It's been just over a week since the Bright Star in the Night event, and I figure it's about time I write about it. With so much going on, it'll just fall out of my mind and fall off the list if I don't talk about it, and this is an incredibly important event.
Bright Star in the Night is a dance workshop weekend to support a mental health program in the Rhode Island area. The weekend consisted of workshops on Saturday and Sunday, along with a show on Sunday night. It was a fantastic event and I'm so glad I got to participate, even if I didn't get to do as much as I'd wanted.
The first day (though I must admit, we showed up late because apparently managing a drive time is not something I'm fantastic at...) started with ATS(R) duet moves. I'm pretty sure I already knew the ones they went over, even the ones I missed because I take classes with Baseema. It was still a good, comfortable introduction for my sister and my daughter, and we really had a good time with it. From there we moved on to GC movements and using them to do a GC style chorus and how to bring out new dancers from the chorus. It was really a lot of fun and I'm so glad we did it. Also, I once again realized that so much of what I originally learned as ATS(R) was actually GC. There's going to be a whole post on that later, but for now it was just an interesting observation. Unfortunately, I didn't participate in the flow workshop, as much as I wanted to, because I was too burned out by the crazy week and all the workshops ever.
Asimi did take the flow workshop though, and she had a blast. She spent her time practicing with the staff, which she did really well with. She told me I definitely need to make sure I'm there for the next one, but we've been invited out by one of the wonderful GC dancers to come out for flow days with her and her husband, which should be a lot of fun.
The show was that night, but I'll get back to that! Workshops first! Also, there's a good deal of excitement surrounding all of that, so I don't want to be that kind of anticlimactic.
The second day of workshops we only arrived a few minutes late. Again, the work we did in the ATS(R) workshop was all stuff I'd done before, but I was so excited to be able to share it with my sister. We did some great moves, like Chico Domino and the flashy new Chico Avalanche. My sister was so excited that we ended up showing off both at ATS(R) class on Friday! We also did some fun stuff with formations and fades, which was really fun. We continued the formation work in the GC workshop as well, where we talked about the circle formation they use and how they change the leaders within the circle, instead of turning the wheel as we do in ATS(R), they rotate through the circle differently, so the lead always changes by one dancer. Then there was some stuff with click turns. And then? Then we had the vortex, which was amazing! I think that was the most fun element of the whole thing. If you want to know more about it, you may have to look Neylan up and check out classes with her, because I know I'm totally sold. If only the classes I was invited to weren't on a day when I've got a million other things going on! Warning, folks, I might be jumping over to the dark side so I can incorporate some GC!
Once again, I wasn't able to participate in the flow workshop. My sister was completely fried, and while she did offer to stay and let me participate, I thought it would be better to get some food in her and respect her needs. From what we saw it looked like it was a really cool workshop, so I hope he offers another again soon. However, this was a big workshop weekend for someone's first time at an event like this, so I'm glad we were able to participate as much as we were. I'm hoping by next year we'll have more stamina and can all weather the whole event, because we're all going to have to go down again!
Now for the moment you've all been waiting for, the show! There were some amazing dancers with some really cool concepts. I absolutely loved getting to see Blue Moon Caravan perform, as always. I was excited to see them perform again, especially since we've made so many connections with them. There were so many great performers and I wish I could share the whole show with you! I've got to admit I have a secret love for the dancers we met up in Vermont. I wish they lived closer so we could get together and dance more often. They're completely amazing, and were perhaps my favorite performers, though it was a tough call because there were so many dancers I loved. I also got to connect with one of the dancers from Trade Route Tribal, who will be hosting a workshop I'm very excited to participate in this summer. We've been Facebook friends for a while, so it was great to meet in person after all this time. The only downside to the show (and this is a killer of a downside) was having to leave early to be home with the kids. That meant I had to miss the last act of performers, including some dancers I was really looking forward to seeing!
However this was also the first performance of our very own Element World Fusion! That's right, dancers from our own community got up to perform at this event. As many of you know, we've been working on this since November and have had quite a few challenges. We sadly had to have one of our original dancers step out, and another wonderful dancer from Vermont stepped up to take her place. My daughter, Asimi, decided she wanted to participate, so we made accommodations for her. There were conflicts with rehearsals and everything else, but in the end it came together, not flawless, but pretty good for a first time out of the gate!
There it is, in all it's glory, the choreography we've been working on. There were some flaws and some unexpected things happened, but overall it went pretty well! Also, I would like to add that for some of these dancers it was their first ever dance performance, and their first ever performance, so that's something to be proud of!
I'm really looking forward to having a chance to do this again. We've already got some great ideas in the works for some more performance pieces, and I'm constantly on the lookout for dnace workshops to attend so I can weigh in more. In the mean time, I'll see you in class!
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