Chad Rinn is a Starbelly Dancer, teacher at Starbelly School of Dance, and a treasured friend to our community. He was recently injured and awaits knee surgery scheduled for next month followed by months of physical therapy. This type of injury for anyone is painful and can be very difficult to heal from; but for a career dancer such as Chad, it can be devastating.
If you are avid fans of my performance calendar on the home page of this website, you have noticed that I am back-pedaling on the performances this month. After the creative extravaganza of the Big Show, I like to take some time to regather and re-examine my dance skills and technique. Shall we call it counterbalancing? I believe that if you aren't always learning, then you aren't growing and I am taking a month away to learn, find the places where I feel uncomfortable, and hugging them close. You can catch me in action again in April at our annual Easter party at Sofia's Greek Bistro but in the mean time, come see me at the studio, working on grants, or admiring the beautiful people around me and marveling in my lucky, lucky life.
I think these happy snapshots above say it all - the Big Bad-Ass Belly Dance Show: Elemental was a huge success. Many factors led to this but I think the most important one is our amazing teamwork. Chad injured himself pretty badly and the StarBelly Dancers and the StarBelly family rallied together to make this huge work of art happen. I'm so lucky to be a part of this specific dance troupe in this specific community. Wow. This post is long, but it needs to be. I want to be deliberate in my gratitude and thorough in my thanks. There is the saying that it takes a "village" to raise a child, and this baby needed every single member of the StarBelly village. The work showed and the reward has been tremendous. Wow. Again.  First off, our guest performers were amazing! FUSE Dance Collaboration, LLC (Shannon Keightley, Danielle Siegel, Pariss Beymer, Tiera Greene, Lexi Feldman, Arielle Sierra, Brittany Ison) electrified the stage performing hip hop to mahraganat music and Shannon Keightley created a beautiful lyrical interpretation to raqs sharki classic "Jamillah." We love your spirit, the mission of your organization, and your beautiful team work. Alyssa Kimm (our Satellite Starbelly) performed two beautiful solos as our Ice Queen and an incredible taqsim as an ethereal creature. Wish her safe travels as she heads back to Portland (but know that she'll forever be in our hearts). Keep your eyes on this page for when we kidnap her again! This list would not be complete without the incredibly talented local musician Matthew Vorhies who played his original composition and dodged our huge skirts as we circled him during the show. Matt is a member of Fleet Street Klezmer Band and is a true professional and joy to be around. We are obsessed with you, Matt! Thank you all for taking our show to new heights and creating so much beauty for our community to enjoy. We love you!  We hope it goes without saying that we LOVE the Visual Arts Collective (the location of the Big Bad-Ass Belly Dance Show). This venue continues to set the bar when it comes to sharing, creating, and displaying exciting art. Thank you to our "VAC Guy" Samuel for having us in your amazing space - we are BEYOND grateful!  If you came to the show on Saturday night, you may have seen Miguel Arteaga Photography working his magic behind the camera. Miguel donated this shoot to Starbelly School of Dance because he believes in our mission and he is undeniably awesome. Thank you so much for capturing the energy and creating beauty, Miguel! The full gallery will be available soon, but here (above) is a sneak peak of Miguel's work from Elemental (and a few of me are in my slideshow at the top of this post).  In middle eastern dance there is the concept of "tarab," which is the perfect marriage of music and art in order to create a trance-like experience of ecstasy. Our show had two "tarab technicians" in Chaz Gentry and Blake K Green, who crafted the spiritual atmosphere where our show took place. Thank you both for creating our world to dance in! We'd also like to thank the beautiful Tracy Lay who designed our program, which translated the work of the stage to our audience! The picture of me to the side is an example of the creative and beautiful lighting... I now require orange lights always. This year's silent auction was the most successful yet -- if you read our post featuring some of our donors you KNOW that we had quite the dragon's hoard (#incharacter). The heart and soul poured into the auction and the raffle was beautiful and inspiring. Thank you to Sue Risner, Tina Olson Schilling, Laura Wike, Heather, Bailey Peery, Linda Cates, Kevin Hansen and a very special thank you to JazminnSkyes Dances and Cassandra J Artukovich who had the additional job of MC/announcing during the show! You guys are making dance possible for so many people - you are wonderful. As always, thank you to the incredible students at Starbelly School of Dance for going above and beyond for our school! We love you! Finally, thank YOU. Thank you Treasure Valley for always supporting our dance troupe, the Big Bad-Ass Belly Dance Show and arts in our beautiful state. Our love for you has no bounds - thank you for making the magic possible!  Pictured: You being beautiful
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AuthorTori King is a belly dance artist, culture enthusiast and general weirdo. Is this a good biography? Do you like me yet? :-) Archives
January 2023
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