I went to Willow's "Bellydance Jam" Saturday night. $5 at the door and a dish to share. It was very enjoyable. There was open dance and performances, potluck yummies, and some vendors selling pretties. (I wonder if I could have sold a veil or two....) I lost count of the performers after the eighth, Willow said there were twelve. There were sword dancers, and some Egyptian, some Turkish, some gypsy, some fusion, and a tambourine performance - which I haven't seen in a long time. (I was disappointed that no one danced with a cane. Cane is more difficult than sword. Sadly, cane seems to be getting more and more rare, probably because of those flimsy canes you see everywhere now that are next to impossible to balance.) Willow herself was in fine form - I've never seen her so sinuous - it was like she had no spine at all!
Two performances were especially thrilling. One woman had fire balls on chains, which she whirled as she danced in the dark. Another danced with glass candle balls in her palms. What made her dance so special was that she had a veil draped over her forearms, and as she moved the candles under her arms and over her head in large figure eights, she wrapped, unwrapped, and rewrapped the veil around her arms, over her shoulders, across her back - without setting fire to it. It's hard to describe, but it was beautiful and fascinating.
I would have liked to have played around during the open dance periods, but the sound system was full of vibration and echo, and I couldn't hear the music very well, especially over the conversational rumble. Also, Willow's taste in music is evolving, and a lot of the open dance music was "different", and I'm just too old to "feel" new stuff. Old dogs and new tricks, I guess. Plus, having had no exercise in the previous two weeks, I was stiff and fragile.
I was fragile in class last night, too. My back kept saying "Don't you DARE!" I finally just quit and took pictures with Willow's camera for her website. This class is fun, and even when I can't keep up (they go through some very fast transitions now, which I just can't do, ye olde brain problem) I love to watch them - they are starting to look really good! But since I'm not there to dance, just to stretch and move and strengthen my back, I'm thinking it might be best to find another beginning class again. Beginning classes concentrate on the movements with less transition. I'm not real happy about leaving this group, but one must be realistic.
I took your tomato dish to the hafla, Daughter. I took the recipe to the grocery store on Saturday morning to buy the ingredients, and by the time I realized how much this dish was going to cost (as soon as I looked at the basil - two little sprigs with about 5 leaves each were $2.99) it was too late to change horses. I'm such a klutz when it comes to food, and I stood there in the middle of the grocery store trying to think of something, anything, else I could do, and I gave up and paid.
I doubled the recipe, and this is what it cost: Fresh Mozzarella $6.99; 2 cans of small pitted olives $1.98; small bottle red wine vinegar $1.89; 3 pkgs basil $6.87; 4 shallots $2.98; 3.25 lbs tomatoes (on vine) $9.72; garlic $.89; small bottle olive oil $1.99. Total: $33.31. Well, at least I have 1/3 bottle of vinegar left.
Almost everybody else brought chips and dips and the like. My tomato salad filled one of those big stainless steel mixing bowls, and there was nothing left at the end of the evening, so I guess it went over well. However, it gave me very bad gassa-pains-Maria, and I wonder if it was tummy pains that kept some people off the dance floor...........
No comments:
Post a Comment