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.
My Tribal Fest 15 performance, skillfully captured by Lee Corkett.
It’s time once again for Anatomy of a Costume, where I discuss the inspiration and sourcing of what I performed in.
Because I wasn’t portraying a specific character in this piece, my inspiration was simple: I wanted to be PRETTY! And I wanted to wear something that would look nice with my custom-dyed fan veils. With those simple guidelines in mind, I assembled a costume that embodied the Art Nouveau with a touch of Faerie aesthetic that I do so love.
Starting at the bottom, a Super Bootie skirt by Snake Church, in the lovely color called Mermaid Food. There was a delay on this production run of Super Booties, which meant I was not able to actually have it in my greedy little hands until I got to Tribal Fest! Luckily it turned out to be even prettier than the pictures and it went really well with my fan veils. I think I am going to get a lot of use out of this skirt because it is such a beautiful neutral!
Next up, my belt and bra! I ordered a belt base from Medina Maitreya, after she posted a belt I really liked but wasn’t sure if I should splurge on, and then somebody beat me to the punch. Then I decided I wanted a matching bra base, and I’d embellish them myself. But then she showed me the other green sari scraps and choli sleeve pieces she had and I fell in absolute love with that shimmery green trimmed with dark green velvet. I had to have it. Then it turned out it wasn’t quite big enough to cover the cups, so Medina added some pieces from a different scrap and suddenly I had the most beautiful bra ever. Seriously, I can’t even handle how beautiful it is. I didn’t have to add any embellishments! I did put a couple small crystals on the straps and I might add more, but in general, the bra is already amazing! Medina also sold me a bundle of cool green embellishments she collected over the years, so that’s mostly what I used to adorn the belt, including some leftovers from the bra. I also added some Turkoman buttons from my own collection, and some tine Swarovksi lochrosen sequins for extra sparkle.
One reason why I didn’t add more bra embellishment is because I knew I wanted to once again wear the body chain I made before LVBDI last year. I really love that vintage beetle buckle! Plus it was nice to wear something that I made all by myself.
Next up, jewelry! I am wearing three pieces that I picked up at Tribal Fest. One is a crystalized tanfouk/talakhmit pendant made by Tempest. This was my first Tribal Fest purchase because there was only one green one and I was not going to miss out! I’m also wearing a pretty bead, coin and chain necklace by Furious Fancies, and a pair of earrings by Tawapa. Oh, and a set of eye accent bindis that my bestie got for me from Kuhl Jewels.
And then there’s my head. I had purchased a cool headband to wear, but USPS lost it, so that was another thing I had to buy at Tribal Fest. I decided to give Medina more of my monies and treat myself to one of her amazing tikka crown headpieces, which is really easy to wear, stays on securely, and looks fabuuuuulooooous. Because of the neutral mixed metal palette I know I am going to wear this a lot (probably with last year’s big splurge, my mixed metal Snake Church belt). The crown is joined by a set of curly braids from Diva Dreads (which I also wore for the troupe performance) and a few custom-made sparkly flowers from Becka Bomb’s Buds.
Lastly, my fan veils! I custom-ordered these from Silks by Sahariah last year because I wanted a nice, neutral pair of fan veils that would look good with whatever costume I wore. They are absolutely beautiful and mesmerizing, and I find that I perform with them much more than my other set, because they get such an amazing reaction out of the audience, and the pale colors really catch the light well.
Whew! So many pieces involved in putting together the perfect costume!
As usual, I used Tribal Fest as an opportunity to study with some of my “old favorite” instructors and some “new to me” instructors, so that I got a really cool, well-rounded experience and learned lots of neat new things to work into my dance. Let’s talk about each one in turn.
Fire Fans with Emily Aiyana. I have two pairs of fire fans and I’ve never properly learned how to use them. This workshop was primarily choreography based, but it did teach me some tricks. It also taught me that if I really want to do tricks, I should probably buy a third, smaller set of fire fans better suited to tech, which means I need to decide how serious I am about this prop. I had a lot more fun once I decided to stop stubbornly using my own fans and switched to the smaller, lighter, easier-to-spin fans the teacher provided. My enjoyment of this workshop was also hampered by the fact that it was cold and windy. That said, Emily was a nice teacher and her choreography was very dancerly and musical, which is how I like to see fire performance done.
Upper Body + Helping Hands with Donna Mejia. I’m not gonna lie, I’m a total Donna Mejia fan girl and I take workshops with her every chance I get. I love the way she dances, teaches, and talks. This workshop was all about warming up, exercising, and becoming more familiar with your upper body. We learned a lot of cool exercises for diagnosing and strengthening your own body, and it was all stuff that can easily be done at home in a small amount of space, no gym or fancy equipment needed! We used some canned goods for those exercises that required a little extra weight, and then they were all gathered up for the food bank. Awesome!
Bellydance DecoPunk with Tempest. You know who else I’m a fan girl of? Yep, Tempest! But I specifically wanted to take this workshop because I’m really into Art Nouveau and steampunk stylings. This workshop covered some of the material from Tempest’s latest DVD, so I’ll be able to practice it along at home. I really had a great time in this workshop, learning some new movements and enjoying some awesome music. I really like the combination of earthy, folkloric-inspired movements and very elegant arm frames that Tempest uses for her Nouveau Noir dance.
Prop Shop with Mandala DanceWorks. This might be the workshop I was the most excited about, and I definitely had the most fun! Mandala gave us a pile of props, the option of layering an emotion onto whatever we were doing, and set us loose to explore the possibilities. Several members of the troupe were on hand to provide advice, perform duets, or serve as a spotter if you were dancing on a ladder, for instance. Hey, did I mention that despite my fear of heights/falling, I used a ladder as a prop and it was awesome? After exploring a few props, I went to my default fan veils and discovered some new ways of using them, too. I really enjoyed that this workshop was very exploratory and fun, allowing us to totally indulge in our creativity, while still being able to receive guidance when we were stumped. (By the way, Mandala is offering this again at Waking Persephone, if you want to try it yourself!)
Look Alive! with Karolina Lux. After seeing Karolina perform last year, I really wanted to study with her, so I took this workshop on theatricality and facial expression. I have to say that while Karolina is a great teacher and a lot of fun to be around and all the material she presented was great, it was also all stuff I had learned in other, similar workshops. I should probably stop taking so many similar workshops! So this is not to say that anything was wrong with this workshop, and I still had a great time in it, it just wasn’t the best choice for me, personally. I’d definitely study with Karolina Lux again, and I’d recommend this for anyone who has not spent the last year or two taking every theatricality workshop that came their way. Also, I really enjoyed the mini-choreo we learned at the end, it was cute, sassy, and simple enough that I could focus on applying the theatricality we’d learned on top of it.
Trap Tribal Fusion! with April Rose. I don’t normally take choreography workshops, but I really wanted to take a workshop with April Rose, and my troupemate couldn’t come to Tribal Fest so I bought this workshop from her. I’m so glad I did! I had a blast learning and dancing the choreography, which was the perfect blend of familiar movements I could easily do, new stuff that I had to tackle, and stuff I had previously been unable to do but was surprised to find myself doing. What I really appreciated was that April Rose gave us a character/story for the choreo that made it about more than just learning the moves. I really got into it! Plus she had a really smart way of doing the warmup, by incorporating some of the shimmies and combos we’d need later on, and telling us which ones we needed to remember. She made really good use of the time and managed to teach us the entire choreo in 2 hours! I took it alongside my troupemate Ashley, so I hope someday we’ll get to break it out as a duet performance at Open Stage.
All in all, it was a great year for learning at Tribal Fest!
Yes, this is a napping river otter with his tail in his mouth. You’re welcome.
You may have noticed that while I travel a lot, it’s almost always for dance-related stuff, or to hit NY to see my in-laws. Well, last week my husband and I got to take an honest-to-goodness vacation, as a nice bonus from his employer. We opted to spend Spring Break in Seattle because, as mentioned above, I freaking LOVE Seattle and when they put me on the spot to make a quick decision, that was what I chose. I think it was a good decision.
We flew Alaska Airlines, which is also who I flew for my 8 Elements trip, and I have to say, I think they’re going to be my go-to for trips to the PNW from now on. Not only do they offer direct flights (and it’s almost impossible to get a non-stop to anywhere for a decent price from Tucson), but I found their planes to be nice, their service to be good, and that they actually offer decent food.
We stayed in downtown Seattle, which I’m not sure I would do again because it was noisy and I’m a light sleeper, but on the other hand, almost everything we wanted to do was within walking distance, so that was awesome! We walked almost 5 miles on our last day there, including a lot of stairs. Chris’s work put us up in Hotel Max, which is a cool trendy boutique hotel. Our room had a huge photo from a Nirvana concert on the front door, and a record player inside, with a stack of records by bands I had never heard of (what, no “How to Make your Husband a Sultan”? Didn’t they know a belly dancer was coming?). All of their rooms also have original artwork on the walls. It was a nice change from the rather boring cookie-cutter hotels I usually end up in. I especially liked the fact that they had free beer every night, even though we only took advantage of it once, it was cool that they had WA microbrews and plenty of space to hang out and drink.
One of the main things we love to do when we travel is to eat a lot of local food. This was a great thing about being downtown, there were a ton of food options within an easy walk of our hotel. Including cupcakes.
YUM!
Our anniversary fell in the middle of our trip, so we celebrated with Yellow Leaf cupcakes. Mine is chocolate with chocolate frosting rolled in tiny chocolate squares, and his is a pancakes and bacon. He also got a “sipping caramel” which is like hot chocolate but caramel instead. I had a sip and found it delicious, but it would have been too much to have alongside a cupcake. I was glad for my loose leaf tea instead.
People associate Seattle with coffee, thanks to Starbucks and stuff like that, but holy crap is there a lot of tea, too. We kept going to breakfast at this awesome place called Biscuit Bitch, and not only did they have a nice selection of loose leaf teas, but they also made fancy tea beverages. I really liked the “Seattle Fog” which was Early Grey tea, steamed milk, a little vanilla, and a big curl of orange zest. YUM! I also really liked the biscuits.
I shopped way too much in Seattle, because not only were we near Pike’s Place Market, but there was also a Mishu boutique there, and they sell really cute belly dance/festival type clothes and then I found out they were having a bin sale at their other location… Well, let’s just say I spent a lot of money on cute clothes and I barely managed to get them all home.
We also came home with a bunch of new tea and spices, and a couple of cookbooks. Chris has already been hitting the cookbooks hard. Last night we had green tea jasmine watermelon gazpacho. Amazing! I think it will be a favorite summer dish for us. There’s also going to be some bread salad, and some honey harrissa chicken later this week.
Of course we had to do some touristy stuff. Because Seattle was in bloom just like Portland, we visited the Japanese Tea Garden.
I like flowers and dressing in layers.
The garden was beautiful, with lots of flowers and meandering paths and giant koi in the pond. I imagine it would be a lot of fun to visit in different seasons, to see how the plants change. I think it would also be a wonderful place to do a photo shoot. The perfect frame created by that tulip magnolia tree made me wish I was in a costume and makeup instead of my admittedly cute key sweater, stripey scarf and tentacle hoodie.
We also went to the aquarium, where I took that cute otter picture. It’s a really nice aquarium, with lots of cool exhibits. We got to see them feed the octopus, and Chris touched a giant sea cucumber in one of the tide pools (he tried very hard to get me to touch it, too, but NOPE). There were seals and otters and puffins and big green sea anemones. Plus there’s artwork displayed on the walls, which I felt was a nice added touch.
Of course, while this was not a dance-specific trip, I had to get a little dancing in! Tempest invited me to drop in to her Wednesday night class. By the way, this just shows how much my husband loves me, Wednesday night was our anniversary but he was cool with me going to dance class and us celebrating with a nice dinner on Thursday instead. He knows how important dance is to me, and how much I like Tempest. And class was so much fun! It was held in her beautiful but tiny home studio, with a handful of regular students. There were a lot of in-jokes thrown around, but I was still made to feel welcome and included. It made me nostalgic for classes with Jolie, where we had our fair share of in-jokes and silliness. Also I learned how to dance to a 6/4 rhythm! And perhaps most importantly, I got to meet ALL OF TEMPEST’S CATS! They’re all adorable, of course, and Nora (the black one) is really soft.
There was a whole lot more, including a fun dinner out with one of Chris’s old work buddies, but this is turning into another one of my novel-length posts so I had better just wrap it up. But if I suddenly run away to Seattle, you know why!
Excuse me while I struggle to contain my excitement, and for once I’m not saying that sarcastically. This week is shaping up to be awesome! Obviously the biggest thing is that I am flying off to Portland on Friday, and 8 Elements starts on Saturday! I really cannot wait. Not only do I get to study with Rachel Brice, learn a ton of things, and take the test to hopefully pass Initiation, but I also get to stay with my friend Swati, who moved to Portland from Tucson a few years back.
Before I take off for Oregon, however, Open Stage is happening here in Tucson! This is going to be a special one because not only is Fire & Gold Belly Dance debuting our latest choreography, but we will also have some very special guests — Tempest and Nathaniel Johnstone! They’re going to be in town this weekend for Wild Wild West Con, where Nathaniel will be playing music with The Cog is Dead and Tempest will be performing belly dance *and* teaching workshops. Anyway, they’re getting in Thursday afternoon and agreed to bring their amazing live music and dance collaboration to our humble open stage. I’m, uhm, kind of excited.
Of course, my excitement is tempered with a bit of sadness, because I am going to completely miss WWWC. I really love that event, it’s my own chance every year to really layer on all my steampunk stuff and indulge in that side of my geekiness. Plus it’s gonna be extra belly dancery this year, with Tempest and Diva Dreads and Geisha Moth all there in addition to local belly dance groups Lykiska and Osiris. Basically what I’m saying is, if you’re a belly dancer in AZ, you should really go buy a day or weekend pass to the convention and let me live vicariously through you. It’s only fair, since many of my friends are planning to live vicariously through me while I’m in Portland.
Speaking of which, if you want to stay on top of what I’m up to while in Portland, you should go ahead and give my Facebook fan page a like, and consider following me on Instagram, too! I’m really not sure if I’ll blog while I’m there, my schedule is going to be pretty jam-packed so I may just be limited to quick social media updates until I get home.
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.
