Ze 5th TribalTique Holiday Hafla

It was brilliant, vivid and so much fun. I'm reminded why I love this dance so much; the people I have come to know, my dance sisters and the community, friends and family...

There will be more pictures and possibly video to come once the photographer and videographer get them back to us.

Happy Holidays!

Upcoming...

Once we hit December there's no going back.

It's the time of year for planning, because the next the six months between December and May are going to be insanely busy and fun!

Here's the lineup:

First off we have TribalTique's 5th Holiday Hafla!
TribalTique Denver has many amazing performances we're working on for this fantastic yearly event. Come support us if you're in the Denver area!

Secondly we have a festival that is very near and dear to my heart.
A festival dedicated to the Improvisational style of tribal belly dance;
Cues and Tattoos!
Put together by the amazing ladies of Troupe Hipnotica.
TribalTique will be there teaching and performing in the instructor showcase.
Be there if you can, it's always an amazing time.
Registration is open!
March 25-27, 2011
Seattle, WA

Bringing it back to Colorado at the end of April/Beginning of May, Elevation will be happening again. We're told registration should be open any day now!

And last but never least will be TribalFest11 in Sebastopol, CA on May 18-22, 2011!
Workshop registration should be open November 1st!

I am a zombie!

I love my belly girls, they keep me sane in my insane world.
Picture from this past weekends hafla at the DNote.

October Lannie's Clocktower Cabaret

This past weekend Molly and I performed at Off the Clock late night at Lannie's Clock Tower downtown. We did a brand new sword routine and had a ton of fun with it.
Enjoy the pre-performance pictures taken by Ryan after we finished getting ready at the Red Elephant Workshop.

Our next performance at Lannie's will be on November 13th at 11PM if you're interested!
;-)

Push Up Challenge on hold

Yup, came to the definite conclusion that this specific program is not going to work for me. There are some things I could do to modify it, but I honestly don't want to. There are many things for me to stress over right now and push ups are not one of them. If I wasn't getting enough exercise then I may have pushed it... but that is most definitely not my issue.

Many wonderful things happened this past week including two days off for Ryan's Bday and our anniversary. Lovely food was eaten and much cuddling... good for the soul that's constantly being wanted and pulled.

I have been wanting and seeking alone time... I have projects I would love to put time and energy into but am lacking both. Much more contemplating to come on that front.

The weather has become chilly... I'm not sure how much a fall we will have here in Denver... I feel snow coming quickly. Not really looking forward to it... except to squelch the awful fires.

Hooping and Upper Body Strength

Well I have another challenge to blog about thanks to the Miss Raspberry Stethoscope!

The One Hundred Push Ups Challenge

Hooping has made me realize how much upper body strength I currently do not have... I'm hoping this 6 week challenge will help my off the body hooping endurance. This challenge only takes a few minutes, 3x a week. I plan on starting next Monday. Wish me luck!

Shimmy Shack Aftermath

TribalTique Denver's Shimmy Shack student salon was a huge success!
We had six of us for the performance.
Molly got to just sit and enjoy a beer and also let us use the beautiful Red Elephant Workshop.
Miss Fernanda was a HUGE help and manned the door for us and took a zillion pictures!

And then we went a little crazy like we do.
Chasin' Wild Women... (sorry inside joke!)

The ever lovely Desert Rain came and performed!

Tribe Nawaar also made the trip down from Boulder and left everyone speechless with their graceful and fabulous improv-tribal!

Dancers milling about the door trying to get a glimpse of the performances.
We had a packed house and there was no room for us in the main room!

Me thanking everyone for coming at the end.

Hula Hoops were brought out afterwards!

Moar belly dancers hoopin!

We had a lovely night... makes me want to do another one of these casual performances soon.
(Hopefully I will get pictures of the other fabulous performers we had last night soon for posting)
Thank You to everyone who came, performed, supported and helped out!

Fellow Belly Dancers...

Please take 3 minutes and read this blog post.
Who doesn't need a reminder now and then?

I am and always will be a student; eager and thirsty.

The Versatile Blogger

First off a huge thank you to Alexandra for nominating me for The Versatile Blogger Award! This thing looks pretty awesome and is a great way to find other blogs that you may be interested in! So here's the deal:

Nomination Conditions:
*Thank whoever gave you the award
*Share seven things about yourself
*Nominate 15 newly discovered blogs
*Let your nominees know about the award

Seven things about me...
1) Chai Tea is my drink of choice but I am also in love with Rose Tea
2) I buy my clothes based off of three things. Can I go to work in it? Can I dance/ do yoga in it? Can I layer it!? (I love layering pants on pants and most commonly pants and skirts in the frigid Colorado winters) Most everything in my closet is from Be Present. It lasts forever!
3) My favourite quote is the last line in the movie "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button."
4) My body is super sensitive to any kind of bleach and other harsh cleaning products. Dying my hair didn't go over so well. I haven't gotten the courage to test henna yet.
5) I only wear makeup for belly dance performances and on me and Ryan's anniversary
6) I have a scarf addiction... LOVE EM.
7) I love all the animals in my life, all four cats and three ruppy dogs (ruppies pictured below with my boyfriend of almost 8 years; Ryan)

15 of my favourite blogs:
1) First and foremost a shout out to my best friend Stefanie at her blog GrayFires. Stef is an amazing writer. She also writes a column at the Examiner (subscribe to it!) and is a part of Polite Paws Dog Training and Polite Paws Rescues!
2) The ever lovely beader Megan at Muse of the Magpie
3) The creator of American Tribal Style: Carolena Nericcio at FatChanceBellyDance: Director's Cut
4) Another talented writer and aspiring novelist Sara at Romancing the Weird (she's looking for test readers! Drop her a line!)
5) The lovely personality of Robbie at Harpy of the High Plains
6) The delicious musings of beautiful Tina at Musings and Mulishness
7) The one and only Rachel Brice
8) The blog for all practices in health, Nicole at Raspberry Stethoscope
9) The belly dance musings of Asharah at Bellydance Paladin
10) See the one million faces project of Peggy at her blog OneMillionFaces
11) The thinking space of Alyssa at Transported into Applesauce
12) The inspiring and thought provoking journaling of Tempest at OwlKeyMe & Tempest's Teapot
13) Fellow dancer Nielle at that girl is a singin, dancin fool
14) The Scribbling Gypsy DeAnna
15) Last but definitely not least, my friends over at YIP Podcast

Sewing, Hooping and Rock Crawling

What a lovely weekend!

Back in July I was gifted a ton of beautiful fabric that I was told would make excellent pantaloons. Well I got the craft bug on Friday and I made them all! I now have 3 sets of pretty purple pantaloons that will be for sale and a black pair that I'm keeping for myself. Picture and descriptions will end up on facebook for these within the next few days. Saturday night I had a hoop date with Stefanie. Ryan and Angel came along too.

Saturday came and I found a couple goodies at the Belly Dance Swap at the DNote. It's always a good time. Got a couple goodies then headed over to Miss Jill's house, snuggled her new kitten Fielder (sp?), hooped, ate yummy things right out of her garden and talked late into the evening with all the girls.


Sunday Ryan and I were supposed to go to Elitches but we really weren't feeling it. Instead we went and picked up Alyssa and headed into the mountains for some rock crawling in the jeep and sporadic climbing bits... mostly I just watched Ryan and Alyssa do the climbing. I'll have to get some lessons in here right quick.

Beauty and Inspiration

Painting by: Colette Calascione

Thanks to Tempest for posting one of these pictures on her blog that spoke to her.
Pass it on.

Hoop Two: Picture

Apparently Gypsy approves of this one as well... LOL!

3rd Hoop Class is tonight! I'm excited to go have some fun!

I bought another hoop...

yeah... I'm in deep...

Hooping Take Two

Well I managed to get Stef into hooping as well this past week. We've both been having a ton of fun with it. Stef ordered her own hoop and I think I'll get another this weekend just to have it... it's a lot more fun when you're hooping with others and if you have an extra hoop there's no reason to be hooping alone! Right? LOL! Kelly with HoopinHips will be vending this Saturday at Western Welcome Week from 8:30AM-5PM. Go try a hoop on for size and enjoy the rest of the festivities!

Hooping Class!

Last night was my first hoop class!
Kelly from HoopinHips taught it. We had a ton of fun; went over the basics and I learned a few transitioning tricks that I'm excited to practice more. We also experimented with adding foot patterns to waist hooping which was a lot harder than it looked.

All in all I can't wait for next week... I just wish I could find someone to go with me!

On the Runway...

Apparently I should add model to my "what I am list."

Got roped into a modeling gig this past weekend by my favorite MUA. There were definitely a lot of personalities that night.

but I did happen to see my friend Jennie who I haven't seen in almost a year!

It's definitely something I'd have fun exploring in the future I think.
We'll see what it brings...

A few new Tribal Fest 10 pictures

The Truth about well rounded dancers...

I follow Heather Sara via her blog, and today she posted an interesting article that I'm re-posting here.

Heather's Original Blog

Original Dance Article


The Three things you need to be well rounded according to said article:

Exposure = Watching a variety of dancers, styles, and performances; Making contact with other students and professionals; Reading about dance or dance artists

Experience = Getting a taste of alternative ways of moving and patterning dance; Learning a dance; Participating in a performance; Working with master teachers or choreographers;

Training = Engaging in a course of study that prepares a dancer for the physical, cognitive, and mental requirements of codified dance forms/techniques; specialized practice and instruction over a period of time

What are you lacking or what do you have to much of in your dancing life?

What I believe I need currently:
-A more structured and diligent personal practice (File under Training)
-Learning different ways of movement, not just limited to dance, rock climbing and hooping are next on my to do list (File under Experience)
-Less youtube (File under Exposure)

Red Elephant Workshop Grand Opening Vids!

Much to my delight I just found out that Miss Megan took video footage of us at the grand opening! And here it is for you to enjoy! xo.

Part One!


Part Two!

yoga and crow pose

Made it to yoga yesterday for the first time in 2 or 3 weeks. It was fabulous and happy making.
Ryan went with and kept me company... I hate doing yoga in a classroom of people I don't know.

I know I shouldn't be but I'm very jealous of Ryan's crow pose. I've always had a mental block about balancing on my hands, 3 or so months ago I just about got it, but my knees slipped off of my arm and slammed into the floor, my right one taking most of the brunt and it hurt and bruised up for a while. Knee pain whilst belly dancing sucks. So there's that and all of the broken mirrors at CorePower that I've seen from balancing poses that decided not to balance... LOL. I'm also worried sick I'll hurt someone next to me in class.

*note to self, park it in the middle of the class room with hopefully not too many people around you so you'll stop making up excuses for why you can't get into this pose, how many years have you been doing yoga? Yeah, I need to stop making excuses. *sigh*

Post Red Elephant Grand Opening

Molly and I all happy post-performance

The grand opening for the Red Elephant Workshop was definite a success in my book. There will be more pictures eventually on Facebook and possibly here.

All the girls arrived around 6:30ish, putzed around, putting on the last bit of makeup and bindi's. Lot's of giggling and stories from the week, drooling over Julia's goodies and greeting the first of family, friends and belly girls who showed up once doors opened.

Miss Kelly Durst of Hoopin Hips will start teaching on Tuesdays in August. She had an awesome performance and mini lesson. One of our belly girls was a total natural at it!

Then we had our performance at 8:30pm and we rocked it. I love my dance girls!

TribalTique Denver's Cues and Tattoos Video!

It's Up! Enjoy!

BDay Dance Party

This past Friday was my actual BDay. I had a ton of belly friends to the studio for dance, booze and good times. It seemed to work out pretty well. I'm not one to throw parties typically... twas rather weird. More pictures are on facebook.

In the days ahead the TTDenver girls are preparing for the REW Grand Opening, First Fridays at OM Time and the Belly Hafla.

There's a lot of work to be done!

Colorado Renaissance Festival!

I had some good times this weekend. First off I got a massage from Miss Kellie with Infinity Massage Center. Then I went to see the Divine Gypsies perform on Saturday night. And on Sunday a HUGE group of Denver Belly Dancers went to the Colorado Renaissance Festival! We got to see Adawiya Bellydance perform, had my hair braided and a few of us got some henna!

My birthday is this next weekend... should be a good time I hope.

Fin!

Managed to finish the teeny bit of choreography that will be at the beginning of our second song at DNote in August! (the rest will be improv of course!)

Now let's work on the bit I want to do in a little over a week! eep!

Spring Cleaning!

Yes, I know... I literally put it off until the last day of spring. But of course by saying "putting it off" I mean I finally found 6 hours of time in the middle of the night to clean my dance room.

I've been slightly busy just going to 5 classes a week, teaching 1, family outings, taking care of all of the animals (3 dogs and 4 cats) and maintaining a loving relationship with Ryan. Not to mention the full time job.

But I finally did it... I decided late Saturday night, that I would not sleep that night and just clean and work through it instead. Smart? Probably not... but the room had been needing it BADLY! I wish I would have taken a before hand picture, but oh well. To say that the room was messy was an understatement. As Ryan put it when he saw the finished product, "Oh wow, I forgot there was carpet in here!" LOL!

*Sigh* It feels wonderful to finally have accomplished this... between C&T and TF10 the place was a mess... as was my own mind a bit... I believe and hope that I managed to clean both of them up. Now I'm just a little sleep deprived is all!

As for today... Hello Summer! Being a summer baby myself... let me just say I love it, love it, love it. It's the time of the year where I try to soak up as much warmth as possible to get me through the winter, it's a time for hiking with the doggies, playing in the water and running barefoot outside.

What's your favorite part about summer? I know for a certain person it's the fact that Fall soon follows. ;-)

Choreography Musings...

I've been dabbling in choreography a bit in my personal time. I consider myself at best an intermediate choreographer when it comes to belly dance. I've mostly been focusing on solo's; experimenting with what styles and flavors of the dance I like best, thinking about stage use, stage presence and entertainment value. Recently I finished my second solo piece. It's slow, short and sweet. I'd been going back and forth in my head of is it good enough to showcase? The other half of my brain told me to just throw it out there and see what happens... you can't progress if you keep all your musings and experiments to yourself. So I did... I took a chance and performed it at People's Fair; and I realized why it hadn't been feeling just right when I had practiced it at home. Taking the stage is always terrifying, you never know what's going to happen, but man I love it. I feel alive onstage; and doing solo work is so interesting... there are no boundaries as to what you can and can't do with your energy, the only fear is not doing enough.

But back to the choreography... I found that looking at a choreography you've created on paper is intimidating. Is it good enough? It looks so bland, it even feels bland whilst practicing it. What I was missing was the audience factor. Depending on who you are you may prefer dancing alone or if you're like me, you love dancing with others or at least for an audience. (Currently) I have a hard time putting my soul into a choreography unless there's someone watching... needless to say I believe the People's Fair solo went fantastically well. The audience adds another layer to the performance that you can't replicate in practice, you can do the steps, the hip, torso, arm and head layers but it's the hardest thing to pretend you have an audience. When you have an audience to practice for you can experiment with interactions, when it's appropriate to look them in the eye and when it's appropriate to be demure, savoring the movement and moment.

Enough of my ramblings for the day... I've got a new piece I'm mulling over, a drum solo this time... we'll see if I can finish it for my birthday (July 2).

My Solo at People's Fair
Image courtesy of: www.pennyopa.com

The First Dance

Today has been a day for remembering, peace and solitude. Looking at where I am now and where I was.

I was never enrolled in a dance class as a toddler, yougin' or young adult. I found my very first dance class almost 5 years ago at age 19. When anyone asks I tell them that's the first I had ever danced.

I realized today that that's not true. I danced at high school dances, albeit I'll admit I had no idea what I was doing; but even before that I learned to move with grace through the leaves and limbs of our neighbors tree. I used to sit in that tree and read to my hearts content, only coming down when the street lights came on, but I suppose you could say it was tradition after I came home from school to gaze at the tree from my front porch, suddenly break out into a sprint, grab a hold the lowest branch and pull, swing, push and step as lightly and quickly to the top as I could. I spent my youth in that tree, it was my escape from everything, it was the first dance I learned.

What you've been waiting for...

Presenting TribalTique's Tribal Fest 10 performance!

TribalTique Tribal Fest 10 from TrueLove Sound on Vimeo.

My New Class!

Recently I was given the opportunity to teach my own "Fundamentals of Tribal" class at the Red Elephant Workshop in Denver, CO. They're Thursdays at 7PM, $11 for drop in. We've been having a blast the past two weeks, come and join us this Thursday! Classes are done on a drop in basis, so there are never any session start dates, if you miss a class that's fine; you won't feel behind when you come back the week after!

And if Thursdays don't fit into your schedule check out the rest of the awesome classes at Red Elephant Workshop!

Post People's Fair

Let's just say we had an AMAZING time performing at People's Fair this year. The girls who are in TribalTique Denver right now just blow me away, we've all grown so much, and we've grown together. Hopefully someone out there got video of it.

We had a chill day of getting our make-up professionally done by one of our best friends at MAC cosmetics, grabbed some food, took it back to the workshop, slowly ate and put ourselves together for the performance.

I love these ladies. We were amazing. If you missed it, you really did miss an amazing show.
AND...
(puffs up chest)
the stage manager came back to us afterward and told us that we definitely had the biggest crowd of the day! WIN!

People's Fair Weekend!

It's here! This weekend is People's Fair in downtown Denver, CO at Civic Center Park. If you're in town come see us! We'll be performing tomorrow night at 6:55PM. We will have a mostly improvisational set with a few choreographed pieces, including a solo by me! See below for more details.

People's Fair
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Performance and Cultural Stage
6:55-7:15 PM
Enjoy a performance by the ladies of TribalTique Denver at the 39th Annual CHUN People's Fair!
Admission is free
www.peoplesfair.com

Bolder Boulder Picture Dump

For the 4th year in a row I've attended the Bolder Boulder and danced with the Bolder Tribe Belly Dancers at the top of Folsom hill cheering on the runners, joggers, walkers and rollers. This year was no different. Ryan and I woke up at 4AM to get ready and drive 45 minutes to Boulder and had a blast.

Miss Lisa G. of Desert Rain Tribal Belly Dance organizes our little group each year. Here's a little back story about it and enjoy the pictures!

Me and Ryan!

Lisa and I!