"How was Friday night?"
Jun. 2nd, 2008 08:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
parasitegirl"How was Friday night?"
"Good! It went well!"
"Americans?"
"Nope, all Japanese audience."
"Crazy bellydancers?"
"Nope! None this week."
"Perverts?"
"No....well... one, but he was my best audience member. He was all (gesture a shoulder shimmy) at me for most of my set. Got him up to dance. How could I resist his orange hair and exposed tattoos?...you know the type."
Yes, huge shout-outs go to the table with the guy who might have just been a hip construction worker instead of being a yakuza....probably...but the tattoo was a chrysanthemum, which is old-school Japan. Fuck. I never know. The whole restaurant was good but his table was the best. Rasta-ish dreadlocked Japanese man? Check. Man in suit? Check. Japanese B-girl with her hair in corn-rows? Check. Similarly attired female friend, also sporting that thin that might be natural but might be from amphetamines? Check. And bare-armed, tattoo sporting, orange haired chain-smoking guy. Check. They cheered, attempted to sing along to repeating phrases, didn't get sick of air-zilling, loooooooved the zills, literally made "oooooooh" and "waaaaaaa!" noises. They understood that a restaurant performance is fun.
I had a few weeks where I was loathe to practice much and used the same set a few weeks in a row. I am back in the swing of things. Next week, new set.
I am still not loving my drum solos. I've ordered two DVDs on drum solos ( Sexy Sadie's and Michelle's) which include drills and thoughts on putting together drum solos to kick start me.
I am loving my zills. They've reached a point where it is close to being an automatic reaction to music and moves but I don't have to think about the actual actions of my fingers...I do cheat and take them off for my veil work section. I feel no need to zill and veil at the same time....some dancers can pull off zilling and veil work but mostly remind me of a cartoon "one man band". When I am feeling better abut other things I'll work on veil work with zills on, but that's not a priority. After veil they come back on and stay on for the rest of the set.
Sandals. They are part of my feet when I dance at restaurants. Why did it take me this long? The easiest answer being that I wasn't dancing every week...My feet are just so much cleaner and happier! Sure, I've had a night where both sandals came unwrapped and fucked with me, but It happened, I moved on, and it wasn't the end of the world or the set.
Veil. Not my best friend but I've made peace with it and should pick up a good veil video (and review what I already have) for a few more veil-in-small-places moves/tricks to drill. I need more half-circle veils because they work better in smaller places....but costume priorities are on finishing my gold set and practice priorities are on drum solos and glute-powered shimmies.
I will admit here and now that I DO do the damned face-veil trick. For those of you asking "what?" it is a much debated move in the BD community where, for a few moments, the veil is wrapped so that it mimics head covering veil where only your eyes peak out. The controversy, for you non-BD folks, being how ok is it for Western dancers to mimic a chador/head/face wrap in the name of entertaining? For BDancers please think Aziza, not "overwrought commentary on the Burka", style of presentation.
I wouldn't toss it in for an audience possibly including people from the Middle East or "known muslims" just in case. In an BD for BD show I'd feel sort of silly doing it because everyone has seen it. But when it comes to Japanese restaurants, I'm going to continue with it because it is a crowd-pleasing move that I can do in a confined place. I never mimic being wrapped head-to-toe. It never serves as a burka/chador for a long enough period of time for the removal of it to become "Look, I'm stripping off my burka! Heee Heee and La-de-dah what do you think of that?" I prefer it as a surprise - now you see it, now you don't- accent. One moment the veil lowers and hides my body, then I'm looking out at you impishly, then I spin and when the spin ends..tada...face wrap (body exposed)...people say "oooooh", after a few moments traveling I spin again and "wooosh" it's back to being a veil we are on to the next moves.
That's my confession. Here's a few more:
I also will blow kisses and wink when I feel the urge/need, you can't stop me.
I can't say that I never pretend to "pull a string" to move body parts, but it isn't an every time thing for me. Maybe once every few months.
I only wipe my sweat away with my own hair if Eshe is in attendance and will not be performing.
I am not above using my belly dance photos for seduction purposes.
I always listen to non-BD music on the last leg of any trip-to-performance journey. I need to clear my head.
I have one odd ritual: I must take a picture of my face after I have applied make-up. Cell phone cameras make this easy for me.
I probably have more, but I can't think of them right now.
I do wear undies. in the flesh colored vs costume matching question I agree with costume-matching undies but live in a country where I am not given a wide enough range of colors in my size, so I use flesh-colored more often than not.
And that's how the restaurant is going!
Next week is TFN! Live band!
"Good! It went well!"
"Americans?"
"Nope, all Japanese audience."
"Crazy bellydancers?"
"Nope! None this week."
"Perverts?"
"No....well... one, but he was my best audience member. He was all (gesture a shoulder shimmy) at me for most of my set. Got him up to dance. How could I resist his orange hair and exposed tattoos?...you know the type."
Yes, huge shout-outs go to the table with the guy who might have just been a hip construction worker instead of being a yakuza....probably...but the tattoo was a chrysanthemum, which is old-school Japan. Fuck. I never know. The whole restaurant was good but his table was the best. Rasta-ish dreadlocked Japanese man? Check. Man in suit? Check. Japanese B-girl with her hair in corn-rows? Check. Similarly attired female friend, also sporting that thin that might be natural but might be from amphetamines? Check. And bare-armed, tattoo sporting, orange haired chain-smoking guy. Check. They cheered, attempted to sing along to repeating phrases, didn't get sick of air-zilling, loooooooved the zills, literally made "oooooooh" and "waaaaaaa!" noises. They understood that a restaurant performance is fun.
I had a few weeks where I was loathe to practice much and used the same set a few weeks in a row. I am back in the swing of things. Next week, new set.
I am still not loving my drum solos. I've ordered two DVDs on drum solos ( Sexy Sadie's and Michelle's) which include drills and thoughts on putting together drum solos to kick start me.
I am loving my zills. They've reached a point where it is close to being an automatic reaction to music and moves but I don't have to think about the actual actions of my fingers...I do cheat and take them off for my veil work section. I feel no need to zill and veil at the same time....some dancers can pull off zilling and veil work but mostly remind me of a cartoon "one man band". When I am feeling better abut other things I'll work on veil work with zills on, but that's not a priority. After veil they come back on and stay on for the rest of the set.
Sandals. They are part of my feet when I dance at restaurants. Why did it take me this long? The easiest answer being that I wasn't dancing every week...My feet are just so much cleaner and happier! Sure, I've had a night where both sandals came unwrapped and fucked with me, but It happened, I moved on, and it wasn't the end of the world or the set.
Veil. Not my best friend but I've made peace with it and should pick up a good veil video (and review what I already have) for a few more veil-in-small-places moves/tricks to drill. I need more half-circle veils because they work better in smaller places....but costume priorities are on finishing my gold set and practice priorities are on drum solos and glute-powered shimmies.
I will admit here and now that I DO do the damned face-veil trick. For those of you asking "what?" it is a much debated move in the BD community where, for a few moments, the veil is wrapped so that it mimics head covering veil where only your eyes peak out. The controversy, for you non-BD folks, being how ok is it for Western dancers to mimic a chador/head/face wrap in the name of entertaining? For BDancers please think Aziza, not "overwrought commentary on the Burka", style of presentation.
I wouldn't toss it in for an audience possibly including people from the Middle East or "known muslims" just in case. In an BD for BD show I'd feel sort of silly doing it because everyone has seen it. But when it comes to Japanese restaurants, I'm going to continue with it because it is a crowd-pleasing move that I can do in a confined place. I never mimic being wrapped head-to-toe. It never serves as a burka/chador for a long enough period of time for the removal of it to become "Look, I'm stripping off my burka! Heee Heee and La-de-dah what do you think of that?" I prefer it as a surprise - now you see it, now you don't- accent. One moment the veil lowers and hides my body, then I'm looking out at you impishly, then I spin and when the spin ends..tada...face wrap (body exposed)...people say "oooooh", after a few moments traveling I spin again and "wooosh" it's back to being a veil we are on to the next moves.
That's my confession. Here's a few more:
I also will blow kisses and wink when I feel the urge/need, you can't stop me.
I can't say that I never pretend to "pull a string" to move body parts, but it isn't an every time thing for me. Maybe once every few months.
I only wipe my sweat away with my own hair if Eshe is in attendance and will not be performing.
I am not above using my belly dance photos for seduction purposes.
I always listen to non-BD music on the last leg of any trip-to-performance journey. I need to clear my head.
I have one odd ritual: I must take a picture of my face after I have applied make-up. Cell phone cameras make this easy for me.
I probably have more, but I can't think of them right now.
I do wear undies. in the flesh colored vs costume matching question I agree with costume-matching undies but live in a country where I am not given a wide enough range of colors in my size, so I use flesh-colored more often than not.
And that's how the restaurant is going!
Next week is TFN! Live band!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 11:35 am (UTC)Personally I think that kind of veil is OK, it's the faux burqa nonsense that gets on my wick. Worst of all is the dancing in a genuine chador or something and flinging it back to reveal your bedleh. Because we western women know so much more about liberty and stuff and those ME ladies would totally be doing that if only they could.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 11:39 am (UTC)My idea of a veil wrap isn't very covering to start with. It conceals very little because I feel silly all of a sudden Woooooosh! "POW! HERE IS THE SEXY LADY YOU WANTED" and I don't like covering my waist too much.
I start out sexy. And get more sexy.
SEXY SEXY SEXY! HA!
no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 11:43 am (UTC)I may have undermined the effectiveness of my focus group somewhat, when I shared that when I started doing umis I found them very natural and felt kind of "OMG really?" in class because the movement was very familiar, just not something I generally did standing up, heheh. And my participants, who are all students of mine, were like "well obviously we haven't had enough sex" and I'm like, mentally, "but but, I just do it, I always did...."
It's suddenly occurred to me why I *don't* use umis in performance much.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 11:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 11:52 am (UTC)GHOD I wish the Tailor wasn't mental. I mean, it's like being in porn all night only funnier.
*seeks place to redirect sexuality stat*
no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 11:57 am (UTC)Mmmmmmm. Urges.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 12:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 03:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-02 11:54 pm (UTC)The BD online community is an absurd, America-centric, world.
no subject
Date: 2008-06-03 03:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-06-03 09:41 pm (UTC)