The rest of the workshop was pretty interesting. Saturday was a melange of flamenco and "Oriental" (a term for a style of belly dancing - I'm fuzzy on the details). Naturally, I had taken the shoes I wore at the Friday night workshop out of my bag, so I had to do it all barefoot. The choreography we learned highlighted the difference between flamenco and the Middle Eastern style of dances - flamenco is aggresive, stronger and loud, while belly dancing is all about the feminine, soft movements, and grace.
We also learned some more about the history of the dance, regional variations, and the music itself. I will never understand 9/8 time; at the point where I started getting the rhythm, the instructor added a little hop-step, and I lost it again. It was a bit frustrating that I was having so much trouble picking it up.
Originally, I hadn't planned to go to the Saturday night recital, but I'm glad I did. Some of the upper level students, including Karen, did routines. The dancers were all amazing. Lucie , who is my teacher here, did an amazing piece at the end. Hadia, who lead the workshop this weekend, did two flamenco numbers and an Oriental piece.
Today was mostly Oriental, but the choreography we learned also had a number of South American elements to it. I had a much easier time with today's stuff - which isn't to say that I'll be able to go to class on Wednesday and teach it to the rest of the group, but I remember more than the first three steps.
And now I am exhausted. Fortunately, I took tomorrow off, so I don't have to get up in the morning. I may end up spending the day sewing the coins that fell off my hip scarf back on - yesterday, I lost four or five, but today I lost over a dozen. I found all of them, plus an extra someone else had lost after everyone had left.
