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. 

From the Photo Shoot

I recently had a photo shoot with Dina Farmer Photography. It was a really fun experience, despite the fact that it was outdoors on a hot, windy day. I was worried about it, but the wind actually added a fun element to a lot of the images -- I particularly like this one, it makes me feel like a fae creature who has just walked up out of the lake, bringing the storm with me.

Shooting outdoors in the Summer is tricky -- our original scheduled shoot had to be postponed when the first monsoon of the season blew into town and dumped a bunch of rain on the city. But I like the natural backdrop.

Dina was really nice to work with, she has a great attitude and some wonderful ideas of poses. She got some very cute shots of me with my parasol, and some of my feathers blowing in the wind. She's also captured some beautiful images of other local dancers -- you should really go visit her Facebook fan page to see them.

I'm really happy to have some nice photos to use for promotional materials, blog posts, and my Facebook page. So many of my current images have the door to The Luxor's kitchen as the background, which is a little distracting!

No class for me, boohoo!

Day 34 of practice.

Due to working the gem show, there's no way I could have made the drive to class and back tonight. I'd just be too tired! Plus the temperatures were in the 30s or lower all day today (28 degrees on the way to work this morning! This is unheard-of in Tucson). These temperatures froze up pretty much all the water in the city, rendering me unable to cook oatmeal this morning, so there was no dancing while preparing breakfast. AND I was supposed to dance at work today, for the entertainment of my co-workers, but we had a constant stream of customers in our booth. Great for business, lame for dancing! (It was tempting to dance FOR the customers, in hopes that they would tip me in beads, but that's a little too attention-grabby for me)

So it's another day of drilling belly-rolls (including in a blissfully hot shower once our water was back). Hopefully tomorrow morning will be less chaotic!