As you know from my previous post, Saturday the 13th August, BellyRing was hosting a Hafla here in Somerset West! Of course, you never pass up the opportunity to dance at an event so close to home as events are rarely hosted here.
If you don’t feel like reading my post on this event (or even if you don’t feel like reading at all) you can mosey on over to Roxy’s post on Shimmies, Sequins & Slippers - she promises it’s an almost wordless post!
I was hoping to have a video of my performance already but it looks like that’ll take longer to get than I initially thought. When it does go up onto YouTube, I will do a blog post with the link. 
It was my very first Tribal Fusion solo, and I finished the choreography the afternoon of the Hafla, which is pretty disgraceful, but apparently I work under pressure. I was the second performer of the evening, and halfway through the first performance the speakers facing onto the stage (for the dancers to hear the music) stopped working. Luckily the dancers were champs and danced as if there were no issue! Before I went on, they struggled to get the speakers to work again, and they asked me to step onto the stage to see if I could hear the music. Strangely enough, that got rid of the nerves that had been building up for a while (I had gotten there early).
Once I started dancing, I just had a blast! Halfway through the dance, I thought to myself “I’m not even thinking about what comes next – my body is just doing it!” That made me feel really good, that my hours of practicing (the first 3/4 at least!) were paying off. There was a photographer at the event, Martin van Niekerk, who took some gorgeous shots on the evening. All photos used in this post are by him!
Yours truly!
I look surprised, but whatever.
BAM! Hip drop!
BellyRing doing a fabulous Bollywood piece - one of my favourites of the evening!
BellyRing did a fabulous Bollywood piece – which was reminiscent of the Bombay Bellywood from one of the Superstars DVDs. I really enjoyed it, it was a great dance to end the evening on and the audience got really into it!
Roxy's solo - Benefese from Totally Turkish!
Unfortunately I was recording Roxy’s dance, so it was difficult to watch and keep an eye on the camera (making sure it’s pointing in the right place and watching a performance is more difficult than you might think!) but what struck me about this performance was how much it suited her! It was fast paced, bubbly and full of energy - which is pretty much the embodiment of Roxy! She danced beautifully and gracefully despite losing her earrings mid-dance! (Which seems to happen to her often!)
UV veil dance by us - Maya Troupe!
After the break we performed our UV veil dance – which is a very striking dance to watch because it’s so unusual! We use white veils and UV lights. Strangely enough, Silk veils don’t glow under UV lights. We use veils with a fabric that’s slightly heavier than chiffon and that really gives it a great glow!
A great dance with many facets to it which was visually great!
Feminine Divine did a very cool and dynamic piece with 3 dancers. Tenille (pictured above), Tiffany, and another dancer who’s name escapes me for some reason – sorry! They used 3 props in a short amount of time – kind of to give you a taste of each once, but not too much that you get bored (sorry, the use of a prop for too long bores me senseless). They used veils, fan veil and a sword! With the dancers alternating who is on stage.
Well, that is the end of the Hafla section of the post! Now onto my exciting news!
I met a lovely lady at the Hafla who chatted to me before the show about dancing and the different styles. I told her that she would clearly see the different styles in this Hafla alone as the performers are all very different! So earlier this week I received an email from her asking if we could meet up. Soo, on Wednesday I met with her at a café and we chatted about dancing and classes, etc. Well the exciting news is that she would like to start private lessons with me! Me! Of all the dancers at the Hafla, she chose me to teach her. This makes me very happy and I’m quite proud of myself!
She also expressed interest in me performing at an event she is doing in December, which might lead to a dance gig overseas! But I can’t tell you too much about that right now, it’s all still in the works. However, as soon as everything is finalized, you will be among the first to know!
Hope everybody is well, I will post another thoughtful or interesting post soon, I promise!
x
