut down, bands can't go on tour, movies fail to get sequels and TV shows get canceled. As soon as you decide to make that switch from hobbyist to performer, you are putting yourself in the position to rely on audiences to a certain degree.

Dancers want audiences, and audiences want dancers. If none of us ever said "Ok, I want to perform now" then no one would ever witness our art. Performing is not simply an act of vanity, it's also an outreach. We're taking our art to people who have never seen it before, or to people who have never done it this way. As a tribal fusion bellydancer, I love the reactions from audiences who have previously only seen Egyptian bellydance in restaurants before. I like opening their eyes to the diversity of bellydance. I love to answer their questions, and tell them where they can go in town to see even more styles of dance.

So if you don't need an audience, that's fine. That's a valid approach to take towards dance. Not everyone needs or wants to perform, for some it is a hobby or a fun social activity, and I fully support that. I just ask that you, in return, fully support me and my fellow dancers who thrive in the spotlight (even if it's a little bitty spotlight).

Open Stage Again!

Last night's Open Stage was pretty awesome. We had even more dancers than last time, and another great audience. Aside from having to start late due to the UofA basketball game running into overtime, it went pretty flawlessly. And since UofA won, the crowd was in a good mood (college sports are a big deal here, if you are into sports. I am not).

Sky Bar is proving to be a pretty ideal venue. There's a lot of room to dance, which makes it nice for big troupes like ours, or for using props like veil. Since it's not a restaurant, the dancers don't have to vie with dinner for peoples' attention. And after the show, we can all relax with an adult beverage and chat it up. I had a really nice time last night catching up with dancers that I hadn't seen in a long time, and meeting new dancers.

I feel really happy with how my solo performance went last night. I wish I had gotten video of it, as I was emoting like crazy and I really just left it all out there on the dance floor. If I can get my technical skill to match my passion, I think I will be pretty awesome. As it is, I'm still really proud of my progress, I've grown a lot from my previous "SMILE FOR THE AUDIENCE, OMG, DON'T STOP SMILING!" dance persona.

Last night I also hit a new milestone: I wore full-size false eyelashes all night! I was actually pretty disappointed with how small they were. I'm ready to try some great big over the top dramatic lashes. Good thing I am going to Sephora on Sunday!

Dolled up

There was a point tonight where I thought this eye makeup look was not going to work out, but I kept going and it actually turned out pretty nicely. I even managed to get my half-lashes on! Yay lashes! I think it's time to graduate to full lashes, so I can start building my way up to really large, elaborate ones. Brandye was wearing some REALLY big ones with glitter mascara on top and she looked amazing.

Tonight's gig was a lot of fun and it also gave me a feel for what being a professional will be like -- evening gig on a Friday night, two 20 minute sets, not getting home until midnight... I think I could live this life.

Of course now I am sitting here trying to muster up the energy to remove all that emerald green eyeliner and put away all my hair flowers.

The world isn't ending, but...

I don't believe that the world is going to end tomorrow, or indeed, any time soon, but I am still dancing in a End of the World party tomorrow! What can I say, I'm addicted to dancing. I will be debuting a new solo as well as performing some favorite choreographies with Skirt Full of Fire and Fire & Gold. The other performances include drag kings, burlesque, musical mayhem and more, so if that sounds like your idea of a fun way to celebrate the false apocalypse, come on down to It's The End... So Let's Party! Cover is only $5 which is a great deal for so much entertainment.

This should really, genuinely be my last gig for the year. I don't have anything else on my calendar until the January Open Stage, which is just the start of a pretty busy January. Believe me, you will have plenty of chances to see me dance in 2013! It's going to be an awesome year.

A good day

I feel a little guilty posting this in the face of the tragedy in CT, but I had a good day of dancing today.

Jolie, Rachel and I performed at a holiday party for the radiation/oncology department of one of the local hospitals, and it was a great show. Our audience of patients and staff was really, really enthusiastic and afterwards several of them wanted to talk to us about dance, their past experience with it, where they could see us again, etc etc. It felt really good to make them so happy. I did a solo to Trans Siberian Orchestra's "Revenge of the Sugar Plum Fairy" and I did so many turns with proper spotting that you would not believe they used to almost bring me to tears on a regular basis earlier this year. That is the power of practice, people!

Then tonight I went to High Heel Fit because Jolie was teaching, and she made us dance on chairs. In heels! Now, I happen to have a fear of falling and standing on things freaks me out -- doubly so in high heels, triply so when I'm getting light-headed because I didn't eat dinner. But I did it, and I didn't fall, and I had fun. I'm feeling a little bit like a bad-ass. I hope the video turns out, I want proof that I was dancing on a chair and I didn't freak out.

Tomorrow I am going up to Phoenix for the Circus Farm fundraiser, which should be my last gig of the year unless something else comes up!

So much dancing!

I have been so busy that I forgot to tell you to come out and see Skirt Full of Fire and Fire & Gold perform today! We were part of the BreakOut holiday show, which always coincides with the street fair. Although this will be the last one in this location, I suppose, because BreakOut is moving! I'm very excited because the new studio is not only bigger, it has central heating and cooling! But the Fourth Ave location was not without its charm, and I will miss it (and not only because it gave me a convenient place to park on Fourth).

The show itself was great, I feel like we danced really well. Sadly, this is Kamrah's last performance with us, as she is moving away to Chicago! I will miss her greatly because she is such an incredible dancer and a very nice person to work with, and her husband is one of the most supportive guys in the community (you can see his elbow in this pic as he is filming us). They're a great couple and Chicago is lucky to get them!

Thursday's Open Stage was also AWESOME! What a great crowd! People really got into it, even though a lot of them were originally just there to watch football on the big TVs at Sky Bar. It turns out that when given the choice between sports, and beautiful women dancing, a lot of people will choose the dancers. Sky Bar gave us a nice big space to dance in, which was great, and the drink prices were awesome! I look forward to performing again next month.

I have two more gigs next week and then I think I am done for December, unless any last-minute holiday parties crop up. Whew!