Ampersand

Category: Dancing

  • Atomic

    I was in the mood to go out on Saturday night. I’ve been very busy socially lately but it’s hasn’t been the going out kind of social, if that makes sense; like I go to a lot of dinners and shows and house parties and things like that—sometimes even events–and I have people over to…

  • The Dance Floor Of My Dreams

    The dance floor of my dreams is big enough to give you plenty of room to show off your moves, small enough so that you don’t lose your friends in the crowd, fully wheelchair accessible, and expertly lighted in such a way to bring out your cheekbones. No one’s going to steal your purse, no…

  • I Could Fall In Love Again

    This morning I went to Sunday Tribal Jam, which would be my first dance class since, like, August. Everything I thought would happen did happen: I forgot how to stand in angled formation: I remembered how to three-quarter shimmy: I got sore arms merely from holding them up, let alone doing anything with them: I…

  • So Far It’s Working

    Monday night after he husband made dinner and her baby entertained us, Amy and I went to bellydance class–my first since February, and, on another level, my first since I left. I had told Sharon that I was coming but it was a surprise for everyone else and I felt like a rockstar for a…

  • Just A Hint

    Attention all you young lovers out there: you are all very adorable and you have cute hair and everything, but seriously, girl, you need to work on your game. If you see me out on a Friday night and you are interested in getting with me, as the kids say, it’s really quite simple: tell…

  • There’s Bees All Over My Body

    A Saturday night out in Wellington. Chiara is wearing a low-cut shirt and sparkly barrettes and is with a large passel of delightful and good-looking people in rather a swanky bar that is playing unfortunate electronic music. Chiara [attempting to shake her well-endowed booty]: This is difficult. Lovely New Friend: I don’t understand this music.…

  • How Did You Learn To Dance?

    Last night when I was out at a slightly terrible club one of my new gay boyfriends complimented my stylin’ dance moves and asked me how I learned to do it. “WHAT?” I screamed on the dance floor, pulling my scandalously low-cut top back up onto my shoulders. “HOW DID YOU LEARN TO DANCE? LIKE…

  • Some Things People Shouted At Me Last Night At Cairns’ Worst, And Consequently Best, Dive Bar

    “ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE NOT A LESBIAN?” “WOW, SO YOU’RE ITALIAN, AND AMERICAN, AND YOU HAVE…HOW DO YOU CALL IT? GHETTO BOOTY!” “I HAVE A BRITISH ACCENT AND I CAN SALSA DANCE. AMERICAN GIRLS LIKE THAT, RIGHT?” “I JUST HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT YOU GIRLS HAVE REALLY AMAZING BOTTOMS.” “SO, WHEN YOU SAY YOU’RE…

  • The Ministry Of Awesomeness

    (first half of this very long story here) Sunday 9:00 am: Wake up. Much against your will. 10:30 am: Listen to the song about sixteen times on the bus on the way into town for Sunday morning class. How are you going to get onto the floor for that torso rotation? And when exactly do…

  • Rocking The Party

    Six Weeks Ago Whisper “Yes,” when Sylvia asks you in a low intense voice: “Would you…like to do a duet with me?” Decide you will rock the party at the next hafla. Five Weeks Ago Have a fun duet date with Sylvia, wherein you shop for tribal accoutrements like padded bras, tiny Indian coins, silk…

  • OMG kthxbye

    Okay, y’all, okay, I am home from the South Island and it was so freezing cold there that I took my candy-stripe thermals off only to shower and I had a seriously good time that involved sea lions, albatrosses, and penguins as well as shaking my booty to the break of dawn with seriously inappropriately-aged…

  • You Can Do It Face To Face, Too

    On Cuba Street Sunday evening, in front of Satay Kingdom. Chiara: My knees really hurt now. I’m going to be all bruised up. I think I went down too hard. Sylvia: How about when you go down soft, does that work better? Hillary: That’s what I have to do or I get all calcified. Chiara:…

  • Speaking The Language

    Six or so weeks ago my friend Traysi, who has opened a very cool new dance studio/vending space over her shop on Cuba Street, asked if I wanted to perform at the first hafla—an informal performance-slash-dance-party—to be held there. I sort of hemmed and hawed and finally politely declined, saying, with a rueful shake of…

  • Turning It Around

    This past week was awful for a couple of reasons, really. You have your Virginia Tech shootings coming not one month after those at my alma mater in Seattle, and then you have the crazy no-exceptions-for-the-health-of-the-mother abortion ban. I told A., who is this very hardcore badass lawyer, about that this morning when we were…

  • What Passes For My Rockstar Lifestyle

    Whenever I have a particularly social weekend I feel the need to document it here, as if to say ”See? I can have a life! Sometimes! If I can make sure that my jammies and a nice cup of tea are waiting for me at home! And I can have a nap during the day!”…

  • Melbourne!

    As I’ve said before, the initial excitement and novelty of being in New Zealand has mostly died down now that I’ve been here a couple of months. I get up and go to work just as I did in Seattle, go to the store and go to the movies and go for coffee just as…

  • Introduction To Tribal

    A couple of weeks ago I went to a bellydance class taught by a local teacher here in Wellington. It’s been a looooooong time since I danced, folks. Last time I danced was like three months ago, and Sharon couldn’t make it to class, and Renee was subbing, and she did all the dirty yoga…

  • Superstylin’

    This weekend, as well as being the occasion of a very fun house party at my place and the opening of the World Cup, was also the debut performance of the new student troupe I’m in, Nomaditude. Since the troupe and the performance and the rehearsals and the costumes and everything came together really really…

  • Out Of Your Head, And Into Your Dance Space

    A couple of weeks ago I got an email from my friend and teacher Sharon, inviting me to join a new intermediate student troupe she’s putting together. As I’d sent her a long weepy email about The State Of My Dance Education just a couple of weeks before that, the news was most welcome. The…

  • The Lady In Red, She Is Dancing With Me

    It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you are feeling a little freaked-out and cranky, you must immediately put on the hottest clothes you own and go out dancing. I received an impromptu invitation to go salsa dancing at the Century Ballroom last night from a co-worker and you best believe I was all…

  • Beginner’s Mind

    I just woke up from a three hour nap and as soon as I finish writing this and posting it (to the new site, woo to the hoo!) and returning some email, I’m going back to sleep. You thought just because I haven’t been writing for a while I’ve been living it up with hookers…

  • Reining It In

    Friday night I went to a bellydance holiday party. Three troupes performed and then they opened up the floor for whoever wanted to get up and dance. I was feeling sort of underdressed but at least I had my gear on so I hopped up there and joined the choruses and had lots of fun.…

  • Get On Your Hands And Knees

    Monday night bellydance often starts out with up shimmy, which involves sort of leaning back as you raise your arms in the air and leading with your hips as you swing across the room. It looks very cool when a group of twenty or so dancers does it. We sometimes call it the, uh, snatch…

  • I Won’t Let You Down, I Will Not Give You Up

    I was not too excited about Hippie Woo Woo the other day. I was kind of rolling my eyes at the whole thing and thinking, “Okay, let’s get this over with,” when for some very exciting reason, “Superstition” by Stevie Wonder himself came on and we did a bunch of kicks and punches to that.…

  • Hip-Hop And Nia

    Nia class (otherwise known as Hippie Woo Woo) is at five thirty. I usually get there a little early and watch the tail end of the hip hop class that’s right before us. They’re very good, this hip hop class. They are pretty coordinated and synchronized and they look just like the Fly Girls from…

  • Solo

    Oooooh! Ooh ooh ooh ooh! Guess what I just did, for the very first time ever? (Dude, no, not that. That’s not legal in this state, I don’t think.) I just did my very first bellydance solo in front of a jury of my peers, jury being everyone in my intermediate class and even some…

  • Secret Belly Rolls

    I think I’ve mentioned that I’ve been taking a solo bellydance class the last six weeks in addition to my regular tribal class. Everyone had to pick out a song and make a dance to it…some of it could be choreographed but mostly it has to be improvised because that’s what we do in tribal…

  • I Hate Latin Dance Aerobics

    Damn, I hate Latin Dance Aerobics. I spent all of yesterday’s class hating it in a deep, wide, broad, richly textured way. I hate the new bright white horrifically ugly shoes I got to wear to it. I hate that everyone in the class is twenty. I hate that I am the only one who…

  • Bellydance Vs. Latin Dance Aerobics: Compare and Contrast

    Venue Bellydance: At a local community center where, on your way upstairs, you pass some Irish dancers and then some other people with glockenspiels and jingle bells or something that I’m not totally sure what they do except it involves rhythmic hopping. There is a nice art gallery upstairs right by our room. Hardwood floors…

  • Zombiance

    Okay, so, let’s just start with Friday night and let me just say right off that the zombie dance was a little disappointing. I’m sorry to say it but it’s true. As with many things the build-up to the dance way overshadowed the dance itself. Remember how I said that the day before the party…

  • Cause This Is Thriller!

    I cannot stop talking or thinking about the latest little thing I’m doing, which is so amazingly awesome that I hesitate to even mention it where people can see it because it may make you fall down on the floor in awe. I’m going to be dancing next weekend. As a zombie. In a rendition…

  • One More Reason You Should Be Bellydancing Right Now

    I thought of a another reason you should be bellydancing. It’s the zaghareet…it’s this funny ululation bellydancers make when they want to cheer for something. Let me tell you how to do it, in case you are ever watching a bellydance performance and you hear all these people making this crazy noise and you wonder…

  • Eleven Reasons You Need To Be Bellydancing Right Now

    1) First of all, the costumes. Long full skirts and silky pantaloons and choli tops and bindis and falls and bracelets and tassels and coin bras and beads and jewels and headdresses and scarves and flowers and saris and belts. Nothing here is timelessly classic or clean and understated. Nothing is neutral. It’s all about…

  • Stage Fright

    I did something really dumb in bellydance class Monday night. We were doing a chorus…two people go in a duet, and the rest of the class is in a semi-circle behind them. The duet does their thing, all improvised, and then they go to the end of the semicircle and the next two people in…

  • Tribal Stylin’

    Last night I went out. Can you dig it? This is rare for me. I went out with three hot girls in order to watch other hot girls dance. And to eat several plates of cheese. It was a grand time. So since my Wednesday bellydance class is no longer around, I have switched to…

  • I Wish I’d Taken A Picture

    Tuesday evening I was in the car coming home from my new bellydance class. It’s a “drills” class, two (or so) hours long, with my beloved teacher Ruby. It is very hard. First you do a half hour of zils, which are those little finger cymbals that are really very difficult to play. Chaka ching…

  • Occasionally

    Now, the whole reason behind this trip, besides seeing our sweet friends, was ostensibly to go to a Gaskell Occasional Ball. These are lots of fun…dancing is fun, and dressing up is fun, and a live brass band is fun. And that’s what a Gaskell is. People get all freaky and wear huge period-authentic hoop…

  • Dirty Dancing–collab entry

    Ah! Something I can write about! I think! Let’s see, shall we? Now, if we’re actually talking about Dirty Dancing the movie, well, then, my goodness. I have a long history with that movie. It came out at the perfect time for me: I was in a stage where I liked romance, and 60s nostalgia,…

  • Waltz I

    Carl and I are taking a waltz class. Is that cheesy? I really like to dance, but I think the class is pretty silly. There are two instructors, Walter and Angela. Now, Carl and I know Angela from when we took a swing class last year. We love Angela. I feel sort of bad that…