This weekend I ran Phoenix’s first-ever Improv Roulette event! This was a special request from Mahin who had traveled down to Tucson for my first two IR events and really wanted to see how the Phoenix community would respond to the concept. We worked together to pick a date and find a venue, and then invites went out and RSVPs came in.
As is always the case in the age of Facebook, less people showed up than said they did. But that didn’t really matter, because the people who did show up brought a ton of enthusiasm with them! After months of listening to me talk about how cool this was, I had a few Phoenix-area friends who really wanted to give it a try!
Between the five of us (me, Raven, Becka, Jen and Mahin), we had a really great blend of dance experience and styles. I think the best thing about Sunday’s IR was watching cabaret and tribal dancers collaborate with each other! It was fun to see a blending of their styles, each stretching towards the other to meet in the middle. It really shows that despite the differences in how we present ourselves, all belly dance shares a lot of common root movements.
Despite the fact that this was the very first IR experience for everyone but Mahin and I, all of my participants even agreed to help me test a new BONUS ROUND for Improv Roulette, which was actually dreamed up by my husband when I told him about how IR works. This involves calling out new word prompts to the performer to work into their performance, every 30 seconds! It was silly and fun and a good way to practice really thinking on your feet.
And really, to me, that’s what IR is all about. You may already feel like you’re really good at improvisational belly dance, but how do you react when you have to dance to unfamiliar music, or with a strange prop, or with a surprise dance partner? IR lets you experiment with all of these circumstances in a safe and supportive environment, and then when something crazy happens at a gig, you’re ready for it!
My next challenge for IR is to draw in artists from outside of belly dance. I would love to see spinners, burlesque dancers and musicians joining in the fun, so we can have really cool cross-discipline duets! That was one of the ideas that really drew me to IR, but so far I haven’t had any luck getting my friends from other performance communities to join the fun.
I hosted Improv Roulette again this past Sunday. Unfortunately, the event was poorly attended. This makes me sad, because not only do I think it’s more fun with more people (especially coming from different performance backgrounds), but I really think it’s a good experience for any performer who wants to improve his or her ability to improvise… or even to come up with new ideas that might show up in a future choreography.
Did you know that even serious scholarly books about ballet recommend improvisation as a way to discover motifs to use in a choreography? I just learned that recently while reading “Dance Composition” by Jacqueline M. Smith-Autard (which will be the next subject of “Sophia’s Shelf” as soon as I finish it!). So whether you prefer to always improvise on stage, or perform more choreographed creations, it’s always good to expand your ability to dance spontaneously.
And because Improv Roulette is not belly-dance-centric, and because I have an eclectic mix of music, and weird word prompts, and a collection of props that ranges from standard to silly, there’s a lot of room to learn new things about how your body can move to the music.
A few moments that stood out for me in this weekend’s event:
-Mahin pulled the word prompt “Tender” and danced a sweet duet with her crocheted travel buddy “Mr. Monkey.”* At different times throughout the song, Mr. Monkey served as Mahin’s dance partner, a prop, and an audience member. This showed that a prop doesn’t have to serve only one purpose in a single performance!
-I pulled the word prompt “Elbow” and I decided to see how many different ways I could use my elbows in my dance! I spent almost the entire song emphasizing my elbows, leading movements from them, touching them together, caressing them with my hands and more. Most of what I did would not make it into a normal performance, but it did get me thinking about how different a turn can look depending on what angle I bend my elbows at, and how originating a body slide or traveling move from the elbow gives it an interesting, angular appearance.
-Speaking of focus on body parts, Mahin and I pulled “Fingertips” during the duet round. Although we didn’t focus on that for the entire song, we had fun using our fingers to hit accents in the music, but also finding ways to dance with our fingers touching. Mahin got us started on a really cool partner version of an arm wave!
If this sounds like something you’d like to be part of, I’ll be hosting another event on May 24th at Belly Dance Tucson, and Mahin and I will be putting one together up in Phoenix in April (exact details forthcoming, but it should be mid-April in Central Phoenix). Or if you’re not from AZ, visit Improv Roulette on Facebook and see if there’s a chapter near you!
Usually if I’m getting photos taken, I prefer to work with a photographer who is a belly dancer or regularly works with belly dancers, like my awesome pal Liora K, or the professional photographers at dance events, like Lee Corkett and Carrie Mayer. But when my beading friend Kate McKinnon said she was bringing Kyle Cassidy out to photograph beadwork again, and people could sign up for portrait sessions, I had to jump on it. Kyle’s kind of a big deal, and the photos he’s taken at Kate’s previous shindigs have been really awesome, so I thought it would be a lot of fun to work with him and see what a non-bellydance-photographer would do with a belly dancer.
As it turns out, it WAS a lot of fun! I have to admit, since I was caught up in Gem Show Madness I didn’t give as much thought and preparation to this photo shoot as I should have. I think I did my makeup in about 20 minutes, so it ended up being a lot simpler than I normally do, but I felt like it suited my costume and the outdoor lighting.
Many cool photos were taken. I posed in front of an Airstream trailer with my sword. I draped myself artfully on an outdoor bed. And I put on one of Kate’s vintage ball gowns and twirled around in the park. In some of the pictures, I look fierce. Others are quite playful.
I’m really looking forward to getting my images and sharing them all over the internet. I’m already making plans for which ones will be used for new blog features, or new FB profile pictures.
If you get a chance to work with Kyle, I definitely recommend it. He has a great eye for framing and an active imagination for poses, paired with a warm personality and a clear way of communicating his ideas. I hope that someday I’ll get to work with him again, during a less hectic time so I can come up with some really wild costuming, makeup and props!
I spent Saturday up in Mesa for Yasmina’s last-ever annual swap meet. This is a great event that I’ve been attending for the past few years. It’s a great place to unload your unwanted costume pieces, pick up some new costuming, take workshops, and hang out with your dance friends. This year also had live drumming and festival dancing, so it was extra fun!
I shared a booth with my bestie Jen, and we cleaned out our closets. I didn’t sell as much as I wanted to, but I did get rid of a pesky 25 yard skirt that was taking up a lot of space in my closet, and a bunch of $5 things too, so I’d call it a win. Plus spending all day with my best friend is always good, and the fact that two of my troupemates and a ton of my other friends were there made it even better.
After getting settled in and making some sales, I took “Wait for iiiiiiiiiit” with Epheli Raphae. I really like Epheli and she has a great sense of musicality, so I knew that this would be a good workshop and she did not disappoint! I really enjoyed how she made use of her background as an English major to approach it from more of a literary/grammatical point of view (thinking in terms of sentences and punctuation). Since I have no musical background but live for reading and writing, this really jived with my way of thinking. Plus her musical choices were great. For the most part, she also let people improv within their own dance vocabulary, so it was very accessible for dancers of all styles and levels, as long as they were comfortable with improvisation. I’d definitely recommend it if any of my readers get a chance to take this workshop in the future.
I was supposed to take a workshop with my tribal mommas Anaya Tribal too, but uhm, I sort of got caught up talking with people and completely lost track of time!
Fire & Gold Belly Dance took advantage of the opportunity for some festival dancing, and showed off some of the improv skills we’ve been developing and our latest choreography. Here’s a rare picture of us in the sunshine…
Photo by Yasmina Parker.
I’m pleased to say that we all did our part to stimulate the dance economy, too!
Unfortunately, Yasmina will not be running this event anymore, but I have seen a lot of people talking about a desire to continue it, so hopefully someone new will take up the reins and this continue to be a wonderful annual tradition.
This weekend my troupemate Melanie and I made the trip up to Phoenix to study with Kaeshi Chai. The workshops and stage show were put together by Amanda Rose, who did a really good job of organizing a great event.
Saturday’s workshop was called simply “Performance Skills” and it involved a lot of interactive exercises to improve your stage presence and to play with different personalities and dynamics. Almost everything in this workshop was done in groups or pairs, and Kaeshi was really good about dividing people up in different ways, so you always got to work with someone new. This was a three hour workshop, with a lot of ideas crammed into it. I think this was a great choice for the day of the show, because since it was more mental than physical, the people who were performing that night didn’t get over-taxed.
The Saturday evening show was jam-packed with great performers from all over AZ, Eric Salazar from NM, and of course, Kaeshi Chai. There was a really good mix of styles, and everyone brought their A game. Melanie and I managed to nab seats near the center of the second row, so we had a great view of the stage. I have to say, since I perform in and organize Open Stage every month, and I performed and stage managed at Waking Persephone, it was reeeaally nice to just sit back and enjoy a show and not have to worry about anything! It was also nice to see that the theater was packed and everyone around us seemed to be really enjoying the performances.
Sunday started off with Trans-Discipline Drills. This was the most like a traditional workshop, as Kaeshi was teaching us a lot of the drills that her company Bellyqueen does. This included some ballet-inspired exercises and she explained WHY certain things are done certain ways in ballet, things that my ballet teacher has not touched on yet, so it was nice to get some insight into that, and hopefully it will help me do better in ballet class tomorrow! We did a ton of different exercises and the workshop actually ended up running almost 45 minutes late! It’s a good thing we had a long lunch break scheduled so everyone still had time to eat.
After lunch, it was time for Dynamic Belly Dance, which examined belly dance movement through the lens of the concepts of Yin and Yang. Although I don’t necessarily agree with dividing things into “male” and “female” principles, I still enjoyed exploring the concepts presented in this workshop, which included traveling across the room as if we were different elements (earth, fire, wind, and water, of course), and applying different concepts to a simple combination. Also, we started with some really nice ways to warm up the back, including pairing off and giving each other back massages. Wow, did that feel good after almost 3 hours of workshop before lunch! And the workshop ended with a dance battle, which is the best way to end anything.
Over all, I really enjoyed this weekend. It was so much more interactive than most workshops. So often you just dance alongside people, only paying enough attention to make sure you don’t hit each other, and maybe you partner off for one or two exercises. But in these classes, we worked together a lot, with different dancers, and I did my best to pair up with people I didn’t know (because pairing up with Melanie would have been cheating!). It was nice to work with different dancers from around the community, to get an idea of how they think and move.
There was a definite sense of fun throughout the weekend. Although we were working hard, we got to play games where we were puppets and puppet masters, we acted out stories, or we tried to dance a saiidi combo as if we were Wolverine (I’m the best there is at what I do, bub!). This was a great change from focusing on trying to learn a lot of different combinations that explain different concepts. Most of the time, we got to work within our own belly dance vocabulary, or abandon belly dance altogether and play with pantomime or focusing on just one body part.
Also, while many workshops say they’re appropriate for all styles but then are clearly focused on the instructors main style, these workshops split the belly dance elements evenly between Oriental styles and Tribal Fusion styles, so everyone got to spend some time in their comfort zone, and some time seeing how the other half lives.
I’m so happy I got to share this weekend with Melanie. It was great to have someone to carpool with, to share meals with, and to chat excitedly about what we had learned and seen on stage. I’m sure we’ll be bringing some of these ideas to Fire & Gold’s future choreography and improv performances!
Happy participants! Thank you Jess Walker for taking the picture.
My first Improv Roulette was yesterday, and since I know a lot of people wanted to make it and couldn’t due to scheduling conflicts or health concerns, I figured I should let everyone know how it went!
Participants were me, my “little” brother Josiah, and Mahin, who came all the way down from Phoenix to check out IR! So we had two different styles of belly dance, and a fire spinner with a rather martial style. How did that work out?
It worked out GREAT! Because there were only three of us, we each took two turns during the solo round. Then once we were all comfortable with the concept, duets started. My favorite was definitely when Mahin convinced my brother he should try her Saiidi canes, and they had a tense duet to “Living Dead Girl” where she wielded a veil like a weapon while he stalked cautiously around her, wielding twin canes. Awesome! I wish I had thought to ask their permission for pictures because there were some really cool moments.
We also spent a lot of time chatting, discussing performance ideas and how to promote events, and how everyone who wasn’t there would totally kick themselves when they heard how much fun we had.
Josiah and Mahin were really two of the best possible people who could have come to my first event, because they were both totally game. They enjoyed picking random word prompts and came up with fun interpretations. They never asked to skip a weird song. They tried out unfamiliar props instead of sticking with what they’d brought along. And they remembered to bring non-perishable items for the food bank!
So if after reading this, you think Improv Roulette sounds like a blast, you should either save the date to attend my next one on February 22nd, or you should check out the Improv Roulette Facebook page to see if there’s a chapter near you. Also keep an eye out for an IR event in Phoenix sometime next year, co-hosted by Mahin and I!
Alright, I have ironed out the details and I am pleased to announce that I will be hosting my first Improv Roulette event on Sunday, November 30th from 4:15-6:15 at Belly Dance Tucson! Normally, I’d be charging $10 at the door (to cover the studio rental and advertisement), but since this is my first event and it’s the holiday season, I’m asking for $5 and a non-perishable food item to donate to the Community Food Bank.
I’d like to give a big shout-out to Elizabeth Joy Morlani for inviting me to start a local Improv Roulette chapter and for being so helpful as I’ve been setting this event up. This is a whole different beast from running Open Stage, so I’ve really appreciated her advice and ideas and I hope I’ll do her proud.
I hope that I’ll see some of you there! Don’t forget, this event is not just for belly dancers! All sorts of dancers, musicians, hoopers, poi spinners and more should consider participating. I think it’s going to be a really fun day and I hope to see some fun cross-genre collaborations!
I am back from Beat the Heat Bisbee Belly Dance Retreat — 2014 Edition. Just like last year’s inaugural event, this weekend was a ton of fun. Let me see if I can organize my thoughts. By the way, I apologize for the general lack of pictures. I didn’t bring a charger for my phone so I kept it put away to save battery.
The event started with the Meet & Greet at the Copper Queen. We quickly outgrew the patio (plus it was raining), so they moved us inside to something called The Blue Room. Soon that was pretty full and loud, too. I was with my troupemate Ashley and we were getting pretty overwhelmed, being quiet geeky sorts, so we ducked out after finishing our food and drink. Still, it was nice to see everyone and meet a lot of new-to-me dancers from around the state. Already I could see there were going to be a LOT more attendees than there were in 2013.
After a late night of chatting with Ashley and my bestie Jen (the three of us having gone in on a room together), it was off to sleep and then up the next day for workshops. We’d all decided to opt out of Yasmina’s Combos as it was early in the morning and we wanted to eat breakfast and consume caffeine instead. However, my other troupemate Melanie did attend it and said it was fun. After a bit of checking out the great selection of vendors, all four of us (and a whole lot of other people!) went upstairs for Amanda Rose’s “Give Them the Look” workshop.
Of all the workshops I took, this one was the most challenging! Although physically easy, it had some mental challenges. We broke up into pairs, switching for every exercise, and with each partner we were given a different emotion to convey, while keeping our eyes locked on each other the entire time! The hardest was definitely maintaining a blank, dead face, not only because it’s hard to not show any emotion and stare into someone’s eyes for any length of time, but because I was dancing with Danna of Anaya Tribal. First of all, I wanted to smile because it was fun doing a facing lead and follow with a really experienced tribal dancer with whom I have shared vocabulary, but also Danna and I are both pretty sarcastic and saucy people by nature so we had a hard time not just laughing at the awkwardness of it. It was also difficult to do the sad one, as it’s so natural to be withdrawn when being sad. But at the same time, I felt like my partner and I shared a beautiful connection during that exercise. At the end, we broke into two large groups and played a really fun game that also dealt with emotion and eye connection. Over all, I enjoyed this workshop and felt like it was really beneficial and would be especially good for any dancer who is struggling with the ability to be vulnerable and connected with the audience.
My next workshop was a Poi class with Epheli! I really like Epheli and I needed a refresher on poi so it was a no-brainer that I’d take this. Although I almost didn’t because it was originally going to be outside and no one in my room had packed sunscreen. Luckily it was decided to hold the class inside, whether because of the heat or sun or concerns that we’d fling our poi at peoples’ cars. This workshop was a nice overview of some of the basic concepts and moves with poi, and Epheli also gave us some information on different kinds of poi, a demo of veil poi/voi, and where she likes to buy her poi. For a room full of inexperienced spinners there were surprisingly few accidents, much less than the smaller class that I had been taking locally last year. I didn’t once get hit by someone else’s errant prop.
The last workshop of the day was a skirt workshop with Anaya Tribal. The room was PACKED with dancers from end to end. Somehow they made it work with two lines and we were even able to practice partner switches smoothly. Where the other workshops were an hour long, this was an hour and a half and covered some basic moves and some long combinations. There was a little overlap with what was covered at Yasmina’s Fusion Day event last month, but not much. I do wish I had remembered to put my hair in a ponytail instead of my customary bun, as we had to do some wraps around the head and I kept getting stuck on my hair sticks. Otherwise, I had fun in this workshop, too.
Once again, a light lunch and plenty of water were provided throughout the day. It was nice to have the option to not leave the school to eat, although the four of us did venture out in search of a daytime caffeine fix and got distracted by shiny objects during the day. We also used our lunch break time to do some more shopping, and there was also shopping after the last workshop, though some vendors had already packed up to get ready for the show. I was able to regain my “dance pants addict” title by purchasing two lovely pairs of pantaloons. I also picked up a cute hat and some gorgeous earrings, because why not?
After that it was back to the room to get ready for the show. Cue lots of primping, stressing, running through the choreo as best as possible in tiny spaces, and reassuring ourselves that we would rock it. Also, I managed to punch the wall while doing a spin, but luckily there was ice in the freezer. Ashley curled all of our hair, which was the first time I’ve had curls as an adult. It turned out really nice! Actually, we all looked fabulous. And as for our performance? We nailed it! It was a great debut for the new choreographer that Melanie had created for us and which we’ve spent months learning and practicing. We received compliments on it all weekend and could not be happier.
As the second act on stage, we were able to sit and watch most of the show, which was AWESOME! Such a great variety of performers, styles, props and musical choices. Every performer really brought it to the stage and the audience reacted with real enthusiasm. The small theater in the Central School really is such a nice venue for an intimate belly dance show. There was a photographer taking pictures throughout the show and I suspect everyone will end up with some great shots, not only because they all looked amazing on stage but because the “black box” nature of the theater makes for a really good background.
Sunday morning we skipped the free breakfast and lecture as we wanted to return to the Whyld Ass where we’d had breakfast on Saturday. Then it was time for a turns and spins workshop with Kamalah Tribal! Even though I don’t dance ATS, I found the workshop to be really helpful as I could use some of the techniques as a soloist or put the combos in a troupe choreography. The ATS approach to posture really does help with clean spins. Plus I got to partner with the one and only BECKA BOMB to practice, and that was too much fun. I love me some Becka.
Given how much this event has grown in just one year, it’s clear that Rajani and her crew of volunteers (of which I was one, although I mainly just set up and maintained the Facebook event page) have put together an amazing thing that has a lot of potential to become Arizona’s premier event. The combination of affordable workshops that you register for the day-of (no pressure, no planning ahead), laid back atmosphere, eclectic vendors, performance opportunities, free food, and the awesomeness of Bisbee itself makes for a weekend to remember. I’m so glad that this year I was able to share it with my troupemates, and I can’t wait to see what next year brings!
