Progress!

This week I have mostly been preserving every single fruit or vegetable that isn't fast enough to get out of my way, and have therefore had rather less time for costuming than I would like. What free time I have had has been somewhat complicated by the near permanent spattering of fruit pulp* over my person, which makes working on a cream costume a very bad idea.

That said, last night I did manage to wash off the raspberry juice, and finished up the belt base for my twenties costume. No pics yet, because boring strip of satin is boring, but the bra is looking something like this...

I have since finished the beading on the left boob, but still need to add the pearl drapes. There will undoubtedly be a post about that as I'm not sure where to put them, and asking my husband about the placement of pearl necklaces is a one way ticket to Facepalm.

I don't know about the rest of the blogosphere, but my bellydance diary is filling up fast, I have Sunday workshops over the summer concentrating on tribal fusion, which is my teacher's speciality but not my usual style. Come September i have two haflas and a workshop, then we're into October and another three haflas and a henparty. I've never had so much of a social life!

*six pots of raspberry curd, five of jam, a bottle of plums, two lots of cherries in brandy and some disastrous redcurrant jelly that hasn't set. The kitchen may never be clean again, but at least I'll never run out of raffle prizes!

A Little Bit of Goth and a Whole Lot of Thinking

I had been looking forward to Gothla 2011 since the end of Gothla 2010, but due to the gross inconvenience of my father-in-law electing to celebrate his 60th birthday, I had only the smallest taste of what is usually a hedonistic and hilarious weekend.

Gothla kicked off on Friday afternoon with a series of three hour masterclasses run by Morgana from Spain, Sera Solstice, and the inimitable, indomitable Sashi of Ascend Tribal fame and that wings performance. Guess who I was learning with?

The class was called 'The Awakening: Captivating Stage Expression', but could just as easily been called 'How the fuck did she make me spend three hours interpreting emotion through dance for the edification of complete strangers and why aren't I curled up in a ball of horror at the memory of it?'

Sashi freely admits to her ability to get people to do 'fucked up things', and in my book, convincing twenty uptight English chicks to throw phantom energy balls to each other, writhe around on the floor, and perform said interpretative dance is far more noteworthy than sticking bits of metal through your shoulders!

The course was light on actual dance content (some warm up shimmies and a short combo over which we had to layer the expressions of emotion), but by the end of the three hours I felt like I'd learned so much my head was going to explode, and moreover, learnt it by thinking and exploring and analysing, rather than having it broken down into bitesize chunks and spoonfed to me.

During the workshop we had to say what we wanted from the class, and then paired up with people who we felt shared a similar goal in dancing. I ended up working with a very talented lady who said she felt attuned to what I'd said about being a bundle of nerves and not being able to enjoy the experience of performance.

You may imagine my surprise when I connected the various bits of info I picked up (her first name, the fact she was teaching that weekend), and realised she was the creative director of a very theatrical troupe whose style I loathe, and whom I've been extremely rude about in the past!

A few lessons learnt then; firstly that this scene is too small for you not to bump into those you've been merrily slagging off; secondly that not all goths have facial piercings and tattoos; thirdly that just because someone likes to dress like Lady Gaga and throw fake blood on stage does not mean they can't dance; and finally it's Gothla, and if there's room for a fat cabaret chick, there's room for everyone else too!