Tales from the Caravan...
Show: Dance of the Fates Hafla, March 19, 2005
Click here for (gallery)
I had a great time at this hafla. The event site was small but very easy
to get to for the out of town people. Dance of the Fates and
Ramona did a
great job of pulling it together. We left Augusta with plenty of time to be
at the performance site an hour early to dress. The center wasn't unlocked
just yet, so we ended up dressing in the car in the parking lot. That's a
feat! :D Afterwards we did safety pinning and last minute stuff in the
bathroom of the center. It was really interesting seeing the place go from
bare bones generic reception site to a beautifully decorated Arabic scene.
The string lights behind the suspended veils gave it a really otherworldly
touch and made for great pictures!
There were several people there I recognized by sight and or name, but not
many I knew personally. The attitude of many of the performers seemed very
tense and almost aloof. After the performances though everyone was VERY
friendly and I realized lots of the performers were just really nervous
before their dance and that came off as aloofness. I remember when I used to
feel that nervous before dancing, but that hasn't happened since I've been
dancing in a group. It seemed that most of the performers were doing solos,
so they didn't have the benefit of troupe mate support to ease the pre-show
jitters. It really helps!
One of the things I really loved about this Hafla is that they had
programs printed out. It really helps me to put names to faces and remember
people's performances when I have it written out. The lineup went like this:
Fashion show
Act I
Satinka
Adira
Rabie
Mezza Company
Vanessa
Banat Zi'ah
Act II
Julie
Christina
Alchemy
Zaafirah
Zuhra
Ramona
Dance of the Fates
There was a very good variety of styles of performances to see. From the
first act, Rabie stood out to me as having great expressive arm work and
Mezza Company for having a tight well rehearsed cabaret duet choreography
with some cane work, but the quality of their recording could have been
better. In the second act we missed out on some of the performances as we
were getting ready to go onstage or coming off of it. But, from what I
caught, Christina stood out as having beautiful control and graceful overall
movements with a heavy Rachel Brice influence as well as some hula fusion
and Dance of the Fates blew us away with their prop work as usual (tray
balancing with fire AND swords)!
All in all I was pleasantly surprised to see a heavier Tribal influence
there than I was expecting. Don't get me wrong, dancing Tribal in no way
automatically makes you a better dancer than say a Cabaret dancer. There
were both polished and unpolished Cabaret and Tribal dancers. But, its nice
to have some Tribal "sistahs" representing. :) I was really blown away by
seeing several people do ATS or other Group Improv at the performance. Prior
to our Athens Hafla performance, the only people I had seen do Group Improv
at a performance in GA was us. I'm glad to see I don't have to go to FL to
Maja's Spirit of the Tribes to see live Group Improv anymore. Of course,
that's not going to stop me from going to Spirit of the Tribes every year!
I'm addicted, what can I say? :)
All in all, it was a great show, great experience, and great work ladies.
Keep it up!
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Saturday night was awesome! I tip my hat to the
wonderful ladies of Dance of the Fates, for a great
show and party. I was epecially glad to see the
strong showing the tribal girls made. I like to
watch cabaret but obviously tribal is my cup of tea.
It was about 2:30 when we left for Hot-lanta, Chris
drove, which left us free to watch video's and get
ready in the car. Yes, I said get ready in the
car...don't ask me how we did it. I guess that yoga
did come in handy! lol We arrived early and Chris,
being the Sultan he is, helped set up the backdrop
for the stage.
We finished pinning ourselves
together and grabbed some seats. After the great
food (props to whoever made the artichoke dip), we
settled in for the show. We were in the second act
so we had plenty of time to watch everyone else.
Everyone did a great job, I especially like
Christina, who was this tiny little Brice-ite in the
second half. I didn't get to see her entire act
because we were after her but what I did see was
impressive. Then it was time for us to perform.
The tambourine number went off without a hitch, but
like it is always our luck, the technical fairies
forgot the music was all one track and stopped just
as the second song was going on! No one is to
blame, as I know it was an accident, so we just held
pose until the music was cued up again and went on
with the show!
After us it was a blur until Dance
of the Fates, which as always did a great props show
with sword and fire. After that they broke into
some tribal improv, and at the end was a group dance
to "I wanna see you belly-dance," by the Red
Elvises! I about died! Of course all of you know
that Jeannie and I have a duet to that number, and
it was really cool to see another group with the
same campy taste as us!! Maybe we'll have to
perform it at our hafla, we'll see. It was a great
night, we of course stopped at The Varsity, for hot
dogs and greasy onion rings, afterwards and then
went home. I can't wait to see everyone again in
April!
--Ame
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Alchemy: Transforming the ordinary into the sublime
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