Yasmina's Joy of Belly Dancing: "It is What it is" MAC show on May 16, 2009

What a great day Saturday was! Very long and fun!!!

My intermediate belly dance classes were invited to perform four numbers in the show. Marlina Kessler director of the dance companies at the Mesa Art Center (MAC) invited us to be a part of her show.

My cabaret class performed a sword routine and a Lebanese Pop number and my tribal class performed a tribal drum solo and Voi routine.

Here are the links on YouTube to the performances from the night:
Tribal Fusion Drum Solo
Voi
Sword
Lebanese Pop

The day started out with dress rehearsal for the "it is what it is" show at the MAC. Of course nothing is ever on time and today was no exception :-) Dress rehearsal was supposed to start at 10:30 so we all got there at 9:30 and you guessed it full dress rehearsal started at noon!

I was hoping to make lots of mistakes through out our numbers because we all know a bad dress rehearsal makes for an awesome show :0) I didn't make any horrible mistakes but enough to know it was going to be a great show!

Dress rehearsal ended just after 2:00 so we all headed home to make adjustments to costumes, get something to eat and try to relax before heading back to the theater at 5:30.

The show started right on time and ran smoothly. Our first number was the tribal drum solo and there were 7 of us. It's difficult in the video to see faces due to the lights on the stage and my husband sitting in the balcony filming. Back row left to right Dena, Kay, Debbie, Michele and front row Me, Elizabeth and Dawn. Check out those crazy lights the tech group was giving us along with the patterns that they were putting on stage. I told them to do what ever they would like and they did :-)

Our next number was the Voi dance or poi veil. There was not a lot of room on stage for the 11 of us plus the Voi but we did it! If feel that the veils purpose in life is to mess up the dancer; sometimes veils can be so flowing and really add beauty to one's dance than the exact same veil can turn on you and make your life miserable! So was my veil the night of the show. It was going well until it wrapped around my arm and I needed to spin in the opposite direction from my fellow dancers. Than during the 8's it decided it no longer wanted to stay in my hand but I got it back right away. The rest of the dance it calmed down and started to behave and looked gorgeous spinning around :0) Everyone did great on this number what an array of color!!! Back row left to right Kay, Melissa, Debbie, Renee / middle row Michele, Lisa, Elizabeth and front row Jackie, Me, Nicole and Dawn.

The second half of the show we started with the sword dance. Although I taught this routine to my cabaret class it has the flavoring of tribal style; what can I say I'm a tribal girl :-) You go girls - no swords dropped!!!!! Back row left to right Margaret, Paula, Kay Beth / middle row Melissa, Lisa, Dawn, Kathy and front row Jackie, me and Dawn.

Our last number was the Lebanese Pop routine I learned from Jillina's new DVD series. I went into the second row next to the wings for this number to let my students shine they did a fantastic job on this routine and they didn't need me center stage. Back row Margaret, Paula, Kay, Beth / middle row me, Elizabeth, Nicole and front row Jackie, Kathy and Dawn.

I love performing with my students what a great group of women; they are such fun!!! Below are photos from the day and thanks Elizabeth for sending me the photos you took from the day.