Yame
New member
So all these years dancing and I'd still never participated in a competition, mostly because so far there have been none (that I know of) closer than 4 hours away from me and I don't get a lot of vacation days at work.
I was heading off to Cairo last week, to take workshops from Randa Kamel and others at Raqs of Course. I was also going to participate in the competition there just for the hell of it, knowing of course that there's no way I could win because the dancers that go there are really really top-notch and much more experienced than me. But it would be a chance to push myself and get better, regardless of what the other dancers would do.
Sadly due to the situation there I had to cancel my plans at the last minute (just a few days before we were due to leave), and the festival was postponed. I decided to make the best of my situation and go dance at a competition somewhere else. Viva la Diva in Boston happened to be going on this weekend, and it's not terribly far from me (4-hour drive, 6 hours with traffic), so I could make it there without having to make any major arrangements.
I had a lot of fun there. It was a small and friendly, supportive environment, a perfect place to have my first competition. I've been feeling really stuck in a rut lately with my dancing and training, but suddenly I am feeling much happier and inspired to take on new challenges. There were some really talented dancers there, and what I really liked about this competition is that if we want, we get to watch the others. Personally, I much prefer to sit in the audience and watch as long as I can, rather than stand around backstage waiting nervously for my turn to dance. So I got to see most of the other performers, other than the ones immediately before or after me, and had a great time watching them!
Here's the video of my drum solo there:
[video=youtube_share;JFucu7k6h8Q]http://youtu.be/JFucu7k6h8Q[/video]
I was heading off to Cairo last week, to take workshops from Randa Kamel and others at Raqs of Course. I was also going to participate in the competition there just for the hell of it, knowing of course that there's no way I could win because the dancers that go there are really really top-notch and much more experienced than me. But it would be a chance to push myself and get better, regardless of what the other dancers would do.
Sadly due to the situation there I had to cancel my plans at the last minute (just a few days before we were due to leave), and the festival was postponed. I decided to make the best of my situation and go dance at a competition somewhere else. Viva la Diva in Boston happened to be going on this weekend, and it's not terribly far from me (4-hour drive, 6 hours with traffic), so I could make it there without having to make any major arrangements.
I had a lot of fun there. It was a small and friendly, supportive environment, a perfect place to have my first competition. I've been feeling really stuck in a rut lately with my dancing and training, but suddenly I am feeling much happier and inspired to take on new challenges. There were some really talented dancers there, and what I really liked about this competition is that if we want, we get to watch the others. Personally, I much prefer to sit in the audience and watch as long as I can, rather than stand around backstage waiting nervously for my turn to dance. So I got to see most of the other performers, other than the ones immediately before or after me, and had a great time watching them!
Here's the video of my drum solo there:
[video=youtube_share;JFucu7k6h8Q]http://youtu.be/JFucu7k6h8Q[/video]
