Before I get to the dance part of this blog, I will say that I attended my first NFL game with my husband's parents and his aunt during the Rams season opener. The crowd was electric and the stadium was STUPENDOUS - the 5 billion dollars they spent on it were on full display and MAN was the game fun. The most fun part was seeing my husband walking around the field before the game - it was amazing to witness this catharsis. I am SO proud, and so were his parents!
Upcoming Performances
Testimonial for Legends of Belly Dance
I have actually had the opportunity to freaking dance a bit with actual PEOPLE in this city - I took every freaking workshop during the Legends of LA event put up by Dance Garden LA this year. I knew that these two days were going to be jam packed and exhausting but I could NOT pass up an opportunity to fan girl over the teaching artists AND learn a bunch AND make a bunch of friends.
To put it in a nutshell, the Legends of LA event was a hugely successful multi-modal display of incredible skill. Lauren, who co-owns DGLA with her business partner Heather, was 8.5 month pregnant during the weekend. Her expertise with administration, her patience with confused attendees (namely ME), her friendly demeanor, and her professionalism were definitely on display during the event. I didn't get to meet Heather in person, but I'm sure this dynamic duo will proceed to administer some incredible dance events during my tenure in LA - I am completely impressed. The workshops themselves were for the most part excellent. And I mean excellent. If you know me, if something is average I will call it that - there is nothing wrong with average, and I'm not afraid to air this opinion. I truly mean it when I call most of the workshops EXCELLENT. Putting aside how generous the instructors were and how I have been fans of them for, um, ever, the quality of instruction and caliber of information was mind blowing. With many of the instructors, every comment was filled with information backed with years of effort and experience. I'm sure I'll look back onto a few of the workshops down the road and continue to find new revelations and nuggets from the day. I am grateful that I had the time and resources to take every single one. I even got to help in Sahra Kent's workshop by showing some sumbati moves with her coaching (yay practicing the splitz every day)! My narcissism aside, I came away inspired to continue on my journey as a student of this incredible art form - it is SO COOL that there are so many shining stars relatively near where I live that I can learn lessons from. I cannot let this review slide without mentioning the BRILLIANT hafla that featured the workshop instructors and a few at-large LA dance troupes. Lauren told me that this year was particularly stellar - parts of my jaw are still dragging on the floor from a few of the performances. Finally, I MUST remark on how friendly the fellow participants were to me - a total dork who talked almost the ENTIRE time. Thank you new friends for being so nice to me! I hope to get to know people more and become a part of the lovely community in LA that I got a peak of during the weekend. I'm excited to continue to learn more, make new friends, and discover new professional and learning opportunities. How did I get this amazing life? 
The Starbelly Arabic Folkloric Celebration in one minute or less!
The ever so talented Cecilia and Chad Rinn put together this awesome gratitude clip about the Starbelly Arabic Folkloric Celebration! At least watch the first 5 seconds where I am obviously pleased with my cane bangin' skills, haha!
​For more information about how that went, check out my previous blog post! |
AuthorTori King is a belly dance artist, culture enthusiast and general weirdo. Is this a good biography? Do you like me yet? :-) Archives
August 2024
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