galadhir

I'm psyching myself up for Mayday tomorrow. First of May is the official start of morris dance-out season, when we go from practicing in our indoor practice hall to dancing out on the streets.

On Mayday itself we 'dance the sun up' - meaning that we aim to be dancing as the sun rises. This is at 5.15 in the morning. According to morris legend (that we just made up) if we do not perform this ritual, the sun will not rise for the year to come.

But we're hitting the ground running with morris events:

Last Sunday was the St. George's Day Fair in the Fenland town known as March, and Ely & Littleport Riot danced the whole day there.
Tomorrow is Mayday and we will be there at dawn.
Then Saturday is the town of Ely's Eel Day festival, and the Riot will be dancing all day for that.
And on the Monday Bank holiday the Riot will be dancing at Denny Abbey, where there will also be a maypole set up. We will undoubtedly also be helping the staff to teach maypole dancing to a horde of small children who've come for a day out.

DH will be dancing in all of these, and I will be playing pennywhistle among the musicians.

This has been an amazing surprise to me. When - as a young person - I pictured my life, I didn't think it would have so much dancing in it. I'm so glad it does!

Well, all my future belly dance plans got tossed into the air and scattered. Mostly in a way that I'm happy with, but still...

So, as I wittered on about endlessly my plan was to do a new sword-dance solo to Ya Baba and also a heavy metal duet with another lady from Elizabeth's class, to Khepri - Fangs of Apep

To which end I had even bought a studded belt and decorated a black bra for a heavy metal outfit. I found a black skirt and a snakeskin patterned skirt in the charity shop and tweaked them to fit me properly. I was going to wear the black skirt for the heavy metal dance, and then use the same bra and belt with a few red items and the snakeskin patterned skirt to make a villainous Wen Yao outfit that would work for Ya Baba too.

Then of course I was like 'I don't actually like Fangs of Apep' And in browsing on YouTube I found Wolf Totem by The Hu which I fell in love with and suggested to the other lady for our dance instead. She said she loved it, so I thought that was settled.

But the best laid plans etc, because it turns out that the particular version of Ya Baba that I liked so much is not available to buy. This is the second time YouTube has done this to me! And I really don't like the other versions as much. I'm not sure I really want to do a sword dance to any of them. (And why do you even need seven different arrangements of the same tune. Argh!)

Also OL, (my partner in the duo) has a number of other suggestions for tunes which she might prefer to The Hu, so we are not decided. Some of them are not even heavy metal, so the whole outfit is called into question now... LOL! This is what I get for jumping the gun.

OTOH, if we go for one of the other tunes, then Wolf Totem by The Hu is available for me to use for my own purposes, and I will use that for a new sword solo. It's certainly thematically appropriate for a sword dance, though sadly much less Meng Yao related.

Meanwhile Elizabeth has asked me to do a sword dance solo when the group is performing at Aquafest in June. I don't know if I have time to develop and memorize a new choreography for June, so I'll have to crack open baby's first choreography and see if I can improve on my old dance.

In other words, it's all up in the air again and I have a new studded belt and decorated bra for nothing ;)

Ely Aquafest will be an interesting place to perform, that's for sure!

So, this time I had insisted that DH should take a video of the solo as well as taking photos, and I have watched the video on and off for the past three days and made notes. I no longer think it went that well, or perhaps I should say that my inner critic has had a field day.

Because I'm portraying someone who is ill and scared, I did a lot of covering my mouth, covering my eyes/forehead etc, and I don't think it plays well in a dance. I also have such a tendency to look down - by which I mean actually bowing my head forward - giving myself a hunched back instead of the upright posture of a dancer. I am also careless about where I put my feet - lots of ugly, imprecise foot placement.

Just like Su She, I also have a tendency to partially shut one eye more than the other one when I'm concentrating. Slightly mortifying, when I am certain that was a character tic Su She was given to indicate that he was a grovelling, servile henchman.

I must train myself out of all that!

The solo will need to be redesigned in the first part to get rid of all the head hanging and face covering etc. The bad posture and bad footwork is something I'll try to concentrate on improving this year.

Both outfits were pretty good though - I am pretty okay at costuming :)

Photos!

So, it was Louise's hafla last night, aka the 'Hob al Raqs' Hafla. I wonder if I can get a copy of the running list up here? Hm... but it's very big, so here is a link to the pdf instead.

After having been sick with nerves and dreading it for two days prior, the nerves cleared up on the day, and I gradually got ready by ironing my veil (for the Nawwarat group dance) and practicing putting on a dramatic blue eye make up look from YouTube.

(Did you know that you can use cellotape on your face to get a sharp wing to your eyeshadow? I didn't. But I do now.)( Read more... )

DH of course, who turned up with two huge cameras, (one for video and one for stills) was very popular and everyone wanted to pose and show off their sparkling outfits. There will be much excitement when he posts the finished photos to a friends-locked group on the web. I'm looking forward to that too. He is a treasure and everyone knows it :)

PS. The other lady from my class who said she might do a solo did not in fact do a solo despite being objectively much better than me. I don't understand - surely the point of practicing a dance is to perform it?

PPS. I wonder when I will feel as though I have the right to use the dance name I picked out? I mean I'm not good and I'm certainly not professional, but I am up there performing. Does that make me a dancer yet or is there another trial you have to pass first?

End of term for Elizabeth's class and she let slip that next term she would be expecting us to write another solo.

One of the other ladies suggested to me that perhaps--as we both grew up being into Heavy Metal Rock--we could do a dance together to Khepri - Fangs of Apep

I could definitely put together an outfit for a heavy metal bellydance, with a black lace skirt and chains and a cropped band t-shirt. It would be nice to revisit my heavy rocker phase, and I do have the hair for it these days. It would also be really nice to dance with someone else. It's great just to be asked :)

But... just in case she is ill or changes her mind, I think I'm also going to work on a solo dance - if I don't use it then, I'll still use it later.

Today I was practicing Louise's veil choreography and my Fos solo for the hafla on the 11th, and you know I've been turning over the thought of using Ya Baba for something for a while now. Then this morning I woke up and looked at my sword and thought, "it would be nice to do another sword dance."

But I had been missing the thing that would bring everything together and give me the inspiration and excitement to actually start anything.

Well, it arrived today while practicing something else.

Obviously what I wanted was to do a sword dance inspired by the scene in the Fire Palace when Meng Yao is torturing Nie Mingjue for Wen Ruohan's entertainment.

Nie Mingjue is a clan leader who rescued Meng Yao from bullying soldiers and made him his favourite, but Meng Yao killed one of his men. Almost immediately afterward MY saved NMJ's life by taking a sword thrust that was meant for him.
So with streaming tears on both sides NMJ exiled Meng Yao, who went off to serve NMJ's enemy (and actually to spy for the good guys.) NMJ then got captured and MY had to torture him enough to make Wen Ruohan distracted, so that WRH would let his guard down and MY could stab him and win the war.
This succeeded in winning the war, but meant that MY and NMJ's relationship never recovered and they became bitter enemies, eventually killing each other and being buried in the same coffin.

I have a lot of problems with doing the whole sexy & playful part of belly dancing, but Meng Yao is going full ham in that scene, being the most homme fatale a spurned favourite could possibly be while dressed in immaculate robes and eyeliner, and fondling another man's sword.

This is absolutely ideal for a belly dance! I'm sure I can do scheming villainous homoeroticism with a sword!

I was like 'I bet that would work with Ya Baba.' But now I have come home and looked up the lyrics, and it turns out they could have been written for that scene:

The wound My beloved (Oh Father) is on two sides
And I swear by God (Oh Father)
I have never loved anyone but him
We are not being lifted up (We are not being lifted up)
And the fire is in my heart (And the fire is in my heart)
It burns my veins, it burns my veins

So yes. I'm going to do that one regardless, even if I do a fun heavy metal one first :)

So, every time I sign up to do a solo, there's a place on the form for my dancer's pseudonym, and every time it makes me think 'should I have a dance name?' and 'if I should, what should it be?

I don't feel happy about just awarding myself an Arabic name, so these are the three choices I've managed to come up with:

Ursula Ogg - after Ursula the octopus villain, and Nanny Ogg the witch. I'll be honest, the main driver for choosing either of these names is that I'm fat. Nanny Ogg is my favorite Discworld witch, but I feel no connection to the idea of witchery in general, and if I was to choose a favorite villain, Ursula wouldn't be on that list at all. So basically I just chose this because they were two cool people who were also fat.
AElfgifu - means 'Elf-gift' and is my favourite Anglo-Saxon name. I am Anglo-Saxon myself so this would be a safe cultural bet.
Athalia - means 'God is exalted' and is a Biblical name. I would like for my name to exalt God, and there's a long tradition among Christians to grab names out of the Bible, so if it's cultural appropriation, it's a long standing one.

Now I've put them all down I think Ursula is off the table and I just need some help choosing between AElfgifu and Athalia.

I feel more of a personal connection to AElfgifu through my years of Anglo-Saxon re-enactment, but I might need to give pronunciation tips with it, which would be a faff. (It's pronounced 'Alfg-aye-vuh')

On the other hand Athalia would be a new start, it doesn't require an Old English primer to pronounce, and of all the names it's the only one that made my heart leap a little.

What do you think? Athalia? Something else entirely?

(There's a lady I follow on Tumblr who is of a similar build to me and her dance name is Ursa Major, which I think is fantastic.)

Tonight I committed myself to dancing my solo to Fos by Amanati at Shimmyfest in June. I performed it just before Christmas to an audience of women from my belly dance class and it had a remarkable reaction:

For everyone else the audience made encouraging noises and clapped along at the fast bits. For me it was absolute silence. They did clap afterward, but I really wasn't sure if it was a success or an abject failure.

Today, however, the instructor mentioned that Shimmyfest was looking for soloists, so I asked her if Fos would be appropriate and she said Yes in tones that actually suggested enthusiasm, so I told her I would do it.

She also asked me if I had thought about costuming, which suggested to me that she did not think what I had been wearing at Christmas was adequate, even though I made the skirt myself out of translucent, watery-like material. I guess the t-shirt over the top was not very professional.

Fortunately at that same hafla there had been a lady selling her old dresses just to get them out of her house, and I picked up something more professional looking from her for £25. Unfortunately, I have been dieting since then and have lost a stone and a half (21lb), so the dress may need some taking in. I won't know what shape I'll be until much closer to the date.

Still, time to drag the choreography back out and start practicing again before I forget it all :)

I've found a lady who has the same sort of shape as me, who dances the same kind of dance that I would love to dance. She has such precision and confidence-verging-on-arrogance and strength and lyricism and sweetness. I don't know that I can get my creaky old, arthritic person to do some of the things she does (that back bend!) but I love her sense of theatre. I love how she has combined bellydance with inspiration from sci-fi and theatre to make something that is very unique.

Watch on YouTube

Much though I like dancing, I haven't been able to find any genuine love in my heart for the whole 'scantily clad get in touch with your inner goddess who is also a sexy flirt' malarky, chiefly because I don't think I have an inner goddess of any kind, let alone a sexy one. But as a writer I 100% have an inner Evil Galactic Emperor, or an inner hero or villain character of a sort that I can lean into.

Watch on YouTube

So I the new dance I am now wrestling with is inspired by the plot in Stargate Universe in which Chloe - experimented on by aquatic aliens - fears she is losing her humanity, even while she grows stronger and more intelligent.

My question was, why the heck wouldn't you embrace that? Super strength? The ability to do maths? Sign me up.

I've just got to find a way of expressing this in dance.

So my 'absolute beginners' bellydance class have been working on a choreography since about week three (back in September.) Next week is the last week and we will have to do the whole thing.

Last Monday the instructor suggested that we should take a video of the whole thing while she danced it. I can only assume because we're supposed to be practicing it at home. I have not done this, but perhaps I'll manage a few goes through over the weekend.

Watch on YouTube

I've signed up for the beginner's course again in the New Year. You have to do it at least twice before you can go on to the Improvers, which I think is honestly a good call because I still feel my brain shorting out half the time, and I can't yet do a shoulder shimmy without my hips joining in.

I'm vaguely hoping to get good enough to do a bit of Saidi, since I miss dancing with a stick, but I'm already a lifetime too late to get this good:

Watch on YouTube

Straw Bear 2023 started with a downpour in which the entire procession got soaking wet. Including a friend's melodeon (melodeons have paper bellows, so this is not good.) The Riot fielded six dancers, four of whom danced in the procession and the other two (one of whom was me) carried all the bags, coats etc.

I tried to play the whistle with the musicians at the same time, but what with the heavy packs and the water going down my fipple it was too hard and I had to leave it up to the rest of the musicians. At least our melodeon player was buried under a waterproof poncho, which was fastened around the instrument's straps so it wouldn't billow in the wind, and his instrument remained dry.

First session in the morning was at the Ivyleaf, fortunately indoors because the downpour continued, and I must say I enjoyed being out of the cold, somewhere where we could sit down between dances.

By the second session the rain had cleared up so we were thrown out on the streets to dance around the town.

I'm with Ely & Littleport Riot and DH is with Mepal Molly, but fortunately the two sides are so intertwined that they decided to send us round together. (We share musicians and at least one dancer.) It's nice.

11 year old Ivor was dancing with Mepal Molly this year, which is hilarious as the rest of them are silver haired and bearded and look like decrepid ancient farm labourers (which is what the original Mepal Molly were.) Ivor seemed to have a great time at least.

Third session in the afternoon was in a street that acted like a wind tunnel, and as we were all still damp from the morning it started to get very cold. Then there was a final dance in the market square, by which time the cold had sunk deep in the marrow of my bones and I knew I would never get warm again without soaking in a scorching bath.

Fortunately by that time we were ready to go home. So I've had the bath and am now warm again, with an ibuprofen for my aching feet. Altogether a very satisfactory day, even though it was much smaller this year, post covid.

There were only two bears this year, a big and a baby bear, but whoever was inside the big bear was giving it his all, because I've never seen such vigorous dancing from a straw bear. He was an unusually shaggy bear with the heads of the wheat left on. They're going to burn him in private tomorrow, instead of the usual public immolation, which doesn't worry me because I think the whole burning thing is creepy and I never turn up for it anyway.

More about the festival here

Well that was a very Morris weekend! Went out as a musician with Coton Morris on Saturday to perform at Mill Road Winter Fair.

Even as a musician it's a physically strenuous day given that you're on your feet from 10.30 til 5 in the cold. The dancers get warmed up by dancing, but the musicians need to be wearing enough clothes for the Arctic. This year I went for three thermal vests, a t-shirt, a wool jumper, wool cardigan and fur coat - which was great for the torso. But the legs only got thermal tights under white trousers and were chilly.

Last year Mill Road Winter Fair was cancelled for Covid reasons, so this year it was absolutely heaving. For the past 15 years of my life, it's been the beginning of Christmas for me. Taking place in the centre of Cambridge, its very multicultural, and there's usually samba bands and a couple of lion dogs, and food stalls from all over the world. Even when I was dancing all day and absolutely exhausted by the end, I've always enjoyed it.

So I'm sad to realize that this year the amount of physical endurance required outweighed the fun - I'm getting older now, and I have fibromyalgia, arthritic knees, and being fatter makes everything more effort - and I found myself bearing it rather than enjoying it. I hate feeling physically disabled, but I'm not sure that there's anything I can do about it.

Then on Sunday I was dancing with Ely & Littleport Riot for March Christmas Fair. A much more low key affair out in the Fens, where we were only on from 11am - 2pm. I did manage to pull my weight and dance at least half of the dances. And I thought that I wasn't as wiped out as Saturday, but by the time I got home I had to sleep on the sofa for the rest of the evening.

I hate getting old and unfit! It's hard to enjoy dancing when half of my brain is dedicated to monitoring my knees to see if I'm injuring them.

Fortunately there are no signs of fibromyalgia flare-up today, so I seem to have gotten away with it, but I find myself contemplating dieting again, as though that would solve all my problems. (I don't think it really would. I just wish there was something I could do.)

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galadhir

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Qualified for Destiny

Entries tagged with dancing

Mayday tomorrow!

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