Music

I have been listening to a lot of different types of music in this past week and have also been listening A LOT to my belly dance sword solo music. As I was listening to "regular" (non belly dance music), I was doing some errands around my apartment - washing dishes, giving the dogs a bath, putting away laundry, etc. When getting said errands done, I realized that I have very eclectic tastes when it comes to music - not that there's anything wrong with that! =)

When listening to my solo music, I have been trying to hear the "story" within the music. This is something that my instructor gave me to do as homework. During class this week, she asked me if we could listen to my solo piece so I could see others dance to it and I could see their interpretations of moves to the music. As we were all moving, my instructor stopped us and she said that none of us were really telling a story with our movements so she began to call out one possible story... "The Princess awakes from a dream and finds herself lost in the woods.... she's looking around for her Prince/lover.... she can hear his voice but she can't find him.... as she searches for him, the Black Knight finds her..... she has to run from the Black Knight.... knowing she can't outrun the Black Knight, she begins to seduce him with her moves... while she is seducing the Black Knight, up rides the Prince and engages the Black Knight in battle.... the Black Knight rides away and the Prince rides off with the Princess who is safe in her lover's arms again....."

Well, for those of you out there reading who know me, the very beginning of her story (beginning it with the "Princess), left me going, "um... no..... that's not the story I hear." When I told my Mom about the story, she told me that maybe I just need to envision a different type of princess when I hear that term - - not the typical pink dress, pointy hat, long hair, etc - - but I need to see Xena: Warrior Princess. Now she was my kind of princess! =) Mom also was telling me about something she saw on TV that made me think of her - there were girls dancing for a group of knights, while the knights were distracted by the scantily clad women dancing, the dancers took the swords of the knights and stabbed them to their chairs. Does it make me a bad person to say that I cheered "YEAH!" when my Mom told me she thought of me?! =)

After Mom gave me these different thoughts, I listened to my music again. Needless to say, I have some new thoughts as to what I can to do to "spice up" my choreography... I am looking forward to getting into the studio and working with it (and my sword) again. I guess, in all reality (thanks to Dad for also pointing this out), I need to dance how the music makes me feel and that's what I need to show those watching me. Everyone hears music differently and I don't have to try and make myself hear the music a particular way just because someone else does. Getting both of those reminders from my parents (about the different princesses and music) it made me feel better about my music and my upcoming performances (in the next two weekends, I have 3 solo and one troupe dance performances).

Along with working on my dance stuff, I survived Parent/Teacher Conferences this week - always a relief to be done with those. They were completed without too many surprises (hopefully the parents weren't too surprised by anything that I had to say - they didn't seem to be) and now all I have to do is input their comments into the computer tomorrow during my planning time (all of our observations/notes are computerized).

In addition to computer/classroom work, I also have a mandatory Staff Meeting this week, dance class, as well as a Conference I'm attending Thursday-Saturday, choir practice, and my friend is having a birthday Hafla on Saturday (a dance party)... Just thinking about all of it is making me exhausted... I should probably rest-up for the onslaught of activity the upcoming week has in store for me.

=)