HERE is a video from my performance with Beats Antique at Burning Man. We did this show on Wednesday night at Opulent Temple's White Party.
In the weeks prior to BM I spent a lot of time preparing for this show. I made my costume and hair pieces and worked for a long time on them, and were thrilled with how they turned out. This was the first time that I have taken the time to make something really high quality for myself that fits well. Up to this point, I haven't had a ton of experience sewing, especially something like a top that needs to fit right. Preparations for this performance allowed me to experience the satisfaction of a lot of "firsts", the costume being one of them.
Another first: integrating belly dance technique into my hooping, and attempting to blend that with choreography. I am a relatively new belly dancer. I've been taking classes quite sporadically for about a year with Jill Parker. In the last two months though, I had some fantastic opportunities that sky-rocketed my interest in practicing the artform: I attended Deb Ruben's SF Mecca Immersion, and I took a four week workshop with Beats Antique member Zoe Jakes. I spent A LOT of time practicing Tribal Fusion Belly Dance technique, practicing drills and very small combos. It's REALLY hard work! In response to the training demands on my body, I upped the level of care that I was giving my body, and got 90 mins of body work/massage once per week, in addition to a couple adjustments over the course of a few weeks with my chiropractor Scott Snow in Oakland. I felt it was crucial to take care of my body so that I could practice as much as I felt was needed: about 3 hours per day.
I LOVE LOVE LOVE Tribal BD. I'm feeling so passionate about it, and creating structure to up my training so that I can become extra fabulous in it: On Sunday I'm starting yoga with Rusty Wells in SF, and (depending on muscle soreness) I'll be starting weigh lifting again on Monday or Tuesday. I'm going to start classes again with Jill Parker, and do some private sessions with Zoe, and manifest a regular hoop practice space. I am considering registering for a class at the Circus Center so that I can a) train more, and b) have access to a high-ceiling space for hooping. Anyway, I digress...
Back to the preparations: I also spent a considerable amount of time attempting to choreograph a really tight set. Choreographing hooping has proved futile to me. I literally spent at least a week practicing for hours every day attempting to execute what I had typed up on paper: a variety of technical combos that corresponded to the music perfectly whilst integrating belly dance. The journey proved to be stressful, and I pulled out my big self-esteem pom poms to encourage myself to keep going. I have attempted to choreograph hooping to be precise with music before, and what has resulted each time was a decision to just improvise using a variety of sequences and combos. This has yielded a more fluid and present performance for me. In the preparation for this gig, I thought, "Maybe I just didn't try hard enough before. Maybe I gave up too soon." So this time, I was determined to give it my all in the way of attempting a very detailed choreography. And I did. And the result was me attempting to nail the choreography, right up to the day before the event. My mind was whirling. I wanted the show to be great. I had worked really hard. And the choreography still wasn't working. I had the dance timing down. I knew the song inside and out. The hooping just wasn't flowing. So relatively last minute (read: the night before the show), I did the same thing that I've done before: "I'm just going to improvise." *sigh*. Very detailed hoop choreo just doesn't work very well. I talked with Anah and a few other hoop performers about it, and they agreed: Having a general plan with specific music cues and knowing the moves you want to hit is pretty much the way to go. Trying to remember an 8 count choreography where each sequence is dependent on the preceeding sequence limits one's flow. Now I know how to spend my energy in future preparations.
So on the day of the show, I put on my headphones and my iPod and practiced to the song. I was feeling great about my entrance and the timing, and the fluidity of my dancing. My hooping was feeling pretty good. Oh, another last minute change: I had special ordered a brand new white PSI hoop from Patrick at psihoops.com. The hoop is beautiful: very simple, all white lights, in high density tubing (very light and stiff). The only catch: the tubing is not the same as my blue/green hoop, which is really stiff. The stiffness of the hoop allows for responsive breaks and reversals...a necessary element of my performance. So I decided to use my old hoop, even through it wouldn't match my costume. *Oh boo hoo*. No matchy-matchy for me!
As usual, it took about two hours to get dressed, do my hair, apply makeup, glitter, and gems. I realized the call time was close at hand so I grabbed all my gear and raced across the playa on my red beach cruiser bike to Opulent Temple. Beats Antique was scheduled to open the White Party at 8 p.m. I showed up just before, and no one was there. No one. Except for a couple sound people. No band, no other performers. Hilarious. Well, when Burning Man gives me lemons, I make a sweet-ass batch of lemonade. I ended up re-taping my PSI hoop, removing the blue and green tape and adding gray tape, which toned the hoop down, and made it look better with my outfit. (And that's what it's all about, right? Your hoop looking good with your outfit?).
I also had plenty of time to warm up, which was perfect. That led to another bunch of pre-performance botches. Oy. As I was practicing back stage, I was having some technical issues with my top. That was soon remedied by me tying it in a different way. Then I was practicing my pizza toss, and the hoop caught one of my hair flowers and ripped it off, taking the hair elastic with it. *Oh shoot*. So there I am in the dark, searching the dusty ground with a flashlight for a small hair elastic, thoughts of panic running through my mind: "What if I don't find it?... What am I going to do?... Maybe someone else has one that I can use..." The issue was that I couldn't wear the hair piece without it. Then I reigned in the panic, and turned on the Intention with the effective request that I use EVERY time I lose something; the variation this time was, "Little black hair tie, please show yourself to me." Baddaboom baddabing, I found it caught in the flower. Perfect. A quick adornment application, and I was ready to go!
I went on stage a couple songs after Zoe performed. Due to the amount of people between me and the stage, and the number of people on the platform once I got up to it, and having a lil' issue with turning my hoop on (the tape was covering the ON switch and folded in a weird way, so I couldn't flip the switch as quickly as usual), I ended up starting my piece later in the song than planned, but it worked out perfectly! Because...I was relatively improvising :o) HA! The irony of first trying to create something perfectly synced to the music, and then not being able to start exactly "on-time". Fortunately, I had the premonition that this (as always) could be a variable, so I was mentally prepared for experiencing that.
I was able to fill the music on time, hit my marks, and felt good about my presentation. I feel that this is a good starting place for being my first official belly dance hoop fusion attempt. Due to the circumstances immediately preceeding the performance, I kind of blanked on some of my favorite hoop moves and tricks and didn't perform them, but c'est la vie. I also didn't perform my dance technique to the best of my ability, but that is quite simply going to take time to develop. It takes a long time and a lot of practice to take the quality that happens in a controlled rehearsal space and be able to nail it on-stage in an environment of variables. So overall, I'm thrilled with how it came off, AND there's room to grow. Woohoo!
There's one thing that I'd like to acknowledge that I kept returning to through this experience. As I was putting so much time in practicing belly dance and taking a risk on something new, sometimes I felt emotionally tired and momentarily got down on myself. In those times, I cheerleaded for myself, saying, "You can do this! It's going to great! You are going to love it, and so is the audience!" And so I started beginning each practice session with a short visualization/meditation practice, envisioning the performance, envisioning my movement, envisioning the crowd. I focused on what I wanted, rather than putting any more energy into feelings of stress. But the primary shift that I want to acknowledge is this thought: "These are good challenges to have. There is so much opportunity here for me." I learned this thought form from my amazing body worker Mark Haviland in San Francisco, who is part therapist, part transformational body worker, part friend, and wholly beloved. I remember telling him some stuff that was going on, and he said, "Yes, and these are good problems to have. These are things to be thankful for because they help you grow, and also, your life is so abundant that you wouldn't be able to have these "problems" if it weren't for that abundance." Wow, what a concept! All of the trials are simply an aspect of living in abundance and are part of the practice of living in flow. Yes! I am thankful that I had an opportunity to push myself to learn and perform something new! Yes! The stresses involved in that were gifts for me to navigate to learn how to be more gentle with myself and an opportunity to practice being positive rather than stressed. I am thankful!
