Something to do

You might remember the rumble my last showcase routine caused. I'm at it again, folks.

Friday night 6/1/07 at Dance World. Tickets are $30 and yes, dinner and the show are included.

Dinner starts at 6:30 and the show starts around 7:15pm. You thought the last one was good. This one is better. It's hawt as the kids say.

Love of Geeky Things

I get my iPod out to go for my walk. I press the button to make it play and it doesn't. It just makes this loud click. Here is the conversation in my head:

"OH NO! My iPod died!!! You can't be broken."
"Oh! Yay! It is broken! I can get a new one, now. Oh.. red nano!"
"Oh. It isn't broken. The battery is dead. Dangit."

New decoration for the dance space...

Upclose of the quote
Originally uploaded by pink-kitty.

appropriate quote for a belly dancer, don't you think?

Team work

On my way in to work today, I was thinking about the competition in January because I saw the nameless guy at the studio this week. The other dancers and I are very supportive of one another, even when we were competing against one another in the same event. When I got off the floor after seriously screwing up my solo, so many folks rushed around me to give me hugs and encouragement.

Everyone cheers for everyone else, except for that one guy. I will leave him nameless; but truth be told, I don't feel all that bad for him...not receiving support. I feel bad for his instructor, because I love her to pieces. But this guy thinks he's apparently God's gift to dance and he's not THAT good. The one time he was in the Advanced Smooth class, he repositioned himself so that he didn't have to dance with me when the lines got jumbled. Because he did that, I was forced to go back to the beginning of the line. The first gentleman said, "But.. weren't you just here?"
"Yes."
"Wait.. uh..."
*PK shifts eyes to other dancer*
"Oh....." he said.

Dude, I'm not sure why M is with you. Maybe you are a nice guy and you treat her well, but I think you are a jerk. And so does everyone else because when you came to class Tuesday night, 2 other women rolled their eyes and said "Great....".

And I'm not sorry that, when you were out during the scholarship event, no one was cheering for you.

No Clemency For Paris Hilton Petition

Paris Hilton has submitted a petition for a pardon to Gov. Schwarzenegger. Stop her! She has spent years ignoring the law and blaming others for her problems.

You know if you got busted for DUI and then without your license, your butt would be in jail.

Sign the No Clemency For Paris Hilton Petition.

UPDATE: Paris's plea for a pardon laughed out of the Governor's Office. Heh.

Old pants

You can fit someone else in there, I think...
Originally uploaded by pink-kitty.

We were cleaning out at the old house this weekend. There was a bag of clothes that I had forgotten to take to Goodwill when I moved out last July. They were big on me then. Now, a year later...

Wow. That was over my shorts. My pedometer was on my hip, too. Dang. I'm shocked.

Eric Volz on CNN

CNN's FIRST interview with Eric, TONIGHT on Anderson Cooper 360 at
10p ET / 9p CT / 8p MT /  7p PT.

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/

Tired of Apologizing

Welcome to all-dance-all-the-time here at PK's. I'm going to be sharing some of the more interesting discussions from the International Belly Dance Conference of Canada, the first being from the panel on sex and sexuality in belly dance.

I missed the first part of the discussion but found out that the opening statement was essentially 'belly dance is sexy. Get over it.' And this came from a man.

I think my favorite part of it was Venus saying that she was tired of apologizing for the sensuality that is a part of belly dance. Yes, there are dancers who take it to extremes and even use it as a ruse for prostitution but belly dancers are NOT STRIPPERS. We are NOT PROSTITUTES! She is tired of having to make excuses to non-dancers as to why she pursues this art form because they get squeamish enough with belly dancers because of the costuming and all.

"oh - it's good exercise." "it's a chance to bond with other women."

It is the only dance that is working really hard to be legitimate (admittedly, our own fault as dancers - and another blog post) but have to apologize for being sensual. Dance is a sensual experience - for the viewer as well as the dancer. It is about the body moving to music. Does it have to be erotic? No, it doesn't. But to deny that there is some kind of physical or emotional reaction - joy, sadness, laughter - is plain dumb.

Morocco said it best: The human body moving well is beautiful.

(Aside: on our way back from dinner Saturday night, we walked by some prostitutes but getting the camera out would have been too obvious. We wanted to put their picture in a line up that showed several belly dancers and ask "do you see a difference, because there is one.")

Sulieman, who is of Palestinian origin, talked about the dance from a Middle Eastern man's perspective. He encouraged the dancers in the audience to be flirty but coy. You don't want to just flail it all about on display for everyone. He then talked about the dancers (and this is why foreign dancers are now banned from working in Egypt) who would the dance as a means to find other types of clients (prostitution). He said they were whores. The dancer on the panel sitting next to him said she took issue with that.

"What else am I supposed to call them? They use the dance to sleep with as many men as possible."

She started in about not using the same terms for men and he waved her off to let Yasmina (the conference organizer) speak. She ran from the back of the room to get to a microphone.

"My boss wants to say something. We have to let her speak."

"I would call them free and happy women," Yasmina said to loud cheers from the audience.

Yes, I am tired of apologizing. I am tired of making excuses about why I dance, whether it is belly or ballroom.

"I do it for health reasons; it's great exercise."
"So I can meet others."
"It's fun."
"So I can connect with my feminine side."

While all of those, and any number of other statements, may be true to varying degrees. They all dance (badum ching) around the topic of sexuality. So does the church (yes, I'm dragging them into this as well because that is really a part of my frustration, too, but I will put that in another post.)

Some of my aggravation comes with the fact that I think society wouldn't want or expect to see a overweight woman comfortable with her body or her sexuality. While I am not completely there yet, I am far more comfortable with myself than a year or two ago. Truth is, I’ve felt like a healthy (thinner) woman trapped in a fat body. I could never get behind the whole fat acceptance/admirers thing. I’m glad that they found what they need but it isn’t for me. I have not finished losing the weight I want to lose but I know I will get to my goal with time and God’s help.

I'm tired of pretending the needs, the wants, the desires aren't there because either society thinks as a fat woman I shouldn't have them or the church thinks as a single woman I need to repress them (and don’t get me started on the idiots that are now saying single people should stay single. Oh for crying out loud – are you trying to drive people away from the church because if that was something I heard from my pastor, I would leave, too) - yes I know that is the human side of the church, not what God says. I am sick of hearing it and I am tired of apologizing for it. It is what it is.