14 October, 2006

I have been deflowered


I am no longer amongst the bellydance performance virgins. Last Saturday after weeks of practice, and fear of totally blowing the performance, I danced in public for the first time. I danced with my troupe which was certainly much easier than dancing solo, but as I was in the front row AND the most zaftig of the six of us, I still felt like any flubs I made would jump out at the audience like sparks from a July 4th sparkler. Yes, I did make a couple of flubs--I was a second or two late with two transitions, but I caught them before the audience noticed and jumped right back into the choreography with nary a panicked trace across my brow. My daughter noticed of course, but she's been to every class and rehearsal as a fly on the wall, so she has a bit of an advantage.

How was it? Nervewracking and completely awesome! The audience loved the dance, and it was great fun, and although I don't recall hearing the applause, my daughter assured me that we had very loud applause with zaghareets galore. Backstage, we jumped around hugging each other, thrilled to have made it through the dance, and to a woman, we all wanted to go back onstage again and do it even better. Despite the excitement, it still took nearly 10 minutes for my hands to stop visibly trembling. *lol* I can't wait to do it again!

As it turns out, our performance wishes were granted and sooner than we would have guessed. We have been hired to perform for two hours at a festival held in the local Indian restaurant. The date? Oh, just the very next Saturday, less than a week away. Now we are scrambling to finish the choreography on several more songs and we will be thrown headlong into the world of improv dance, much sooner than we would ever have guessed. We will each be dancing up to tables and treating each table to a personalized mini bellydance for a minute or two. Qamar (my dance name) had better bust our her best and most confident moves! It'll be very frightening, challenging, and a lot of fun.

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