Wet, skunky, and bright sunlight with long shadows, made it smell and feel like an early spring morning, even though we’re in the darkest days of the year.
This afternoon I’ll be going to our yearly Bellydancing Hafla. I’m bringing some fabric to help decorate the room where we dance. We all bring food and this year we’ll sit on pillows on the floor instead of at tables and chairs. We all dress up in pantaloons, long skirts, coin bras. We wear makeup and wrap your hair in turbans and flowers.
Everyone will be pairing up with different people to dance with.
I chose two songs a fast and slow ( Boire by Rachid Taha and It Don’t Bother Me by Allison Krauss and Robert Plant) and will be dancing in a quad with Emily, Callie, and Trish, my tribal sisters. Julz and Kathleen, our teacher will dance together. Emily will dance solo balancing a basket on her head and Callie and Trish will dance a sword balancing duet.
Then we’ll dance with whoever we feel like. Kat (aka kitty) will join in those dances. One of the founding members of Bennington Beledi Bellydancers, and the person who introduced me to Bellydancing, Kat comes every week to class for the Tribal Workout, a warm-up at the beginning of class.
This is my fourth Hafla and I can honestly say I’ve come a long way from the beginning. Next year I’ll be joining the rest of the dancers at the third level, the advanced class.
I still have so much to learn and I never imagined I’d get this far.
