My Blog

Fridays at Heaven

maureen — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 21:34:13 GMT

We are usually at Heaven on Friday. I've had no luck posting the latest flier, but here's one that works OK. there's a new video promo that shows one of us at the 1:00 minute mark too, at http://www.youtube.com/v/uI8kDZzomZU&hl=en

bellydance sandwich

maureen — Thu, 12 Jun 2008 19:42:27 GMT

well, that's what it feels like. yesterday (1st bread slice): we debuted our new steampunk number at Noc NOc last night, complete with new costumes. it's a flimflam story of romance, dangled bait, and betrayal, to the tune of Raquy and the Cavemen. on my way to pick Xtina up on our way to the club, a woman ran out into the street waving a set of jumper cables. so i stopped and helped her and her friend jump their car, all the while wearing my stage makeup and mini top hat and ugly, 2nd-hand gig overcoat over the rest of my getup. hopefully i made 2 new converts by helping them out :-) today (sandwich filling): day off from work and troupe practice. except for troupe-trip packing duties. tomorrow (2nd bread slice): we leave for Tempe, AZ, and the Pharos Live! festival at ass-crack o'clock in the morning (that's 4:30 AM for me) to spend the weekend teaching and performing such things as ... our new steampunk number to Raquy and the Cavemen--live! they'll be there too in the 105-degree heat. at this point, i can't wait for 105-degree heat, seeing as how it was colder here yesterday than it was in Siberia. no kidding. i'm packing Belly Tarot props, 2 costumes, practicewear, and whatever else i can fit in 1 suitcase, which is all we can check for free these days. some of it will go in a carry-on, but Kendra and i figure that we'll have to wear our steampunk hats on the plane for the sake of packing room. i'm guessing that we'll be the only ones wearing top hats on our 7:15 AM flight. one of the props that i'm packing is a glass candle lantern; i think i'll use the empty space inside to put panties in. can't waste all that perfectly good space! at least we don't have to lug an iron cauldron and 4 swords, like we did when we went to Gothla in L.A. in February. my only prop for the steampunk number is a parasol--hooray! so it's almost a case of bellydance yesterday, bellydance tomorrow, but never bellydance today... that's the sammich. photo: me using J9's dog as a pillow on the last HoK road trip

Gothla post mortem

maureen — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 17:07:05 GMT

... what else? Ah, a Hands of Kali roadtrip to LA--what could be better? We threw ourselves a drunken seafood feast sendoff at the Anthony's in SeaTac, courtesy of the airlines, who gave us food vouchers when our flight and several others were delayed and then cancelled. They used to call it "mechanical issues," and now they call it "maintenance." Excuse me, but isn't maintenance something that you do on a regular and convenient schedule--not when passengers are waiting to board. so we had dinner (had to pay for our own booze tho), then practiced our routine in a nearly empty terminal, to the bemusement of the few people sitting there. our flight was going to arrive so lat that we wouldn't be able to practice in our hotel room as we had planned. then, Magi and I napped on one of the couches while Xtina and Kendra went outside for a smoke. Once in LA, Gothla itself was amazing. We saw many innovative and dark performances, and lots of gorgeous costumes. Laura Rose was there, and we hung out with her for a bit; her Sekhmet piece in the evening gala was delicious, ending as it did with her taking a big blood bite out of a human (prop) heart. We had a bit of an adventure procuring dry ice for our set, but we braved all that and taking our swords on the plane because the theme was Gothla: the Conjuring. Our first number, Angel, starts with Kendra and me doing double sword, and then black-veiled Magi and Xtina come out with a smoking iron cauldron to conjure forces that our warrior dance opened the gates to. Then we danced to NIN, a piece about addiction and dysfunction. Met a ton of cool people, including, finally! Tempest, Ariellah, and Asharah. i'll post video on YouTube as soon as we have it. Pic: glamorous jet-setting troupe life on the road

The Gothfia Revealed

maureen — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 21:13:52 GMT

The secret it out: Hands of Kali are part of a dark and exciting movement, according to Navel magazine. Check it out at http://navelmagazine.com/id24.htm (scroll down the alpha-ordered list of our fellow conspirators)

this one is for the ladieez!!

maureen — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 01:59:46 GMT

so i have a blog title and no idea what to write about.. what, exactly, is for the ladies? and who's a lady anyway: who gets to judge ladiness? that's bogus. oh, never mind. icanhascheezburger.com

another great workshop (and weekend)

maureen — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 21:08:04 GMT

I took the 2-day workshop with Mardi Love this weekend, and my brain is still seething with ideas and trying to absorb everything that Ms. Love taught us. Thanks to Helenwheels for bringing so many fab dancers to town for performances and classes: Sharon Kihara, [edit: not Rachel Brice! that was someone else}, Ultragypsy, and now Mardi Love. Tayissa Blue opened the Saturday showcase performance with a fabu tribal fusion choreo to 'Karakas.' Kickass!! Mardi Love's dancing was amazing, and her costuming was incredibly original and well-suited to her. Friday night Hands of Kali did our group sword number and then debuted our newest piece, which we perform to a Rage Against the Machine song, at Annex Theater's cabaret night, "Spin the Bottle." The audience was energized, a little surprised, and a little scared--all in a good way. In a cabaret/theater environment, you're really conscious that many many people in this country have never seen bellydance before, and never dreamed you could dance it to a rap-metal song. They've never seen 4 women moving in sync and shouting along occasionally to said rap-metal song while doing shoulder shimmies. A lot of folks told us afterward that they'd never seen a 4-person sword dance, either. Annex asked us back again in October for what will be our 3rd Spin the Bottle appearance. Changing minds and enlightening yo behinds, one performance at a time. Cuz that's how we roll! photo: Dora the Destroya, for all you moms and/or Kali fans out there.

it's caturday!

maureen — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 17:32:57 GMT

I promise I'll quit soon...

I can has...

maureen — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 20:09:51 GMT

...drumstikks?

Oh hai, I iz in yer Internets, absorbinn ur brains

maureen — Thu, 05 Jul 2007 20:04:32 GMT

man, do i miss amigothornot.com. i used to spend hours rating the pics. and now i have found icanhascheezburger.com/ can't get enuffs. LOL i really should get some work dones.

Dancer Cam!

maureen — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 16:59:31 GMT

today is day 3 of shooting the Hands of Kali promo video. the fabulous film crew consists of Ben the director, fresh from shooting a Built to Spill video in Europe Michael, Kendra's man, who wrote and performed the music for our main piece in the vid Ben the film editor, who shot some live footage too Karen the poet/writer, who is doing tech work in the studio Sarah the set photographer and bellydancer they followed us to our gig on tuesday night at Neighbours to film the set, mainly Christina's and Magi's solos. yesterday we were in the studio and performed Kommodities of the Fetish about 10 times, in between breaks to catch our breath and let the guys rearrange the lights. the first 3 reps were full of silly mistakes we don't usually make, but by the end of the day we were in the groove. we're working in the stellner studio in CHAC, which is hot as a brick oven in summer. we had to cover the window with black curtains for lighting reasons, but between takes we stood between the curtains and the window, right next to the fan, to cool off. bindis were drooping and makeup was melting; the occasional feather, jewelry bit, and hair decoration went flying. i forgot to pull my sweaty kneepads back up from my ankles for one take of our newest number, and i'm a bit abraded today from the floorwork. but it was FUN. we even did Dancer Cam for one tribal move where we all change directions in unison. first Magi and then Kendra held the camera at eye level during takes and moved with us as we changed direction. can't wait to see how that one turns out. yesterday we wore camo-punk costumes; today will be our Oreo look (black, silver, white) and then red-and-black. the goal is to get a complete take of Kommodities and then create a montage from our other numbers. today will be double sword for me and Kendra, plus group single sword, glowballs, and maybe one other piece.

the 'only' video

maureen — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 01:59:49 GMT

if you're even a casual Nine Inch Nails fan, go to http://www.digitaldomain.com/ and click on Features and then Behind the Scenes. Then click on the screen shot for the NIN video for the song "Only" (it's the pic of one of those desktop art-toys made of nails that you can push with your hand and it creates a 3D 'image' of your hand with pushed-up nails). Currently that screen shot is the last one in the top row of screen shots. after the video plays, stay tuned for a cool visual recap of how the CGI vid was made.

botox and animal testing

maureen — Fri, 22 Jun 2007 05:54:23 GMT

http://www.hsus.org/animals_in_research/animal_testing/the_beauty_myth_botox_kills_animals/index.html people who get botulism toxin injected into their faces to stave off wrinkles are buying a product that uses animal tests that may not be necessary. if you use this product or know someone who does, urge them to demand that the manufacturer, Allergan, fund research into alternatives to its Lethal Dose 50 tests (to find the right level of toxicity, the test batch should kill 50% of the animal subjects--over the course of 3 or 4 days, their diaphrams become paralysed and they suffocate). there are "indications that each batch ... is tested more than once." what a funny yin-yang it is: to recapture youth, people inject themselves with death and poison. now THAT'S black humor. i always used to wonder: why do they need to repeat some of these tests? think of the millions of high-school biology classes performing the same dissection 'experiments' over and over--we already know what's inside a frog by now, people! save that shit for medical students, who actually need to do that kind of thing.

your cyborg name

maureen — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 22:44:32 GMT

got this off the gothic bellydance tribe: http://cyborg.namedecoder.com/ My cyborg name is M.A.U.R.E.E.N.: Mechanical Artificial Unit Responsible for Exploration and Efficient Nullification love it!

it was all very meta...

maureen — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 17:48:01 GMT

we performed last night at starfish studios for artwalk. the occasion was the gallery opening of some photos taken by our friend Sarah, who is a bellydancer. and the photos were of ... us! when she told us about the opening and asked us to perform, we gave her a hearty Yes! how incredibly flattering. after our set, we got a few audience members to dance with us, including one gal who was a natural. Tayissa and some of her friends were there too. Sarah and I had each brought Kendra a birthday cake (ok, so hers was a gorgeous white cake with icing flowers and mine was lopsided homemade!), so we fed everyone cake and sang Happy Birthday. the building where this all happened was right off Pioneer Square, filled with dozens of small galleries. people were selling baked goods to support foreign causes, playing violin, walking around and enjoying the art. the room we were in was literally a stone's throw from the viaduct, so through the 15-foot-tall windows you could see Puget Sound and streams of cars rushing into and out of the city. the best part--i found a parking space right out front. for those of you who haven't been to artwalk, that's, like ... magic! speaking of magic, the photo is of a white tiger cub recently born in one of the world's zoos...i don't recal which one!

Tipping--I don't think I like it

maureen — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 21:30:36 GMT

HoK performed for the first time at a lesbian night at a local nightclub on Saturday. The idea is that there are 2 or 3 acts of five minutes each, and we were to go last. The first number was a drag-king and femme duet lyp-sync. Then we came out, and we hadn't been dancing 15 seconds when the tipping started. I wasn't expecting to be tipped during our choreography, and it threw me off a bit. But that's how the evening is designed--the audience was doing what they usually do. It was all women and everyone was having fun. I thought, "Sure this is cool with me. Look--free money!!" My only prior experience with tipping was a couple of times we went through the audience with a tip basket after the show. that was ok, except for the occasional assholeish remarks. Because I was going to them asking for money, it felt like begging. Looking back on both tipping occasions, I didn't feel comfortable with either one. Our culture puts a subservience/dependence slant on the whole thing that I don't like. I used to be a waitress, and I much prefer making a living without relying on tips. During our second song we were waving veils around, and hardly anyone braved the flung fabric to tip us. No one in the audience did or said anything objectionable or demeaning, but if we do this gig again, I'm all for starting with a sword dance. That way the audience will be obliged to watch us dance one song first before they start tipping--and I'll know i'm being tipped for how I danced and not just for showing up onstage in a costume.

completely unsupervised

maureen — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 01:56:13 GMT

It's just me and the cat tonight. Dinner was a premade grocery-store sushi combo, a bottle of beer, and a chocolate cupcake. i'm eating potato chips for dessert. I get to watch whatever I want on TV. Right now that's King of the Hill, soon to be followed by NFL Network. I had the day off from work--all work except running various errands, such as procuring Wellness Formula pills and Airborne. Yep, we're both fighting colds. Most of my day was spent going over my manuscript to get it ready to send out to editors. John and I saw a movie yesterday: Pan's Labyrinth. Man, was it good. It was hard to watch sometimes because of the violence, but nothing felt gratuitous. The ending wasn't "happy," but it felt satifsying. There were many interleaved themes and events ... parallel elements. I highly recommend it.

but why football? ew!

maureen — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 21:30:53 GMT

first off, the right team won the superbowl on sunday, and the officiating was good this time! what a relief. i felt bad for Rex Grossman, because he has never made excuses for his performance. John thinks he'll be good someday. after all, he's just starting out. i've been pondering my attraction to this game. there's the medieval aspect ( knights in armor), and the comic-book-character aspect (those sideline cold-weather capes! those helmets!), and the attraction of watching a group all acting together toward a common goal (this explains the popularity of synchronized swimming, ice dancing, and Riverdance, all of which need 'splaining, if you ask me). there IS chivalry in the NFL--witness LaDainian Tomlinson getting an award for his humanitarian work, what with all the stuff he does for disadvantaged children. And he sticks up for his team even though he's getting shit for it and he's a star and could very well pull a diva act. yeah, there are some bonhead players and a lot of macho crap that goes on. too much of that. and not much security for players who risk injury and gamble on their income and pensions, and have really short careers. BUT, one thing that struck me is the coloblindness of it. there's a great series on the nfl network called America's Game, where they interview 3 members of a winning superbowl team, and as i watch it i realize that aside from a couple of instances of white commentators referring to the 2 black coaches in the superbowl as "dignified" (when do white people ever refer to other white people as dignified? it gets applied to black people as if whites are surprised by it or have to call it out, but whites are assumed to be dignified by default), there's no racism. one guy on America's Game talked about being a white player from the south back in the early 60s, and he was sure that every time he opened his mouth, his Alabama accent made the black players hate him. he said, "I didn't know how to act. I was totally unprepared to be on an integrated team." but a few weeks later, someone spoke to him one night--the white player said, "I thought it was the voice of God at first!" But it was a black teammate of his, who said, "I'll help you make the team. just work with me." and the white player said in his interview, "that changed my life." i see it a lot: black players talking about their older white coaches with total respect and affection, and vice versa. white players talking about their black coaches the same way. etc. there's one sports show that has all black commentators, and every other show i've seen is at color-balanced about half and half. so, Disneyland it ain't. but i think it's done more for bettering race relations than people realize. it truly is merit based. now, we still have to work on getting more minority and female owners and more minority coaches. and it's still too macho, even if a commentator occasionally jokes about having a 'man crush' on a player. but there ya have it. where else but in sports do you see black men talking about their hopes, dreams, and emotions like that? i don't count hiphop, which is generally too macho and too much hype to be the best place for that.

things are happening

maureen — Mon, 29 Jan 2007 21:33:34 GMT

2006 went out like a candle, and 2007 is cookin' already. I met with the literary agent who requested my manuscript yesterday, and we really hit it off. At least, I think so! As I'd gathered from the books he's agented and his history as a lawyer, Paul is very much into First Amendment issues like free speech. So we should be a good fit to try help this novel of mine along ... it's not exactly family fare. My elevator pitch for the book is: A mysterious woman infiltrates the set of a director’s present-day Hollywood film and incites a cat-and-mouse affair of increasingly dangerous erotic games. I had fun writing about the gallery in her house, which she had furnished with excruciation devices handmade by her artist conquests--devices are beautiful as they are functional. There's a mural of a Hieronymous Bosch-style anti-Eden painted on the wall with a hidden door in it that leads to her bedroom. The central image of the mural, which is bisected down the middle by the door, is The Hanged Man of the tarot. The funny part is that I came up with that image long before I joined Hands of Kali. And when Magi joined us, the first time we were going to perform Belly Tarot, she said, "I'm painting a complete tarot deck--wanna use my Tarot of the Pomegranate for Belly Tarot?" She has yet to paint the Hanged Man, but she's about 2/3 finished with her own complete deck, which she's already selling online. The cards and the paintings are gorgeous: check 'em out at tarotofthepomegranate.com. Aside from that, I'm well into writing my second novel, which was inspired by a dream I had. Most dreams seem really great when you're in them, and by the time you write them down they don't make much sense. But this one was incredible, and I'm glad I forced myself to write it all down at 3 in the morning. There are some cool bands we will be performing with this year: the gothic/industrial Legion Within and an electronica group called The Mentats (as in Frank Herbert's "Dune"). That's a whole new horizon for us, and we're really psyched about it. I'm just sorry my budding costume design biz has to go on hold while I take care of all the above plus my day job. Altho I am giving extensions to some rather bald tassels I just got ... jazzing them up a little with embroidery thread and beads.

i WILL go shoe-shopping--don't think i won't

maureen — Sun, 21 Jan 2007 21:27:01 GMT

my friend Rachael is horrified that i'm a football fan. she keeps threatening a sunday intervention where she yanks me from in front of the tv and forces me to go to nordstrom's. so the seahawks were eliminated from the playoffs last weekend. ok, i was handling that. then my pet chargers were out of it too, and on top of that everyone is parroting the party line that the chargers' LaDanian Tomlinson is a sore loser for calling out the chargers' coach. i'm sorry, but the patriots waited until they won, then they ran out onto the field to stomp on some chargers' helmets, made throat-slashing gestures at the chargers, etc. that's completely no-class, and it wasn't just one of their players--obviously the tone has been set in the organization for that kind of behavior, and the tone comes from the top. so all you LT nay-sayers can kiss my butt. today the bears are getting the benefit of some bad calls. it's like superbowl xl all over again. the announcers are already talking like the bears have won. all i have to say is ... if by the end of the day it turns out to be a Bear vs. Patriots superbowl, i'm not even going to watch it. i'll go buy something black and pointy with buckles all over it instead, and i'll stop for fancy coffee drinks and get my makeup done. don't think i won't! [image = the wretched, nine inch nails]

The real happy dance

maureen — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 03:36:38 GMT

it goes "flop, scooch, scooch, chin to the ceiling," and it's performed by my cat when I return home after a long absence. she first did it when i brought home a new area rug for inside the front door--she liked the feeling of it under her paws so much--and the fact that i was back--that she flopped onto her side, then scooched herself along the rug with her claws. then her chin goes up so I can scratch it while she purrs. once she did this dance as a celebration at the end of a vet visit when I got her crate out to put her in it: "hooray! it's over and we're going home!" sometimes i take too long in the garage, and she's already in mid-dance by the time I open the door. with regard to the rug in the entry of our house, texture and its effects on the paws is important. there's a brand of litter that i've only bought twice (it's nonflushable), and when i put in her box she jumps in and plays in it, she likes the feeling on her toes so much. We have a game where if I notice that she's getting playful (her eyes start to get that reflective glow in them), I make a sudden move toward her and she goes galloping off with her tail up in an arc, and i scramble after her. If I'm chasing her and she gets tired, she flops onto the floor to stop the game, so the rule is that when she flops she is "safe" on home base and we have to let her go (well, the actual rule is that she gets to win every game. she's an alpha cat!).

Stoopid criminal christmas

maureen — Tue, 26 Dec 2006 21:22:31 GMT

weird holiday... i got a nasty cold the day before c-mas eve and am recovering still. Luna is curled up on the sports section on the bed next to me (she likes the crinkle of the paper and the attention she gets for hossing something that we want to read), and i am reading my c-mas books for entertainment. John got me "Get Your Own Damn Beer, I'm Watching the Game!" which is a book for female football fans written by an "NFL wife." it's really good. he also gave me "I Am Not Spock" and "I Am Spock" to help with my Star Trek addition. on a less fun note, someone broke into his car on xmas eve and took the jack, the service records, and the owner's manual, and broke the cover for the diagnostic plug. a neighbor found everything but the cover and the manual a few blocks away and called us, so there's not much damage done. they didn't touch the stereo or CD changer. and ...a friend of ours found out today that someone cleared out his checking account. the cops are confident that they will catch the guy because--he used his own name for the transactions! some meth head, i'm sure. the best part was seeing my niece learn about Christmas. she's 18 months old and had a grand time carrying gifts from the tree to the recipient, and putting the discarded wrapping paper in a bag. she also liked taking her new toys out of their container and putting them back in. her grandpa got her a Thomas the Tank Engine that she can actually ride around on, complete with tracks, so the spoilage is well underway. she's extremely smart, and though she can't pronounce my name, she calls John "HiJohn" for some reason, and calls her grandparents "Gempa" and "Gemma." I made her an irridescent chiffon dress-up cape with gold trim, and she wore it proudly for a few minutes. she also liked the pair of pink rubber boots she got, and insisted on wearing them right away.

hold your breath...

maureen — Fri, 22 Dec 2006 23:04:45 GMT

...and wish me good luck! a literary agent called my yesterday to request my manuscript. i'm printing it out now. if i get an agent, s/he will then market my book to acquisitions editors at publishing houses. if one of them likes my book, s/he still has to convince the other editors at the publishing house to agree. if they do, then it gets published. at that point, it'll be up to book reps to convince bookstores to carry it. the publishing house should help me distribute copies to reviewers, but that'll probably be all the promo help i get from them. it'll be up to me to head the publicity for it. anyway, i'm still pretty close to the beginning of the whole process still. in other news, we danced at Confessional last night: the last Confessional at the second location of the Vogue, which has been around 23 years! they've lost their lease and will continue at CHAC on Capitol Hill in the new year. Monsignor hosted the event, which was a very crowded and fun fetish party. Poul took us outside to take photos, and we had fun shivering in our vinyl and black boots whilst brandishing our swords in an office bldg doorway and trying to look fierce. passing motorists sure looked amused, anyway! i stayed out late drinking champagne with my troupies, so i gotta run if i'm gonna get to the PO on time!

win friends and influence calicos

maureen — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 01:01:04 GMT

it's the time of year for introspection... when i adopted my cat, i wasn't sure how to 'train' her (to not claw the sofa, to not wake us up at 4AM asking for her breakfast). the gal in the pet store said, "if you respect them, they'll respect you." pretty simple. i observed her, and tried to imagine what it would be like to be separated from your family as a youngster and taken home by a giant into a strange culture. of course, Luna had been around humans all her life already. but sometimes i'd get frustrated when she had to take so long sniffing and considering everything i gave her before she would eat it ("don't you trust me yet?" i would wonder). turns out it's part of cat culture: mom brings home food that's half alive, so kittens learn to sit back first and watch it before diving in. that, and cats rely on smell even more than we do to taste their food. so... i try to remember that when someone reacts in a way i think is rude or frustrating, there may be a whole other reason for their behavior that i never thought of. i figure that if i lived with a giant who controlled my food supply and wellbeing and with whom i could not communicate verbally, that body language would have to do. and i should not tease the cat (even though that foot sticking straight up in the air while she's cleaning herself looks so enticing!) or laugh at her when she wipes out around the house. and i try not to pick her up too much--and i put her down when she starts to squirm. hard rules to follow at first, but ... it's been fun learning all her facial/body expressions and earning her trust. every once in a while she reaches out and puts her paw on my cheek, which i read somewhere means "i love you" in cat language. she comes to me when she's sick or hurt (most cats hide when they don't feel well--in the wild, you can't afford to let other animals think you are weak, or it invites attack). oh, and our sofa is intact. some of it was challenging. after rattling soda cans full of pennies at her when she'd scratch the speakers and putting double-sided tape on the kitchen counters to discourage late-night foraging amongs the dirt dishes, we found that as long as we gave her a certain amount of attention each day, she left these things alone. we did need to resort to zap mats (i tested them on myself first!) to keep her off the leather chairs, but that was because she loved to vault on them, not because she sharpened her claws on them purposely. now, if i could only get her to stop chewing on the flower arrangements. she's on my lap now with a stomachache because she nibbled on some lilies. lilies in high doses are poisonous, so beware! for some great reading, check out The Tribe of Tiger, by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas and Catwatching, by Desmond Morris. oh, and these 'rules' work on humans too! (the not teasing and the respect thing, i mean. i'm pretty sure Congress would not get more done in a year if i rattled some pennies at them!)

Hands of Kali in a documentary

maureen — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 17:56:51 GMT

Remember a few months back when Elle Empire came out from New York to film us at the Vogue? You can see the finished documentary, called "Crazed: the Bellydance" on Current TV: http://www.currenttv.com/watch/17137320?s1=newVids&list=newVidsByAssignmentGroup&k1=1&k2=0&sid=17137320&fr=7 It addresses almost everything! Men in bellydance, the misperception that it's a hoochie coochie dance, its origins. tribal and nontraditional dance. Kendra is in it many times, as is Magi, so check it out! My latest performance video (double veil) is on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azzgZGHRveY

"i'm gonna touch your butt"

maureen — Wed, 15 Nov 2006 19:24:13 GMT

those were words spoken to me by Gretchen of Raqs Underdog during her Juicy Belly class at Hafla Al-Madeena. Do I have a fun life or WHAT? Gretchen hails from N'awlins and wore her "Pinch Me!" mudbug T-shirt to lead her awesome class. We were trying to master the art of the relaxed-butt, knee-powered shimmy, and it was all girls, so we could talk like that. Eadwacer narrated a truly entertaining tale of a huffy genie, Tayissa's student troupe strutted their stuff, and Magi performed an improvised dance to the (fabulous) live band. I danced to canned music because i found the perfect Genitorturers song to do double veil to... Gretchen won the "most dramatic entrance ever" award by walking in with a veil draped over her head and shoulders as she balance a tray of flaming candles on her noggin. she then proceeded to create some cabaret fireworks of her own with her great dancing. Taya wore her Mad Max Meets Rachel Brice metal costume for her sinuous dance.