Congratulations on your first performance in Washington! It's wonderful to hear about your participation in The Rook Circle Hafla in Duvall, WA, especially since it supports such a noble cause like Hopelink. Your excitement to connect with the local belly dance community and contribute to fighting hunger through this event is truly inspiring.
For managing and promoting an event like this, Latenode could be an incredibly useful tool. It can automate various aspects of event organization, from managing attendee lists to scheduling reminders for participants to bring canned goods and donations. As a versatile mac app, Latenode can also help in coordinating with volunteers, automating the distribution of promotional content across social media, and even tracking the donations received. This could free up more of your time to focus on your performance and engaging with the community, ensuring the event is both successful and enjoyable for everyone involved. Latenode is designed to simplify these processes, allowing you to automate complex workflows and connect with all the necessary tools to make your event a hit.
Thank to to Martina Crowe-Hewitt/Bellyfringe Bellydance for welcoming me into your show!
This post may contain an excess of feels, so here’s a pretty picture of the ocean to make up for it.
It’s been really weird being on Facebook this week, as FB keeps offering me “memories” of my photos from the last 3 Tribal Fests. Add this to my friends sharing their TF memory photos and their thoughts about not being there this year, and I find that I have my own thoughts about not being there.
Is it bad to say that in a way I’m GLAD Tribal Fest is gone? That the more I learn about what went on behind the scenes, the more I realize it was rotten to the core? That the more I see costumers closing up shop because of lost TF profits, the more I realize that as a community, we hung too much of our sense of self-worth on getting a spot on the TF stage and looking our best?
On a personal level, I’m glad there was no Tribal Fest this May, because I always sunk a ton of time and money into that event, and that’s time and money that has been better spent on preparing to move this year. I’m glad I haven’t been stressing about a Tribal Fest solo on top of my Cultivation retest. I’m glad that I’ve been focusing on improving some of my dance skills that were lacking, instead of one single performance piece.
And I’ve enjoyed finally exploring the SF Bay Area. Every year that I came here for TF, I’d think “Wow, I really wish I had time to actually go to San Francisco” or “Gee, I sure would love to visit these cute stores in Sebastopol but I spent all my money at the festival.” Now I’m getting the chance to see different parts of the area, do some shopping and some eating and actually get out into nature, too. (Note: I actually wrote this post on Saturday before my trip was over, come back next Tues for a recap on where I visited, what I did, and why it was awesome)
Of course there are things I miss about Tribal Fest. It was a place to see a lot of people, to experience new teachers, to try on and buy costumes, and to see a lot of inspiring performances. It wasn’t the only place to do that, of course, but it was a big one.
Mainly, I wish TF had gone away in a less traumatic way. I wish it had happened in a way that wouldn’t have been so hurtful to the people involved, and so damaging to peoples’ livelihoods. I wish it had gone out with dignity, with one final hurrah so we all know it was coming. I wish we could have said good bye. I wish it had felt more like a peaceful death after a long and healthy life, and not like a gory murder/suicide.
One more thing: I am kind of tired of hearing people say “Something new will take its place!” as if you can make a gigantic festival over night. Honestly, I don’t think there will ever be another Tribal Fest — and I think that’s OK. I think that instead of a new festival becoming the hot new thing, or one of the current mid-sized festivals taking over, I think that all of the mid-sized festivals will grow a bit as people focus their attention away from going to Sebastopol to the exclusion of all else, and towards supporting the mid-sized event nearest their home. And I think that’s better. It means people who could never go to TF (either due to money, or due to its proximity towards the end of the school year) will no longer feel like they’re just entirely missing out. It means people might travel more to communities they’ve never visited and make new connections. And it hopefully means we won’t put any one event on such a high pedestal that we ignore the bad behavior behind it.
Additionally, saying “Something new will take its place!” doesn’t help the people who are hurting monetarily right now. Even if, say, Tribal Rev or Tribal Con or Cues and Tattoos grows to become the new big event, it really is going to take a few years, as people travel around to different events and decide which one they like best before coming to the consensus that Elevation or Jamballah is the New Tribal Fest. So stop expecting your favorite vendors to just sit tight and wait for The New Tribal Fest to come along. They need to take care of themselves, and if that means closing up shop and getting a day job, well, you just better take care of the pieces you have from them and appreciate the chance that you got something before it was too late.
So that’s my thoughts on it. I think a lot of us are going to continue to have a lot of emotions to process about this whole thing for the next few years, but I think in the end, the community will be stronger for it.
This is going to be a different sort of recap post (and thank you Jolie for suggesting what I was already leaning towards, which confirmed I was going in the right direction!). Instead of talking about each workshop and what I thought of it, I want to share some lessons I learned, and general feelings I had, and why this was such a valuable experience for me.
The first lesson is about being at once patience and persistent. I got my spot at the Massive by supporting a crowdfunding campaign where it was one of the backer rewards, and I had a lot of trouble actually claiming my reward. It reached a point where I started to feel like I didn’t even want to go to the event, it was going to be too stressful to organize the trip and I shouldn’t spend the money traveling, blah blah blah. I almost gave up, but it all worked out in the end, thanks to persistence and helpful friends and Tori herself.
The second lesson was about not letting others color my opinion of someone (within reason). There were a couple of teachers at this event that I had avoided studying with because friends of mine had said things about them that made it seem like they were not nice to be around. I actually enjoyed my classes with those teachers. From now on I am not going to pre-judge a dancer based on one person potentially meeting them on a bad day.
The third lesson was not to outright dismiss a teacher that said a few things I disagreed with. After all of the years I’ve been dancing, I have some pretty strong opinions about dance. Some teachers like to share their strong, dissenting opinions in class. Just because we disagree about something doesn’t mean they might not later say something that will actually hold real value for me, so I need to keep an open mind and listen to everything they said, and filter the good from the bad.
The fourth lesson was that I am not as bad as I think I am. I’ve been in a funk lately. I haven’t been able to pass the test for Cultivation. I haven’t been practicing much. I’m really unhappy to still be in Arizona. I looked at the schedule for my 37.5 hours of class and I felt like I was not going to be able to handle it. But you know what? I handled it. I only sat out of class once for about 5-10 minutes when my body was tired and my brain felt like it was leaking out my ears and I just needed to take a breather and watch before tackling the next class. And even then I was active, quietly mouthing the steps of the combination and echoing some of them in my hands and body to try to better understand it.
Speaking of understanding, my fifth lesson was to finally learn the value of taking a choreography or combo workshop as a method of getting into a dancer’s head and getting a better understanding of how dances are put together. Instead of stressing about trying to learn it perfectly, from now on I’ll approach combos and choreos with curiosity, to try to figure out why the dancer chose those moves.
The sixth lesson is that my feelings about a dancer as a performer and a teacher will not always line up. Although I think every one of the teachers at Massive was technically incredible and an important contributor to the genre, there are a couple whose dancing has never particularly inspired me, and yet I learned a LOT in their classes. There was another teacher whose dancing I really liked, but whose teaching style did not really align well with my learning style — I still learned a lot in her class but it was more of a struggle for me to approach the material. The side lesson from this is that it’s OK to feel “meh” about a dancer that almost everyone else seems to love watching. Art is subjective!
The seventh and final lesson was more of a reminder… But there’s still so much I can learn, and so much work I can do to improve myself as a dancer! That’s always the best lesson, when a teacher can send you out into the world with a few new tricks or idea, and a whole lot of inspiration for further exploration and practice.
Now for… feelings!
My biggest feeling is that I am so glad I did this, and I really want to find a way to go back next year. I’m pretty sure I’ve written before about how my interest is shifting away from festivals. They’re fun, but it’s hard to really learn a lot in 90-120 minutes with one teacher, and then move on to another teacher. There’s a real value in being in a track with a group of students and spending a long time with a single teacher or a handful of teachers. I really value the time I spent exploring the dance world at festivals, but at this stage in my journey I feel like I can benefit a lot more from the intensive format.
I’m also feeling a lot of gratitude for Tori and Yaniv, who run the Massive. I didn’t really interact with Yaniv, but Tori was around every day, and we were provided with both of their phone numbers in case we found ourselves lost, in danger, or in need of a friend. So often at larger events the organizers have their hands full and you almost never see them, but Tori was a constant presence and I felt like if I had had a problem, I could have turned to her at any time. She was so very helpful in getting me up to speed after my crowdfunding hassle. I also really appreciate some of the things they did to make the event more all-inclusive: show tickets and shuttle rides were included with the package, our class badge served as a VIP pass to get into the shows a few minutes early so students could have good seats, and we even got a little welcome bag with goodies and info on Vegas.
I’m not going to lie, I also had some sad and lonely feelings while I was there (more about that in its own, separate blog post). But in the end I left happy that I had made a few new friends, who I will hopefully cross paths with again in the future. I did get to see a few old friends too, but they were all in different tracks than me, so we mainly just had hugs in hallways or a few minutes to speak before or after the shows!
Over all, I’m left with the feeling that I am on the right path in life, balancing my time between freelance jobs that help pay for dance, and intense dance training. As little as some people might like it, it’s also the right decision for me to be moving on from AZ to someplace where I’ll have more opportunities for growth. I had a few great interactions with teachers that reminded me how much I love to learn, and left me feeling encouraged to keep learning more, whether it’s in the studio or in a book. This all cycles back to my first lesson: patience and persistence!
Forgive me if this gets a little weird and disjointed, it’s hard to write a blog post with your brain leaking out your ears!
Since Sunday morning I’ve been studying with some of the top teachers in the realm of fusion belly dance. So far I’ve had classes with Kami Liddle, The Lady Fred, Ariellah, Jill Parker, and Sharon Kihara. Yet to come, I have Sera Solstice and April Rose, plus one more class with Fred. I’ve been dancing and learning and taking notes and stretching my body and brain to their limits.
The Massive feels like a really unique experience. Like an intensive, you’re in it for the long haul, with a set course load and a set group of fellow students. But like a festival, you have a variety of teachers. Vending and performances are minimal… there was a casual hafla with vendors and open dancing to live music Saturday night, a stage show featuring some students on Monday night, and tomorrow is another stage show with the teachers and what I’m guessing from the list are most or all of the students in the Professional track.
The focus is really on learning and growing. I’m in the Intermediate/Advanced track, which is the lowest level (no beginner classes here, this event is for dancers who have covered the basics and are ready to move beyond). The material has been challenging, but I don’t feel like I’m in over my head. I do wish I had put more work into conditioning myself before I got here, but I haven’t died yet… in fact, I haven’t even suffered a major injury.
I feel like I’m learning more about myself as a dancer… areas that I need work, areas where I’m strong, ideas that resonate with me and ideas that I can discard.
I’ll have more thoughts next week, once I’ve finished my classes, slept a lot and hopefully recovered a bit, but for now I’m glad I’m having this experience.
I’m pleased to be able to share some good news with you guys: Open Stage is moving to a new home, but it’s still going to be on the First Thursday of every month, at 7pm! I’m really excited that we not only found someplace that seems really keen on hosting us, but that had our preferred day available, too.
So what is Public Brewhouse? It’s a new bar (open for less than 6 months) that specializes in craft beers. They caught my attention because they’re just off of 4th Avenue and despite being new, they already had a lot of live music going on. There’s a couple cool things about this venue: they don’t have any TVs (no more conflicts with sports games), and they’re really close to Downtown. Now if you want to have a bite before or after Open Stage, you can either walk up 4th to any of the great local restaurants there, or go under the bridge and have all of Downtown at your disposal. I, for one, look forward to walking down to The Hub’s ice cream shop for a scoop after dancing.
I hope you’ll join us at Public Brewhouse for our first Open Stage in this great new venue, this Thursday at 7pm.
The one downside of how many workshops and volunteer slots I had at Waking Persephone is that I left myself with very little time to socialize and SHOP! Of course, learning is more important than shopping, but I do love shiny things and I think it’s important to support vendors, as they help make events possible. So I did make a few purchases, but there were a couple of booths where I told myself “I’ll come back later when I have more time to make a decision” and then suddenly the weekend was over and I had never made it back. Good thing I can order online!
Above you’ll find three of my purchases. I had to have this awesome Moroccan Wedding Crown from Zahara’s booth. I love enameled pieces in general, but this one was so bright and beautiful, with lots of green, including the row of tiny dangles along the bottom. I’m mentally constructing a costume around it, a sort of Art Nouveau Tribal look with lots of layers and draping and prettiness.
The necklace is from Amorticus. I love Ami’s work, and I just knew she would have the perfect necklace for my Lovecraftian mermaid/deep one performance. Sure enough, here was this piece with pearls and crystals and shells and a raccoon vertebra. It was just the right combination of pretty and creepy, a nice neutral color, and it was the perfect length, too. Best of all, while it was perfect with my costume, it’s also something I’ll wear for other events, because I like pretty and creepy things.
The kuchi dangle is from the always-lovely Katherine of Silk Road Tribal. I picked up some other things from her as well. She always has a really nice selection of tribal pieces. I’m probably going to put this one on my headdress from Elizabeth Joy’s class, although I might find that having bells next to my ears is a terrible idea. We’ll see!
I also picked up some pants from Sakkara, but they were too big to fit nicely in a picture, and a tribal pendant from Anaar for my Mom, but I already gave it to her.
But now let’s take a moment to talk about the Chill Space because what was in the Chill Space? TEA! B. Fuller had the cutest steampunk tea setup, with a huge variety of loose-leaf teas and tisanes that he would brew up for only $2. Can every belly dance event please have an on-site tea vendor? I had two teas a day on Friday and Saturday, and then I was very sad that he was not going to be there on Sunday, so I bought a tea sampler to take home with me. Anyway, it was really nice because the tea was delicious and if you weren’t sure what you wanted, he was good at finding something that would appeal to your tastes.
I also wanted to take advantage of the henna and massage offerings, but again, there just wasn’t enough time. I had to choose between lunch and massage, and in the end, my shoulders lost out. Next year will be different! Maybe. I have no idea what workshops will be available next year, so I may fill my schedule up again.
Anyway. Shopping is fun! Please always put a little extra money in your festival budget to support the vendors. You’ll be helping a fellow artist or small business owner, you’ll be helping the event by making it a good place for vendors to come to and pay booth fees, and you’ll have a souvenir to remind you of all the fun you had.
Crowd-surfing banana! Do I have your attention? (Photo of Ami Amore at The Underworld Ball, taken by The Dancers Eye)
This year, there were three nights of performances at Waking Persephone — gala shows on Friday and Saturday, and The Underworld Ball after party on Sunday. I performed Saturday night and stage managed Friday and Sunday, which means I saw most of the performances from whatever spot I could find where I could see the stage but the audience couldn’t see me. I did get to sit in the audience for the second half of Saturday, since I performed in the first half. Of course, the benefit of being backstage is that I got to see all of the costumes and makeup up close!
I really enjoy how Waking Persephone attracts a really wide variety of performers. Some people presented more traditional belly dance, whereas others portrayed specific characters or told stories. Dances were inspired by everything from DC Comics to paintings to mythology to the robot apocalypse. No two pieces were anywhere near alike, each dancer presented something that was authentic to their own style. There were lots of solos, a few duets, and some larger group pieces. Whether I saw them from backstage or in the audience, I enjoyed every dance that I saw.
Sunday night had three live music acts, with dancers performing to some of the numbers. Dogwood, Nathaniel Johnstone Band and Stoneburner all did awesome sets, and provided a really good variety of music. You know it’s a varied show when at one point you look out and there’s a couple doing a waltz, and then later, there’s a crowd-surfing banana. The thing I really like about The Underworld Ball is that the last two years, I’ve seen a lot of people come out to support it who were not otherwise part of Waking Persephone. Lots of cool local Goths and steampunks enjoying live music alongside the belly dancers.
As for stage managing, one of the performers Sunday night said she appreciated me and knew it was often a thankless job… But I definitely didn’t feel unappreciated at any point! Both the event organizers and the performers were great to work with, many of them thanked me, and most of them were so on-the-ball that they barely needed me around. I definitely felt like I was dealing with a bunch of professionals, rather than the old joke of “herding cats.” On both nights, I even had a runner in case I needed extra help, but Sunday night was so easy I ended up letting my runner do her own thing all night, at times forgetting that I was even supposed to have an assistant. Really, the hardest part of stage managing The Underworld Ball is trying to get musicians to give me set lists so dancers know when their song is coming up!
My performance went pretty well, I think. I’m still waiting to see my video so I can see how it really was, but it FELT good and I received some lovely compliments from the audience. I really enjoyed the chance to present something different, something a little sad and a little beautiful and a little Lovecraftian, because this was the sort of crowd that would appreciate that sort of thing. I’m excited to see the photos and video. Not only will I have photos from the performance, but I did a mini-shoot with Carrie Meyer before my performance, in which I held some weird, creepy positions that were super uncomfortable, so I think they’ll look delightfully otherworldly.
I appreciate that Waking Persephone is organized in such a way to provide some performance opportunities, without putting anyone in a position where they have to decide between being in workshops all day and having a chance to be on the festival stage. I feel like there’s just the right balance of learning vs. performing/being entertained.
Through a combination of purchasing workshops and getting comped workshops for teaching and volunteering, it ended up that there were only two time slots in the entire Waking Persephone weekend that I wasn’t in a classroom! Just like last year, there were a couple time slots where I had to make the difficult decision between two equally awesome-sounding workshops. Hopefully by next year I’ll have some sort of clone or time-bending powers so I can be in all of the workshops *and* shop *and* stage manage *and* watch the shows.
And now, brief reviews of the workshops I took, in the order I took them in:
Emoticon with Kamrah — I think of Kamrah as my “big sister” of dance since she started in Skirt Full of Fire at the same time I started in Fire & Gold, so we did a lot of gigs together. Now that she’s moved on from AZ, I really enjoy taking workshops from her when our paths cross. It helps that she teaches subjects that really work with my style of dance! Emoticon was about imbuing your entire body with emotion when you dance, instead of making your face do all the work. I take a lot of these kinds of workshops so I was worried that I wouldn’t get anything out of this one, but I really liked Kamrah’s technique for getting to neutral so you’re ready to receive the emotion you want to convey, or to get back to neutral after doing a difficult emotion on stage.
What are you wearing? with Zahara Solomon — This was a really cool workshop on the symbolism behind a lot of what we use in tribal-style costuming, from the meaning behind colors to the reason why coins are used to adornment to what, exactly, is the evil eye and why were certain items believed to repel it? I think this is great information for any dancer who likes to wear textiles and jewelry from “over there.” Plus it was fun, and we got to have a nice and respectful conversation about cultural appropriation.
Life is a Cabaret with Inanna le Fey — It’s funny that I had to go to WA to study with my friend who lives in Phoenix. This is a workshop that I just took for funsies. I don’t come from a jazz or theatrical background and I’m not sure if I’ll ever want to put Fosse elements in my own belly dance, but I had a really good time learning the stylization and combos in this class. Inanna is really well-versed in jazz and Fosse’s style, and has a really cool way of fusing it with belly dance so that both styles are represented and blended together to make something awesome, so if that’s something you want to learn, you’d really enjoy studying with her.
It’s only up from here with Elizabeth Joy — Headdress construction! Yeah! I am always happy to get more costuming skills, especially of the variety that I can do by hand on my couch while watching Netflix. I learned a lot of tips for how to make headdresses and got started on one, although I am going to start over with a less problematic fabric and then return to my class project once I’ve got the basics under my belt. Elizabeth not only gave us construction knowledge, but she shared valuable resources for materials, ideas on making pieces modular, and she brought several examples of headdress to inspire us.
Beyond black eyeliner with Celeste — I’m not going to lie, this workshop disappointed me. I was hoping for some more advanced makeup technique but it was more about the basics and Celeste had too much info to try to share in 1.5 hours (plus she was late due to an unavoidable mishap). I feel like if a dancer is going to teach a stage makeup workshop in a short time frame, instead of trying to rush through the entire face, they should focus on one important aspect — like how to know your face shape and enhance or alter it with contouring, or how to do a smoky eye, or lipstick looks for performances ranging from daytime county fair to evening restaurant gig to big lips for big stage.
Understanding learning styles with Sara Shrapnell — I signed up for this one even though I’m not a teacher yet, because I figured it would be good info to file away and it might help me learn better, or facilitate Improv Roulette better. This class was great because it taught me more about how I learn and communicate, what kind of teacher I like, and why some people just don’t seem to get things that I’ve already grasped. I think it’s going to make me a more patient and empathic dancer! It was also fun to take a turn being a teacher and realize that yes, I can explain myself, and I can see what corrections a student might need to improve their form. So while I still feel like there’s more I need to learn before I’m ready to teach, I feel confident that once I want to take that step, I will be able to communicate with my students.
Playing Finger Cymbals with Modern Music with Nawal Doucette — I was really excited for this one and unfortunately it disappointed me a bit. I felt like we spent too much time learning combos and not enough time playing zils. I think Nawal had some good information to share and a good approach to sharing it, the class just needed to be a little longer in order for her to have enough time to let us experiment with zils over a combo and then try zils with various kinds of music. I did get some good food for thought on how to work zils into non-traditional music and knowing when to play and when to be silent or at least quiet, so that was good.
Narrative Belly Dance with Somni — You guys, Somni brought a carafe full of hot water, tea bags, and fresh-baked homemade blueberry scones to class! These ladies know how to kick off a Sunday morning! Seriously the scones were delicious and worth the price of admission alone, but the workshop itself was also awesome. Somni took us through choosing a narrative, characters, story arc, how to adapt literature or film themes to belly dance, how to make good use of costuming to establish characters, how to establish your relationship with the stage and audience… I think most if not all of us were left wanting to do a weekend-long intensive with Somni so we could leave the event with a fully-fleshed-out concept almost ready to go on stage. You know that for the last two years I’ve been taking a lot of theatrical belly dance workshops, and I had started to feel like all of the teachers were just saying the same things in different words and having us do the same exercises. Somni stepped beyond the basics and gave me a lot of new information and ideas. I cannot recommend these ladies highly enough.
Bellydancer’s cookbook Vol1 with Ami Amore — Have you ever wondered how dancers come up with their own signature moves and combos? I sure have! Ami Amore broke down some of the ways that she comes up with things, and then let us try all of them. This was a fun workshop that involved a lot of movement and thought exercises, first as soloists and then coming up with a combo in a group. I think that if I combine Ami’s way of thinking with Rachel Brice’s stacking method, I’ll be able to come up with a lot of my own material. I’d definitely recommend this workshop for anyone who either wants to develop combos for their group’s improv language, or who is looking for ways to come up with new material to teach their students.
Marketing to Muggles with Natalie Brown — So I expected this workshop to discuss some social media strategy and advertising methods to reach outside of the dance community to find a bigger audience for shows and new students. And while there was a little bit about that, it was actually about a lot of high-level networking, marketing, making connections, getting funding, and getting taken seriously as an artist. Instead of focusing on how to get another restaurant gig, Natalie wanted us to ask if we even want to settle for that, or if we should be reaching for swanky corporate gigs, or if we should be finding sponsors to put on epic stage shows. It was really eye-opening! In a way I wish I’d been given this knowledge a year or two ago so I could have made a go of kicking Tucson in the ass and making some awesome opportunities. Instead, now that I’m planning to move in 6 months, I’m eyeballing Seattle and thinking of how I could team up with the cool dancers I know there and make the city sit up and take notice. Natalie is currently working on expanding her ideas into an eBook and as soon as it comes out I’m going to advertise it on this blog and you all should buy it and together, we can be a belly dance marketing army and create opportunities for our dance to grow. I’m excited, you guys. Really excited.
And that was it! So many amazing workshops crammed into three days. I learned basically a million things and my head is exploding with knowledge. I want to sew things and research the meaning of my jewelry and make new combos and be friends with the arts commission and make a plan for teaching classes and be sad but also have fabulous jazz hands while telling the story of a warrior’s fight against the elements and her enemies. Plus there will be scones.
I am back from Seattle! Waking Persephone was such an amazing experience that it’s going to take a few blog posts for me to say everything I want to say about it. As such, expect new posts every week day until I run out of words, at which point we’ll go back to a MWF schedule.
Today’s post is just a general “all the feeeeeeeeels!” recap. Last year I fell in love with Waking Persephone because it felt like an event that was for the weird, quiet, introverted, nerdy, gothy, steampunky belly dancers like me. The people who don’t fit into neat boxes. The people who sometimes feel a little awkward at other festivals. The people who would sometimes rather sit at home watching Dr. Who or Buffy than go out and be social. The people who sometimes want to belly dance as a strange character. Those people. This year just deepened my feeling of belonging, as I was able to reconnect with friends from last year while making new friends this year.
I really appreciate that this is an event that’s more about community and learning than big names and being seen. It’s a festival that was willing to take a chance on a newbie instructor — me! — because she had a topic that the organizers thought was valuable. It’s a festival with limited performance opportunities, but where anyone with a good idea has the possibility of taking the stage with the instructors. It’s a place where you can hang out and talk with the instructors between classes, or see them right alongside you in a class.
This year I especially enjoyed the “Tricks of the Trade” workshop track, which I not only taught in, but took many workshops from. More about that in my post(s) about workshops. But it was nice to have so many options that were more about knowledge, useful skills and professionalism than about dance techniques. Not that I don’t like dance technique too, but I feel like there’s a real need within the community for more opportunities to learn professional skills!
But mostly what I really enjoyed was spending time with my fellow nerdy dancers, whether it was in a workshop or backstage (I was backstage for all 3 shows, as I performed one night and stage managed the other two nights!), eating lunch, riding to the event together, chatting in the vending area… I felt like I was surrounded by friends. I never felt like I was an outsider, excluded from a clique or intruding on someone else’s conversation. I felt loved and welcomed.
I love what Tempest has built and continues to build at Waking Persephone. She and her event staff clearly work hard to put together an amazing experience for everyone, and I was so happy to be a part of it.
Here it is, one last promotional blog post for Waking Persephone! It all starts on Thursday night with Motif, a pre-party which will include an Improv Roulette demo. Friday, Saturday and Sunday will feature tons of workshops by many talented teachers from across the country. Friday and Saturday are the gala shows, featuring the instructors and a few guests — I’m on Saturday night! — and Sunday is The Underworld Ball, featuring live music and more dance. There will also be vending, tea, henna, massage, the opportunity for private lessons, a community round table, and probably other cool things I am forgetting.
Online workshop registration is closed, but you can still get spots in most workshops at the door. That includes mine, which is at 10:30am on Friday. Online ticket sales for the shows goes on until tomorrow. I highly recommend getting the package deal for all three shows!
I’m really excited for this weekend! I can’t wait to offer my workshop, and I am pleased with the performance I’ve developed for Saturday night. But more importantly I am looking forward to learning and being surrounded by my fellow dancers all weekend long. It’s going to be awesome.
I am back from Seattle! Waking Persephone was such an amazing experience that it’s going to take a few blog posts for me to say everything I want to say about it. As such, expect new posts every week day until I run out of words, at which point we’ll go back to a MWF schedule.