I try to keep my bitching and whining to a minimum, but I do want to say how tired I am!
Work has kept me really busy....with millions of deadlines and last minute changes, effectively keeping me up til 2-3 in the morning every day this week.
Plus we've had rehearsals all week for a performance on Saturday night , which will take place at Jakarta Theatre straight after a 5 hour bellydance workshop!
Tonight I'm training our Amateur Ensemble members (this I'm excited about), they are our beginner 2 level and upwards students who are scheduled to perform at a cultural festival and the Xtra-L wedding expo in May.
Better busy than idle though...keeps me out of trouble!
Wednesday, 15 April 2009
Jakarta Globe Article
About a month and a half ago, just before the elections, I sat down with the lovely Ashlee Betteridge, who contacted me for a piece she wanted to write on what it was like to be a plus-size woman in Indonesia.
I truthfully have to say, that of the articles written about us to date, hers was the most well-researched, insightful and intelligent I have read thus far.
Unlike many of the other pieces on us, hers wasn't condescending in the slightest,and painted a realistic picture of what some of our members experience.
Thank you Ashlee!
I truthfully have to say, that of the articles written about us to date, hers was the most well-researched, insightful and intelligent I have read thus far.
Unlike many of the other pieces on us, hers wasn't condescending in the slightest,and painted a realistic picture of what some of our members experience.
Thank you Ashlee!
Thursday, 19 March 2009
Yay!!My article is in the Gilded Serpen!
My title needs no further explanation:)
After emails back and forth between myself and the lovely Lynette Harris, Editor of the Gilded Serpent, my article finally made it's way into the virtual pages of the absolute leading resource center and magazine on bellydance.
To say I'm excited is an understatement. I love the Gilded Serpent, I spend hours browsing through their articles and it definitely is a wealthy source of information for the beginner student of middle-eastern dance.
I'm getting ready to start editing other articles on the Gilded serpent and will be reviewing Hadia's workshop this weekend for them.
Gotta run!
After emails back and forth between myself and the lovely Lynette Harris, Editor of the Gilded Serpent, my article finally made it's way into the virtual pages of the absolute leading resource center and magazine on bellydance.
To say I'm excited is an understatement. I love the Gilded Serpent, I spend hours browsing through their articles and it definitely is a wealthy source of information for the beginner student of middle-eastern dance.
I'm getting ready to start editing other articles on the Gilded serpent and will be reviewing Hadia's workshop this weekend for them.
Gotta run!
Thursday, 5 March 2009
Dorce Show and Nine Muses
Apparently our segment on Dorce Show aired today. To cut a long story short, we waited around for 4 hours then got dragged into a studio with a live audience while we were still slightly dazed. She annoyingly and loudly announced us as "the Bellydancers". I guess that after waiting around for 4 hours (not including the time it took for them to do our make up), we were hoping that she's actually refer to us as Bellydance Jakarta. Luckily she opened by asking Christine a question, which gave her an opportunity to say "bellydance jakarta" out loud, thankfully.
Dorce then turned her focus on me and commented on the diversity of our body shapes. She then asked me if bellydance gave me confidence (I actually wanted to say that I was already confident when I took up bellydance hee hee). Despite the bright lights blazing a hole inside my brain, killing whatever brain cells I may have had left, I did manage to blurt out an answer. I said that bellydance promotes body confidence for all women, as it's movements are natural to a woman's body, beautiful and feminine. So yes, it enhances confidence. I think I said something to that effect anyway.
She then asked me another question (aargh!) which I don't even remember! Then our music came on out of nowhere and we scrambled into position for our drum solo!
The entire segment was less than three minutes! Sigh.....ultimately, we got to promote Bellydance Jakarta on national tv to millions of viewers, although the segment was nothing like what we were initially promised. But I don't mean to whinge.....I'll bet there's tonnes of people who'd kill for the kind of exposure we received :)!
Nine muses was fantabulous...there was some glitches with music and costume malfunctions....my friends will know that anything to do with costume mishaps usually involve me! Luckily, it wasn't too bad...nothing that could get me arrested for indecent exposure hahaha....
It was great to see the place packed with fellow students and friends...as always, their support is invaluable!!
More later...I have a million deadlines to submit before I run off to Aceh for the weekend.....
Dorce then turned her focus on me and commented on the diversity of our body shapes. She then asked me if bellydance gave me confidence (I actually wanted to say that I was already confident when I took up bellydance hee hee). Despite the bright lights blazing a hole inside my brain, killing whatever brain cells I may have had left, I did manage to blurt out an answer. I said that bellydance promotes body confidence for all women, as it's movements are natural to a woman's body, beautiful and feminine. So yes, it enhances confidence. I think I said something to that effect anyway.
She then asked me another question (aargh!) which I don't even remember! Then our music came on out of nowhere and we scrambled into position for our drum solo!
The entire segment was less than three minutes! Sigh.....ultimately, we got to promote Bellydance Jakarta on national tv to millions of viewers, although the segment was nothing like what we were initially promised. But I don't mean to whinge.....I'll bet there's tonnes of people who'd kill for the kind of exposure we received :)!
Nine muses was fantabulous...there was some glitches with music and costume malfunctions....my friends will know that anything to do with costume mishaps usually involve me! Luckily, it wasn't too bad...nothing that could get me arrested for indecent exposure hahaha....
It was great to see the place packed with fellow students and friends...as always, their support is invaluable!!
More later...I have a million deadlines to submit before I run off to Aceh for the weekend.....
Saturday, 21 February 2009
Dorce Show......
While I was waiting in the Bellydance Jakarta's lounge today, sharing a gossip, cheeky laughter and stealing Pauline and Santi's delish coffee, Christine's assistant ran up to me and shoved a mobile phone into my hand, declaring"Mbak, ada yang telpon nih."
I curiously put the phone to my ear and said in my best formal businesslike tone,"Bellydance Jakarta, Mia speaking, how may I help you?"
I told the woman on the other end that I was Christine's assistant (hee hee) and she was indisposed, busy teaching classes. As it turns out, she was from Dorce Show ( a major primetime talk show) and would we like to perform and could Christine possibly give an interview and show them some bellydance moves on the show. Do fish swim? Duh. Of course we would!
I managed to contained my over-zealous excitement and told her yes, we would be very interested and Christine would call her back!
In short, we're taping the segment on Monday afternoon...so watch out for us on Dorce!!
I curiously put the phone to my ear and said in my best formal businesslike tone,"Bellydance Jakarta, Mia speaking, how may I help you?"
I told the woman on the other end that I was Christine's assistant (hee hee) and she was indisposed, busy teaching classes. As it turns out, she was from Dorce Show ( a major primetime talk show) and would we like to perform and could Christine possibly give an interview and show them some bellydance moves on the show. Do fish swim? Duh. Of course we would!
I managed to contained my over-zealous excitement and told her yes, we would be very interested and Christine would call her back!
In short, we're taping the segment on Monday afternoon...so watch out for us on Dorce!!
Saturday, 14 February 2009
Nine Muses...Here We Come!
If you would ever so kindly peer at the not too distinct image of a posterto the left of this text, you will notice that we're performing at Nine Muses on the 27th of this month. What's so special?Well, for the first time ever, we're flying solo! Yep.....We will be performing two dances each! On the surface I'm really excited...underneath, I'm oh-so-petrified! I keep having thoughts like...what if I blank out during the performance? What if I trip over my costume and fall? What if I get so nervous I start smiling like an idiot in a feeble attempt to mitigate the sheer terror of it all when I'm up there....what if..what if...and even more what ifs.
Rationally speaking, I know that I'll get over my nerves and have a great time and after it's all done, feel a sense of accomplishment, yet, I can't help all these worst case scenario thoughts. Yeesh.
I love the poster though, courtesy of Hanna...in an uncontrollable fit of narcissm, I asked Christine if I could take the poster home after we're done with the whole thing! Last year, when they performed at W9, Hanna also asked Christine the same thing....
I will be performing to Ya Hawa by Wael Kfoury and a cane piece to Aioah. I'm really excited, I've been practising and I love, love,love the music!! Ya Hawa has strong percussions throughout but has a slow tempo and the song means "the wind". It's really romantic....the constrasting musical textures...if you can say that makes me love it even more!
I've always felt that there's definitely safety in numbers in terms of our troupe performances...this time, no security blanket..we're on our own!! I'll just keep practising then...
Sunday, 11 January 2009
Third Annual Recital and New Year Stuff
I'm depressed.
Our classes are on holidays until next week, so I'm feeling some post-recital, post-new year blues.
Aside from being chained to my laptop frantically trying to meet deadlines...I'm just experiencing a case of the bleuggghhh feelings I get every now and then.
Our recital, held on 13 Dec, was a great big fat success...we had almost 300 hundred people there, lots of press coverage, our students looked fantastic...'twas a great night all round!
We then went on to Lampung (yeah, I know) for a New Year's performance at "the hottest lounge in Lampung"-yeah baby!! What I should mention is the peeps in Lampung party hard-until about 1130 or so...they waited for the countdown then made a beeline for the door!! Past their bedtime I was told by the less than enthused proprietors of the venue where we performed.
They also experienced kinks, with a capital K, I might add, with the sound system. When we opened with our Pharonic Odyssey piece with the Isis Wings Intro-it's supposed to be really dramatic and all that good stuff-the music conked out for two seconds then came back on again, but at a very muted tone, anyone was hardly able to hear it!! The owners then started screeching bloody murder in the kitchen into her walkie talkie to the sound guy who was downstairs minding the sound-system that was less state-of-the-art and more of the slapdash, slightly primitive variety of sound systems. The audience giggled, but kept watching us as we attempted to finish the dance as gracefully as possible (at least we get points for effort!). We then exited back into our dressing room.
We felt bad for the owners who had obviously put in some long, sleepless nights in putting this event together, but Lady Luck didn't seem to be smiling down on them this particular New Year's eve.
The same disaster happened three times!!! We started hearing rumors of ghosts haunting this venue being given as the reason for the sound malfunctions. Our opinion was that they needed a good sound system, that's all. But hey, what do we know?
Fortunately, things picked up during the second set and everyone went home happy. We hope it's the start of a New Year's tradition. We get paid pretty well to hang out with other troupe members (who all get along well), doing something we love (bellydance). It beats trying to manouver Jakarta traffic on New Year's!
Happy New Year!!
Our classes are on holidays until next week, so I'm feeling some post-recital, post-new year blues.
Aside from being chained to my laptop frantically trying to meet deadlines...I'm just experiencing a case of the bleuggghhh feelings I get every now and then.
Our recital, held on 13 Dec, was a great big fat success...we had almost 300 hundred people there, lots of press coverage, our students looked fantastic...'twas a great night all round!
We then went on to Lampung (yeah, I know) for a New Year's performance at "the hottest lounge in Lampung"-yeah baby!! What I should mention is the peeps in Lampung party hard-until about 1130 or so...they waited for the countdown then made a beeline for the door!! Past their bedtime I was told by the less than enthused proprietors of the venue where we performed.
They also experienced kinks, with a capital K, I might add, with the sound system. When we opened with our Pharonic Odyssey piece with the Isis Wings Intro-it's supposed to be really dramatic and all that good stuff-the music conked out for two seconds then came back on again, but at a very muted tone, anyone was hardly able to hear it!! The owners then started screeching bloody murder in the kitchen into her walkie talkie to the sound guy who was downstairs minding the sound-system that was less state-of-the-art and more of the slapdash, slightly primitive variety of sound systems. The audience giggled, but kept watching us as we attempted to finish the dance as gracefully as possible (at least we get points for effort!). We then exited back into our dressing room.
We felt bad for the owners who had obviously put in some long, sleepless nights in putting this event together, but Lady Luck didn't seem to be smiling down on them this particular New Year's eve.
The same disaster happened three times!!! We started hearing rumors of ghosts haunting this venue being given as the reason for the sound malfunctions. Our opinion was that they needed a good sound system, that's all. But hey, what do we know?
Fortunately, things picked up during the second set and everyone went home happy. We hope it's the start of a New Year's tradition. We get paid pretty well to hang out with other troupe members (who all get along well), doing something we love (bellydance). It beats trying to manouver Jakarta traffic on New Year's!
Happy New Year!!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
