I’m still recovering from 6+ hours of driving home from Sebastopol. Getting home at nearly 3 in the morning and having to be up less than 5 hours later makes me feel like I have arthritis!
The last three days and the Tribal Fest experience is a big, sweet blur at the moment. When we went to bed on Saturday night, Lee and I both complained of having visions of bellydancers in our head… we just couldn’t get them out! I vaguely recall a few shining moments – Colleena Shakti emanating gorgeousness and royalty from the stage, the 80’s hair band set by Clandestine who then passed out guitar picks as promo items (brilliant!), Ariellah and Deshret DC’s amazing, multifaceted choreography (believe it or not I had never really seen her dance before), and the entire set from Zoe, E. Strong, Rose Harden and Auberon. The white gas masks and sparkly body suits were really unbelievable. And that just skims the surface! Never mind, all the other amazing dances and dancers I saw!
After the show was over and we were taking the booth down, Lee told me to stop Rachel Brice on her way out of the little girls’ room to give her a gift certificate for photos. I’m so glad he asked me to do that because I got to meet her and discover what a genuinely nice and down-to-earth person she is! In mid-conversation she stops me and asks me why I look familiar to her… I tell her I’m not sure where she might have seen me because I’ve never had the chance to take her workshops or classes and I go on and on and she stops me again and is like “Did you perform here?” I tell her yes, that I performed twice on Friday and she says “Yes! You did a modern number, didn’t you?” And I was like “Yes I did (with Khani)!” And she complimented me on how she really enjoyed our performance! Can you say—- B-E-A-M-I-N-G?! My head in still in the clouds from that conversation! She is so cool!
I re-met a dancer whom I knew in SB, Renee Bergan, who’s now living in New York; she is a social documentary filmmaker, dancer, singer, amongst other things. She sometimes visits the LA area and coincidentally grew up in Newbury Park. So we talked about her coming over to visit whenever she’s in town and either doing a workshop, performing, or just hanging out to discuss filmmaking and still photography! I was really pleased to run into her again because I think she’s a pretty exceptional person and I could have talked to her for hours.
Khani and I also discovered that Colleena Shakti is originally from Ventura. We exchanged contact info with her and I hope we can get in touch with her when she comes to visit her folks this summer. It would be great to sit down with her, pick her brain about life in India and the less-traveled path she has taken with her life and dance. I think I have a girl-crush on her… she is so mesmerizing when she dances, not to mention I’m in awe of the fact that she lives in India (another fantasy of mine). –sigh- This summer is shaping up to be so busy already… but with wonderful opportunities of course!
Lastly, the whole reason we went to Tribal Fest was so that Lee could bring his performance portraiture to a new audience. Thank goodness I made him buy some new tennis shoes because he was on his feet for a good 9-10 hours for two days in a row. We had prime real estate booth space just behind the Blacksheep booth along the back of where the audience was sitting… basically right in the middle of the major walkway for audience and passersby. There was rarely a moment of rest for Lee, me and A (our assistant). People were swarming the booth and we were having to turn them away or ask them to come back to view their photos because we were too busy! Perhaps the highlight of the weekend (from a business perspective) was one dancer bursting into tears of happiness while she was looking at photos. We have no idea why, but she was crying tears of joy while looking at the photos of her troupe… Wow.
——I’m taking a tiny break from the dance world this week, and over the next two weeks I will dedicate myself to my World of Wonders stage set for Cairo Caravan while Lee gets all the photos loaded from the TF performances. It is definitely time to re-collect and re-group. But the wheels in my mind are churning and already thinking of what’s next for me, Lee’s business, Medianoche’s next projects, etc, etc.!
