Where you wondering about the coughing? Blood Moon 08!

What do you get when you mix a group of various forms of dance with a themed show called “Disease: 101”? You get Blood Moon Regale hosted by the most awesome troupe , Unmata! Who else could come up with themes that no one would ever think to dance to?

We, (Hiplash), were assigned Tuberculosis for our disease du jour. We were so excited to even be included in the show and thrilled that we hadn’t gotten Ghonaria (sp). So we begin our research and discussing ideas for the show. I found some RAD music from Amon Tobin that was brand new, just out. It’s the kind of song you hear and just start dancing in your chair at the computer because it’s so friggin’ awesome. Jill had another RAD song that she had danced to a few years ago from Juno Reactor. And with the help of a couple more Amon Tobin songs and an intro from Engelsstaub, we had our set. The set started out with Avery (our newest troupe member) dancing to a hilarious Egyptian song with coughing instead of a drumbeat! Don’t ask where it came from, I have no idea. My belly dance mama played it for us ions ago and still had it. And with coughing being the number one symptom of TB, it was too perfect. Avery was awesome! She stole the show. With her acting prowess and her love to be in the spotlight, she had the audience screaming with delight. She even blew a kiss that ended in a cough at the audience. After she left the stage, the remaining four of us began dancing. We performed a choreography to the edgy Tobin song, followed by being shrouded in death by The Red Death himself (Avery again, Kris was going to do it but his back went out the night before). Then we performed a beautiful and somber death dance while in the shrouds, ending on the floor in a pile of black death.

It was awesome, exciting, nerve racking, and downright incredible! The rest of the show was brilliant. It was so exciting to see what other dancers came up with. And it was so nice to see an eclectic group of performances. Cabaret, modern, tribal, and fusion all came together to put on this spectacular show. Some of the various other diseases represented included Mono by Unmata. Their creative idea for an 80’s house party mixed with brilliant choreography made for a jaw dropping performance. Cera and Damage Control Dance Theater blew my mind with their Cancer set… did anyone else feel creepy when they danced backwards? It was so RAD!! Shelly was the instructor for the personal protection video. Ozume (sp?) had heart disease. They were spectacular!! Ariellah was bipolar. Her piece was so powerful, aggressive, and moving. And Sooz, who could forget Sooz?? The most fantabulous emcee for a themed show. She was amazing, she even sang opera!!

All of this fantasticness could not exist without Unmata. And to them I am truly grateful. I deeply appreciate the opportunity given to us to perform on the stage alongside so many great dancers. The experience is one that I will remember for a lifetime.

A DVD of the show will be coming out sometime soon. Until then, there are a couple of teasers online. Below are some links so that you too might enjoy a small part of this very incredible show. Did you get to see the show? Were you in the show? What was your experience like? If you didn’t get to see the show, please consider making the trek next year. It truly is amazing. And what did you think of the teasers? Are they enticing?


www.youtube.com/watch
www.youtube.com/watch
www.youtube.com/watch



www.unmata.com
www.hiplashbellydance.com
www.blumebauer.com

From Ants to Aunts...

I’m an Aunt!!! My brand new baby niece, Dylan Jayde was born last Wednesday. It is the most fabulous thing that has happened in my life to date! Not only is she healthy, beautiful, and so happy… but she’s also a Sagittarius. My sister has already sent me dozens of photos and one video of her sleeping and dreaming “cobra” dreams. My sister and brother-in-law call her dreams cobra dreams, something from the Simpsons. They’re huge fans, I guess I’ll have to watch the episode to get it.

She is so sweet while she is sleeping. She coos and caas and makes this cute frowny face, then a huge smile, then a huge stretch. My sister is elated that she made an actual human! I have always heard people say how incredible having a baby is. I always understood but just never felt it like this. It is such a high!

I’ll be posting pictures of her in the Dylan Jayde album on my Myspace page. Check back to see her grow up!! She’s already 6 days old! I still can’t believe it.

The only sad thing is that my sister lives all the way in Australia and with the economy going the way it has been, I haven’t gotten many freelance jobs for websites lately and definitely can’t afford a ticket to be there. It is just killing me!! I can’t wait to hold her and squish her little cheeks and see her tiny little toes. She is so gorgeous and sweet. I just want to cry every time I see a new picture of her!

Do you have babies and/or children in your family that live out of town? How do you cope with the overwhelming wanting to be with them? I would love to hear your thoughts!

For more pics of baby Dylan, click here: viewmorepics.myspace.com/index.cfm

It's Not Easy Being Green

“It’s not easy being green.” - Kermit the Frog

Sometimes it’s hard to be me. Every time I think how hard life can be, I remember that line, “it’s hard to be me” and it makes me laugh at myself and get over any smaller issues at hand. Why do I laugh, you might ask?

Years ago, I purchased a Cyndi Lauper DVD of a live concert performance. She tells a hilarious story about Anna Nicole Smith. Lauper was up late at night, couldn’t sleep, instead she was watching court tv. At the time, the Anna Nicole Smith trial was all the talk and they had live coverage. She goes on to say that after the day’s trial, Smith comes out of the courtroom to tons of reporters awaiting a statement. The first reporter asks her how she was holding up. Her reply, “It’s hard to be me”. Because of the absurdity of the statement from a multi-millionaire, Lauper was inspired to write a song called “It’s Hard to Be Me” and the rest is history. She also refers to the song as the “loud song” because her small son likes to sing the song really, really loudly especially all the “me’s” in the song. (I like this too by the way.)

So, my back went out a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been to the doctor and he says it’s a repetitive stress injury, most likely from all the work I do on the computer. Easy enough to fix though, he said I just need to get up once every hour and walk around or something. Which, for a belly dancer, is perfect. I can rehearse for about 15 minutes every hour. The disappointing part comes next. I can’t dance right now, not until my back has healed. As a dancer, you probably understand the devastating condition of not being able to dance for different reasons and the feeling of being crushed until you can return to dancing. I am crushed. I can dance a tiny little bit on occasion but I really have to be careful. In addition to the lovely fact that I cannot dance right now, I am currently crammed into my small office with three big dogs all day while the contractor remodels our kitchen. All of the rooms have been taken over by boxes of dishes, silverware, glasses, the refrigerator, dishwasher… well, you get the idea. This all means that I can’t even get up and walk around every hour like I am supposed to. So, I’ve got to just laugh and say “It’s hard to be me”.

The cure for all that ails me this week? I will be heading off to our local showcase this evening at the new Casa Blanca Restaurant in Lancaster to be with friends and dancers.

What is discouraging you this week? And what will be your cure for the blues?

Oasis 4 Charity Competition

So, I got a message from my friend, Elizabeth Mahina, this evening. She is up for an award on the Oasis 4 Charity competition. It’s exciting because she’s up there with a lot of other “big” names!

Check it out at hometown.aol.com/homeskill...page1.html

Not a great website, but it works for what it is. Vote for your favorite in each “ballot” category (there are 4 per competition). Here are my favorites that I just HAD TO vote for:

Unmata
Mira Betz
Alicia
Sadie
Elizabeth Mahina (of course)
Monica Fernandez
Bellyqueen
Urban Tribal (that was a super hard decision as they are up against FCBD)
and last but not least, Zafirah Dance Co. (with Olivia!!)

Send in your votes to the following email: navel_y2k@yahoo.com

14 Ways to Make a Woman Happy

14 Ways to Make a Woman Happy

So, I was reading this list in Glamour magazine about 14 ways to make a woman happy. I thought, let’s see how right on they are…

Boy are they way off in my book. There are so many things (even simpler things) that make me happy every day. No wonder men think women are so presumptuous. With a list like this, men could stop dating women all together! lol!

Well, here’s the list. See what you think and post the 14 ways to make *you* happy. (my 14 are listed underneath the ones from the article.)

1. Giver her a great stock tip.

2. Make friends with her vibrator.

3. Agree that $200 is a reasonable price for such a fabulous pair of shoes.

4. Tell her she looks better in her glasses.

5. Tell her she looks like Halle Berry.

6. Plant a yellow rosebush – Graham Thomas is a good one – underneath her bedroom window.

7. Ask her to drive, because she’s better than you.

8. Of your own volition, rent an obscure but highly romantic film such as Angels & Insects or Jane Eyre. Watch it, act like you are enjoying it.

9. Let her little brother teach you how to play magic.

10. Say you’d love to have a daughter exactly like her.

11. Write her a poem. Failing that, read her one. Failing that, buy her a copy of The Collected Poems of WB Yeats.

12. Cook her a divine risotto. Laugh when she expresses concern over its fat content.

13. When she confesses she’s got a big crush on Jakob Dylan, buy her one of his Cd’s and don’t wince when she plays it while you’re making love.

14. Ask her if she wouldn’t mind just holding you for awhile.


My response…

1. Buy me stock, don’t just give me the tip.

2. Be better at sex than my vibrator.

3. Forget the shoes, take me on vacation!

4. I *do* look better in my glasses.

5. If you are going to tell me I look like someone famous, at least pick someone that might look something like me at all.

6. What’s with the yellow rosebush? Thorns outside the bedroom window so that other men can’t sneak in? Sounds insecure to me, and odd that they chose yellow. Yellow roses often stand for friendship, not love. Plant gardenias, I love those and they smell so good!

7. Always drive, and let me sleep on the way home.

8. Don’t rent movies and pretend that you like them for my benefit, I’d rather watch it with a girlfriend than have you ruin it for me. Buy me 2 tickets to the romantic movie for me and a friend.

9. Woah! Wait a minute here, how many grown women have little brothers that still like magic?? (I know that there are exceptions to the rule, but come on.) Learn magic and show me a fun trick.

10. I first just have to say how creepy this one is. I can’t even think of something to replace it.

11. Sing me a song. Failing that, play a song really, really loudly from outside my bedroom window on a boombox held up high over your head. Failing that, don’t bother.

12. I love a man that can cook, but can be just as happy to go out to a nice meal. (and seriously what’s with the constant calorie counting?)

13. When I tell you I have a crush on someone famous, allow me to add them to my “Movie Star Sex” list. You know… the list of movie stars I’m allowed to have sex with given the opportunity, without any repercussions… of course this goes both ways, you’ve got to let him have a list too. ;) (BTW, who’s Jakob Dylan? Couldn’t they have picked someone like Harry Connick Jr.?)

14. Hold me as often as you can.

The Most Unusual Gift Ever Received!

I have this awful step-grandmother. You know, like the one in the story… always crushing dreams, preparing bad food, and insisting that you come over for the holidays. Yes, she is not so nice, and I am fairly confident in saying that if I ever had to go live with her, I too would have had to have birds and mice help me make a dress to get out of that place!

My grandfather was no peach either, but he seemed tolerable as a kid who didn’t know any better. He always told me the same story when I saw him… the one about all the cars he has owned since the very first car ever came out. He was born in 1910, so that’s a lot of cars. He has since passed away, yet the step-grandmother lingers on.

I remember all the Christmases and Thanksgivings spent at their home. The home was filled with dark brown and burnt orange furniture. It was always dimly lit. And there were a million glass candy jars full of spiral hard candies, root beer barrels, and butterscotch. There was always food on the table in the kitchen. A huge spread of cheese, meat, bread, crackers, vegetables, and a jello mold of some sort. All of which was placed on the table early in the morning when she got up, and our family arriving at noon would never touch the food. The cheese would be slimy, the meat slightly green, the bread was hard enough to throw at someone, and lord knows what was in that jello mold! ick!

My mom, dad, sister, and me would all bring nice gifts for my grandfather and his wife in the spirit of giving at Christmas. And every year we would get the most unusual (and typically tacky) gifts from them. I should say from “her” because my grandfather was never involved in the shopping – in typical old-fashioned male form. My step-grandmother worked at Woolworth’s, as many of you will remember was the “K-Mart” of it’s time. They offered cheap stuff and even cheaper “discount bins”. Our gifts were blue light special all the way. One year each one of us got a plaid, flannel, button-up shirt, each in a different color. But the best year was the year that we all got matching, knitted scarves and hats in different fluorescent colors. I think I got hot orange! They were hideous! If she had made them with loving care, I might have not been so harsh about the color of them, but she actually spent money on them! ouch! Granted, not much money of course, each set most likely cost around $2 each. I guess that’s what living through the Depression did to some people.

I started talking with Brad about the awful gifts that we used to get from my step-grandmother and he told me some horror stories of his own. I was even present for one of them! His whole family buys him the worst gifts. Probably one of the funniest was when he was 20 years old, (he’s an artist), so his Aunt bought him the Michael’s “artist gift set” which included crayons, a few colored pencils, some cheap brushes for watercolor and one of those watercolor sets for kids. What a riot! At least she meant well.

So, my eyes were opened to the fact that you can get bad gifts from people who didn’t care enough to go out and get the appropriate item. And you can get bad gifts from people who love you dearly but just have no sense of how old you are!

I would love to hear, what are the worst gifts or the most unusual gifts that you have ever gotten? And was it given in a loving fashion or was it a “filler” gift?

Please Vote for Me!!!

If you know me, then you know that I am always wearing my MAC eyeshadow. I am one of their biggest fans, as I'm sure you all are too!

MAC Cosmetics is having a contest called "Are you an original?" I have entered the contest. We had to provide a photo that I think makes me look like an original and post a 200 character (not word) response to why I am an original.

Now, here's where you come in... there is voting!! Yay!! Please vote for me... here's where you can see me and vote for me... www.maccosmetics.com/origina...try.tmpl

There are a ton of "originals" on the site already, so I need all the votes I can get!!

Thanks so much for your continued support!

xoxo
~Blume

Robyn Swank is the RADDEST Artist!!!

We are having our pictures taken tonight by one of the raddest artists alive!! Her name is Robyn Swank, and I have been a fan of her artwork for a really long time! Her work is dark, brooding, and profound. I just *love* her!!

And she is taking our pictures tonight!! yay!!!

Check out her website... and stay tuned for the photos. :)

www.wickedswank.org/

PS. You must be 18 or older to view the website... some of the images are graphic and there is nudity. Photo posted is by Robyn Swank, listed under Designs on her website.

What do you like most....

Someone posted the question, what do you like most about being a belly dancer? I thought about it for some time and here's what I came up with...

Belly dance is the only place, the only group, I have found that has such a supportive female environment. Of course there are always a few bad apples, but once those rot, all we are left with is a wonderful, all-inclusive sport. Belly dancers can be of any size, shape, color, religion, and age. Any woman can become an incredible belly dancer despite (and because of) all of these things. Belly dancers band together in a world where the normal family/friend systems are falling apart. I love belly dance with my passion and soul. I can not think of any group that I would rather belong to. Belly dance is female empowerment!

What do you like most about being a belly dancer?

Have you ever had a pony?

You know when you're a little girl and you beg and beg and beg for a pony every year for Xmas? I did... of course, secretly I hoped that it would be not only the run of the mill pony, but a unicorn! Hey, a girl can dream, right?!!

So, when I was 8 years old, (I think)... I got TWO PONIES!! Boy did I get what I asked for, they were fun and beautiful AND a lot of work!

So, I was thinking... have you ever had a pony? Or have you ever gotten something you wished for for a really, really long time? And what was it? I would love to hear your stories!!

xoxo
~Blume
PS. Artwork by Bradley Hill... isn't it beautiful?!