Not too long after diving into American Tribal Style belly dance, I'd decided that I liked it so much that it was going to be my new goal to be good enough, by the end of the year, to join a troupe.
It looks like I made that goal -- earlier that I thought, even -- because my belly dance instructor has asked me to join her troupe, Skin Deep. I guess this means I'm a real belly dancer now.
It seemed that as soon as I joined the troupe we started getting a slew of performance dates alongside Skin Deep's student troupe, and since I've got a lot of family and friends local to the area, I thought it would be useful to point out where we're performing.
This Saturday, July 12th, we'll be in the Mercer Island Parade. It's a short parade, and Western-themed, which makes it a bit odd that we'll be there in full tribal regalia. But who cares if awesome coin bras and giant skirts you could lose a small family in don't match with lassos and cowboy boots?! It's a small parade, but we'll be there (it starts at 10 am).
We'll be performing next at the Mediterranean Fantasy Festival on Saturday, July 19th on the indoor stage at 12:44 pm. Yes, you read that right -- 12:44, not 12:45. We'll be performing with Ishq, the live Middle Eastern acoustic band we've been working with, and I think it's such a great dynamic to perform with live musicians, which means it should be a great show.
In August we're the half-time show for the Rat City Roller Girls roller derby bout on August 16th. Now this show I'm really looking forward to. Our set is wicked fun, and how can you beat roller derby and belly dancing? You can't. Don't even try. No, seriously. Don't.
We also just found out that we have an hour on the Education Stage at the Puyallup Fair, again with Ishq, at 7 pm on September 11. It may be tough to follow the sheep and milking competitions, but I think we can pull it off.
I've been putting a lot of effort into my costume pieces, with my biggest effort going to the coin bra you can almost see in this photo. I'll post more detailed photos of costuming creation, especially since I plan to do a lot more.
So if you're in the Seattle area, you have no excuse. Find a show to come to and zagareet us on.