I figured it was time to join the Blogspot bandwagon since my livejournal is pretty locked down, facebook will no longer allow me to publish or share notes, and tribe is extremely flaky. So, here I can post about my bellydancing: what I'm working on, where I'm going, and what I'm thinking about.
So, to start... what I'm working on these days:
My new project is veil work. I've decided I really want to be a well-rounded dancer. I also want to be a *good* bellydancer who doesn't use props to try and cover up my crappy dancing. So, I've been focusing on a bunch of things between work with props and straight dancing.
Bellydance sans props... I cranked out a couple new combos I'll be showing to my troupe and using on my own. One of them was just this weird slinky thing I started doing when I was resting between weight-lifting sets. The other is part of my current effort to break out of my shell a bit and try something new. I've been trying to throw in some more attitude and emotion into my dancing. I'm going to be starting some hot pot classes with April Rose soon, which should put a bit more energy and badassery (throwback to Romka's TF8 workshop!!!) into my dancing. I had another private session with Ariellah as well. I'm in the polishing up stage of my dancing and Ariellah's been amazing at giving me very fine-tuned critiques and suggestions of things to practice. And then she gives me these lovely compliments and I do a happy dance of joy.
Veil work has gone surprisingly well. I really want to see myself on video though to make sure I'm maintaining good form, posture, and grace (I'm so naturally clumsy that making sure I look graceful is no easy task!!) but in general, I've been taking to the basic moves pretty easily. I ordered a beautiful silk veil, which should help with the single veil movements. I was just using one of my semi-circular double veils that my boyfriend made for me and it was just too heavy to really get the single veil movements looking the way they should.
Double veil has even gone considerably easier than expected! I spent about fifteen-twenty minutes today basically spinning and worked out separating my veils, getting them back together, and getting myself between them. All with fast spinning. Whee!!! I'd been having a hard time practicing at home due to the tight space I'm in... then I remembered I work at a job-site with a huge gym and a rarely-used aerobics room with mirrors. So, I've gone there a couple times after normal business hours (to avoid unwanted attention) and had the place to myself to just spin and spin and spin. I was pretty proud of how my spirals and barrel turns were looking by the end! I'm hopefully going to get some time set up soon to have a friend and amazingly inspirational/beautiful/talented dancer give me some instruction and feedback. I think I'm going to do some filming of myself and upload it for critique, too.
Doing all the veilwork has given me more sword inspiration, so I think I'll be unleashing some more crazy sword stuff soon... I'm trying not to overuse my sword in performance. I don't want it to be all people recognize me with. Sai work may also go a bit on hold for me. It's a lot of fun but I think just something I should throw out occasionally.
I am starting to prep more emotional performances. It's great when I just get to be happy and joyful to dance but I want some more range than that. So... it should be fun! My performing schedule is slowing for the next few months (well... so far - this may change), so lots of time to practice, perfect, and experiment. :)
I am definitely trying to do something different in my dancing. I took some of the new ideas I'd gotten from Amy Sigil, Heather Shoopman, Na'la and Hilary of Shakra, Asharah, and Callisto to put together a performance earlier this month at the Oasis.
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