Belated Dance Triumph

To be more precise, the dance triumph wasn’t belated, the reporting of it is. Back during the first weekend of August my dance troupe performed at the San Diego Renaissance Faire. For the uninitiated, our troupe, Blue Lotus, performs at several venues during the year. We do ethnic/folk/belly dancing. Not the kind of belly dancing where you wear coin-laden bikinis and shimmy like there’s no tomorrow. We do a lot of very traditional dances and we wear a lot more clothing than the cabaret style belly dancers do. My apologies. I’m a big fan of cabaret style dancing, too, but I have to say I’m relieved that I get to cover up a bit more.

At any rate, this was our first stage show at the Faire. In the past, we just hung around Liz’s Turkish coffee booth and danced in front of the tent whenever the mood struck and/or we felt that there were enough spectators. This was a much more formal and organized event. We put on a real show. Since you aren’t allowed to have recorded music at a Renaissance Faire, we had to provide all of our own noise. We drummed, played zils (finger cymbals), called, and sang while we danced. We were very lucky on the second day to have two outstanding musicians from the local group Middle Earth perform with us on the drums and the violin. Since we had the stage for a whole half-hour to ourselves, we really hammed it up. We told dumb jokes. We made spectators come up on stage with us. We yelled at each other and at the audience. It was a total blast. In addition to being the most fun I’ve ever had at a show with Blue Lotus, it is also the best we’ve ever performed since I joined the troupe.

At least seven individuals and couples had told me that they would be going to the Faire to watch us dance, but alas, not a single one made it. Everyone had a very good reason for not showing up, but I’m terribly disappointed that no one I know was there to witness our best show ever. To assuage your saddened souls, I posted just a few more photos of our performance on my Flickr account, but not too many. They just don’t capture the energy of the dances. And for those of you who really wanted to come but couldn’t, you will get a second chance. We enjoyed ourselves so much that we signed up to perform at the Escondido Renaissance Faire next month. It will be in Felicita Park off the 15, and it is two weekends: October 27-28th and November 3-4th. I will let you all know the times when it gets closer. We will be doing pretty much the same show that we put on in San Diego, and who knows, maybe our jokes will be even better by then.