Ghost Town

October 28th, 2010 | Doors at 8:30 pm, show at 9:00 pm
Funhouse
206 5th Ave. N., Seattle, WA
Tickets: $7

Halima’s Spooktacular

October 30, 2010 | Doors at 6:30 pm, show at 7:00 pm
King Oscar Convention Center Ballroom
8820 South Hosmer, Tacoma, WA
Tickets: $10 in adv/$15 at the door

Cabaret Macabre

Sunday, October 31, 2010 | 7pm
The Columbia City Theater
4916 Rainier Ave S, Seattle WA
Tickets: $13 in adv OR in costume/$15 at the door

Cabaret Time Machine

Tuesday, November 2nd, 2010 | 8:00 pm
The Can Can
94 Pike St., Seattle, WA
Tickets: $10/$15 VIP

Happy Halloween O_o

~lettylou

Because I am your typical type-A personality given to hyper-organization, I tend to think of my “dance time” as divided into four categories:

- choreography

- rehearsal

- “kinetic” training (which can be subdivided into 1) technique training, 2) non-dance movement training and 3) theatricality training)

- “non-kinetic” training (dance downtime)

I’d like to explore these categories further in future blog posts (particularly the idea of “theatricality training,” to which I’ve recently been inspired because of a very inspiring private lesson with the incomparable Ariellah) but for the moment I’ll be focusing on “non-kinetic training.”[1]

I’ve noticed that bellydancers seem to do a LOT of activities that I’d categorize as “dance downtime”—more so, perhaps, than practitioners of other dance forms. I confess that, in certain circumstances, I can find this a *wee* bit irritating—I don’t want to talk about dance, I want to dance!—but I do truly think that dance downtime can be productive. I also suspect that our tendency toward dance downtime[2] probably reflects 1) our general commitment to holistic wellbeing and varied interests as whole human beings—pampering your body counts as “dance downtime”—and so do your related interests/activities like, oh I don’t know, reading and writing dance blogs 2) our commitment to creating and sustaining a healthy local dance community, whether this is you and your troupe working on costuming together, participating in community fundraisers for a local charity or the studio at which you rent space, or creating/participating in a support group for local businesses.

So, okay, but what exactly is non-kinetic training? As the name suggests, anything dance-related that’s not movement-based. A rule of thumb is that most non-kinetic training can be done sitting down, making it perfect for rainy, lazy days or times when you’re just tired, stressed, or low-energy[3]. Here are some of the things I do in my dance downtime:

• Work on costuming—since I don’t use a sewing machine this tends to be hand-sewing coin bras/belts/headpieces or mending costume pieces.
• Watch dance videos on YouTube, dance documentaries, or, yes, dance movies (would LOVE to hear your recommendations—I love me some Footloose and Center Stage)
• Read books on choreography, dance history, creativity, and the cultures from which the dances I create are derived (the latter also applies to watching movies/doing internet research and is hugely important and waaaay undervalued in my opinion)
• Sometimes, yes, just talk about dance. I find that this can be especially productive if you’re talking to people whose dance experiences differ from yours in any way—the type of dance(s) they practice, their race, sex, or gender, their dance journey, their religious identity or lack thereof, their nationality or travel experiences …
• Set goals. These can be any kind of dance goals, and can be individual or for your troupe. Time and time again studies show that people who consciously set specific goals (and write them down) tend to be successful at achieving said goals. This dance downtime activity is well worth your time.
• Write about dance. Whether this is a journal for yourself, a specific writing project correlating to a show or choreography, a dance blog, or even a work of fiction or poetry, I find that writing about dance gets me fired up to do it. This can be a great motivational tool for when you want to be training/choreographing but you’re having trouble getting off your comfy chair.
• Plan. Plan dances, draw choreography schematics, call venues if you’re looking to perform, consider collaboration with another dancer or troupe. Plan your training regime—this can go along with goal-setting.
• Take care of yourself! Massages, hot baths, foot soaks, skin scrubs—these can all be done relatively inexpensively at home and contribute to a healthy body and healthy stress levels, both of which are key to making sure you are at the place you want to be for dance.

What am I missing? I’m sure there are other things to do in dance downtime, and I would love to hear your suggestions.

Sarah Kate

[2] When I say “we” and “our” here, I’m referring in general to bellydancers living in America. I have little to no firsthand experience with bellydance in other countries or other dance communities in my own country, so I can’t claim to speak to or for them. Since I tend to be a “splitter” I also can’t necessarily say that there is a single “bellydance community” in America, and I’d be very interested to hear if your experiences are different from my own.

[3] … and I’d encourage you to honor that! Society tells us that we should be relentlessly go-go-going all the time … nature and our own good sense tell us otherwise. Stick it to the Man! Take a day—or an hour—to rest. Your body and mind will thank you.

SK and I are getting super excited to teach our first ever workshop Saturday, August 7th, 11:45am – 2pm at Skin Deep Dance Studio!

I’m going to be teaching some awesome possum drills the first part of the workshop to help you cultivate powerful fusion movements.  For the second part, SK is going to pull out some of her tango magic and show y’all some lovely steps to incorporate into your dancing.  At the end, we’ll pull everything together in a leetle combo that you can use for drilling or performance!

We always like a good hard workout, so bring a yoga mat and water bottle. (Yoga mats are available at the studio if you don’t have one.)

So, to summarize the knitty-gritty:
What: Super amazing workshop of awesome!
When: Saturday, August 7th from 11:45am – 2:00pm
Where: Skin Deep Dance Studios (2524 16th Ave S #311, Seattle WA)
How much: $25 if you register before Aug 1st, $35 after

So after all this awesome (only $25 for a two hour workshop? yeah, for realsies…), you’re probably wondering how you can sign up.  Well, you can find all the info and register here: http://www.skindeepdancestudios.com/workshops.html

Hope to see you there!

~lettylou

So, SK and I have been feverishly getting ready for the next couple days! Two days, two performances, one new number!

A few days ago, I posted the following on our facebook: “What’s that you say? Punk cancan bellydance fusion = too much? Only if by too much you mean too awesome.” Now’s your chance to come out and judge for yer scurvy selves!

Tonight, Friday, July 16th:

Raqs Macabre
@ The Morgue
5901 Airport Way S
Seattle, WA

Show starts at 9 and we’re first on the lineup! There’s a lot of incredible talent at this show, so don’t miss out: Medea, Twilight, Katana, Raqs Steady Eddie, Miss J9 Fierce & Xtina, Katrina Outcast, Lady Corrine, & Koreshakti (from Spokane!)

Saturday, July 17th

MedFest!
Indoor Stage
2700 California Ave SW
West Seattle, WA

CopperClock will be the first to take the indoor stage at 10:52am (on the dot!) A super fun festival to check out! Performances on two stages all day Saturday and Sunday, plus workshops, plus some seriously wicked vending. Be there or be square, friends.

Here are some things I found myself thinking in modern class:

I should be able to repeat these movements/sequences after being shown them.

I should look like my teacher when I dance.

Since I have attained some level of proficiency in bellydance, I should be able to quickly pick up this other dance form.

Since I couldn’t get this move/concept in ten weeks, I should stick with what I know instead.

I’ll never be a competent modern dancer.

Now I could do my rhetoric thing and deconstruct all of the above statements (they all contain fallacies of some sort—mostly logical fallacies). Instead, though, I’ll save you the boring stuff and get to the important part: none of that thinking was helpful. I don’t mean that in a think-positive-happy-thoughts way. I mean that actually, practically, in the real-time real world, none of that sort of thinking ever did anything to improve my dance.

As an English composition teacher, I’ve done a lot of thinking about assuming a “productive novice” standpoint. A huge part of my pedagogy has to do with first positioning my students as experts in something—basketball, mathematics, whatever it may be for each person—as a means of empowering them to be novices at writing. Yes, I just said “empowering them to be novices.” Assuming the mantle of novicedom is hard in a society that values the ego/I above all. Paradoxically, any learning experience is made richer and ultimately more productive if you position yourself as a novice—even at something you already know you do well.

Which brings me to an important point: of course, this expert/novice paradigm is relative. I am the bellydance expert only with my friends that don’t practice and have never seen bellydance! In a group of other dancers, perhaps I’m the expert only in executing omis, knowledge of musculo-skeletal anatomy, and ability to break down a maya in different ways for different learning styles and body types (before you ask, no, I’m not an expert in any of those things. ) In other groups of dancers, I may not be the expert in anything bellydance-related (but I might be the group expert on South American geography, tincture-making, and early Christianty!)

The novice doesn’t think like I did in my modern dance class.  After reflecting on the experience of that class, I decided to make some mental changes. Next time I take a modern dance class, I’m going to try to transform my thinking into something more like this:

It’s normal that my movements look different from my teacher’s—I have a different body and different experiences. How can I make these movements look more natural for my body?

I don’t have to perfect this art form for it to be useful to me and my dance. I don’t have to be perfect at everything I do.

Getting out of my comfort zone is useful in and of itself—that experience is useful to my dance life even if I don’t learn any modern dance at all.

Positioning oneself as a novice all the time also helps in avoiding what I call the “post-workshop blues.” I find that watching an amazing, inspiring dancer has a dual effect on me. On one hand, I feel incredibly inspired to dance and create! On the other hand, I sometimes feel discouraged—why should I even bother to dance when there are people who do it so much better? Why should I bother when life is not long enough to learn everything there is to know about the art form?

The novice doesn’t need to ask those questions. She knows that she’s never going to be the world bellydance expert—and why would anyone want that goal? Rather, the more you are a “novice,” learning from those more “expert” than you, the more “expert” you become.

Easier said than done, I know. For me especially. But I have found that when I’m able to position myself as a novice, good things happen for me—both in terms of my dance life and my emotional health.

Well, after much prep and lead-up, it’s finally time for CopperClock to perform at the Northwest Folklife Festival‘s Tribal/Fusion Showcase hosted by the wonderous Helenwheels! Get ready for an amazing line-up, folks, cause you’ll be hit with the likes of Darshan from NYC, Kami Liddle of BDSS, and the legendary Gypsy Caravan. You’ll also have the pleasure of witnessing the local/regional talents of Ginger Blue, Troupe Hipnotica, Skin Deep, The Bijou Project, and Elizabeth Dennis! And it’s totally, 100% FREE!!

Here be the nitty-gritty details:

What: Tribal/Fusion Showcase at Nothwest Folklife Festival
Where: International Dance Stage at the Exhibition Hall (Seattle Center)
When: Saturday, May 29th, 7:00 – 10:00 pm

Hope to see you all there

~lettylou

The festival is to raise funds to fix the Museum of History and Industry’s beautiful 1913 clock. The clock was vandalized only a year after it was donated to the MOHAI in 2008. CopperClock dancing to raise fund to fix a vintage clock! Could it get any better than that? Oh wait, yes it could…

The festival will feature the 1959 version of Journey to the Center of the Earth and the 1960 version of the Time Machine, in addition to shorts from the League of Steam! The first film starts at 6:00pm. Once the first film is over, there will be an interlude of live performances—Professor Payne and His Flea Circus and CopperClock (of course!)—and a silent auction. Then the films start up again. Overall, it should be a rip-roarin’ good time Plus, it will be our longest set yet!

Steampunk Film Festival
Museum of History & Industry
Doors at 5:30pm/Film starts at 6:00pm
Tickets: $9

Hope to see you there

But I digress. The reason I bring up AWP is that I have learned something this weekend—two conventions in two weeks is one convention too many. I had barely recovered from Cues and Tattoos two weekends ago before getting on a plane Denverbound. Am I exhausted? Yes. Was C&T worth it? Yes. I took some great workshops, saw a great show, participated in a great show, and got to spend some time with my favorite Orlandoids, Tammy and Mary of Yip Podcast.

The weekend kicked off on Friday with the Instructor’s Showcase. There were a lot of amazing performances—it was especially exciting to see local performers Infusion Tribal and Medea—and, seeing Fat Chance Belly Dance perform for the second time in my life, I almost cried (just like the first time). My FCBD crush of this year is Anita—the tall, gorgeous yoga instructor with chessboard tattoo on her back—but all of those women are just so amazing to watch. We also got to take a workshop with Fat Chance on floorwork. It was pretty fantastic—Carolena is so knowledgeable about anatomy and dance mechanics and she gave us several levels of floorwork to practice, from mermaid turns to laybacks. I also made an interesting discovery about my own body mechanics—I have outwardly-rotated hips, which is why some floorwork requiring the hips to rotate inward is extremely difficult for me. But it also means I’ve got great turnout!—too bad I’m not a ballerina.

Another workshop I took was with Jolie of Read My Hips, a Chicago-based fusion company. I took her workshop at C&T last year as well and loved it—if you ever get a chance to study with her, I highly recommend it. She’s a fantastic dancer—great technique, very personable—and she led a wonderful workshop. I came away with some new solo fusion combinations, and even some group improv combos. In fact, the class inspired me to begin choreography of a slow solo—I’m interested in playing with different types of dynamics and especially exploring the “slinky” end of my range of movement. I am really drawn to Jolie’s sassy, technical style—lots of attitude and personality (you can see her performing here.)

The ladies from Troupe Hipnotica did a great job organizing this HUGE event—a festival as major as this one involved a ton of behind-the-scenes work but the whole weekend was organized and ran smoothly. Awesome vending, awesome workshops, and two shows—can’t wait to do it again next year.

SK

I first saw Rina Orellana Rall perform flamenco in Friday’s Instructor Showcase.  She was incredible.  Her movements were strong and her entire body was expressive.  Overall, her stage presence was very intense and captivating (if you want an amazing example of truly filling a space with your presence and commanding the attention of everyone in the audience, look no further, friends).  Thus, it came as a surprise when I went to the workshop only to find that, in spite of the way she appeared on stage, she is a very small person, smaller even, than SK (hey, SK, no offense, ya?)  However, even with everyone else in the class towering over her physically, Rina filled the room just as she had the stage.  I do believe the term “powerhouse” would be in appropriate use here.

In the first workshop, we learned some of the (very) basics of flamenco carriage, stepping, and arm movement.  It was fun to be trying a new form of movement after so much bellydance immersion – and we learned a kick-ass barrel turn.  The second workshop dealt with a faster tempo and style.  However, I must confess that by the time it rolled around on Sunday afternoon, I was pretty much spent.  This final workshop was a bit of a blur, but I’m relatively certain we learned an awesome choreography and some dynamic stepping patterns.

I learned some amazing movements I can’t wait to incorporate into some choreography, but there were a couple more abstract concepts I came away with that are even more valuable to me.

The first relates back to what Rina termed intensity of movement and what I might call intention of movement.  In Rina’s execution of her movements, there was no foot, hand, or torso used with anything other than absolute intention.  This lent an intensity (ack!  there’s that word again…maybe I should get meself to an online thesaurus) and complete-ness to her movements.  Even when just one hand was moving, the rest of her was engaged and invested in the movement.  The concept of keeping the rest of your body ultra engaged while one part is doing an isolation is perfect for bellydance, where, much of the time, isolation is the name of the game.  For myself, this especially comes to play in my hands and elbows.  Even when I’m able to keep energy in my hands and arms while doing hipwork and/or footwork, my arms are often not extended enough and my hands are floppy most of the time.  If I step it up a notch or two and really try to keep awareness and intention in the rest of my body, especially in my arms and hands, I think I could get a handle on those issues and add a more completed look/dimension to my dancing…ah, something to work towards…

The other aspect of the workshops that I appreciated and found very applicable to fusion bellydance was what Rina said about integrating flamenco movements and styling into bellydance.  She asked that if we do fuse flamenco movements and/or use flamenco music, that we honor the spirit of the dance in the execution of our own style and be mindful about the background of the movements and/or music.  For the first part of this,  Rina asked that we keep that intensity of movement and really engage the core as the initiator.  The second part meant educating ourselves about where the dance came from, what type of flamenco music we might be dancing to, what the lyrics mean, and from what specific style of flamenco our own movements were drawing.  As many of you are already aware, there is a lot of controversy surrounding the ethics of fusing.  I certainly don’t have any conclusions myself, but I’ll definitely be adding Rina’s thoughts to my own understanding of the matter.

~lettylou

Cues & Tattoos is the only ATS/ITS-focused bellydance festival in the United States (eeps, correct me if I’m wrong…)  Thus, some extremely inspirational instructors are going to be gracing us attendees with their respective glorious presences-including Carolina Nericcio, the founder of ATS!

Sarah Kate and I will be taking a full weekend of workshops and performing in the participant’s showcase, Serpent’s Muse, on Saturday night.  If you’d like to come check us out, the Serpent’s Muse runs from 6:30 to 10:15 (ish) and we’ll be going on in the second half of the show, which starts at 8:25.  The showcase is located in the Seattle Center Pavilion, a separate building across from the Center House. The building is marked #38 on the map at: http://www.seattlecenter.com/information/map.asp.

Hope to see you there!

~lettylou