Tonight we had so much fun. I wasn't sure how well class would be, given how anxious I am for the ATS® World Flash Mob 2018. I'd fully expected tonight's class to be really challenging for me, but it turned out really great. We got through a lot in Drills and Technique and had a blast just playing with the song for tomorrow and a few other hits for ATS® Level 1!
Tonight in Drills and Technique we ended up drilling an entirely new move. We've been playing around with a new choreography, one I'm writing for our lovely flamenco arms instructor, Lauren, to a song she particularly loves. Most of the class was spent with a focus on one particular move, with a turn in thirds. The choreography is coming together so fluidly that I'm excited to see how it ends up. The whole class is really enjoying this choreography, so we may just decide to jump on it while it's hot. I'm leaving it up to the class to decide if we work with this new choreography or if we finish the previous one first.
Of course, all of that happened after we'd had some technical difficulties. For whatever reason my phone isn't working well with the studio's speakers, so it's something I'm going to be working on this week. I do apologize for the technical difficulties, but we're going to be able to work with it, so that's what's important.
Then there was ATS® class tonight, which was so much fun. We didn't work quite as hard as we possibly should have, but we had fun with it nonetheless. The class started with playing the music chosen for the ATS® World Flash Mob 2018, a song called Burning the Temple by Djinn. If you haven't checked it out, you totally should. We played with that for a while, and even got everyone in big, tribal skirts. We tried a few different formations and had a lot of laughing. If ever there's a class to join, just for some fun, this class is definitely it. It's all around good energy and we have a lot of fun.
This week we took our class practice up yet another notch, we added a little bit of zils. Most of what we did was just playing triplets, which was a little bit of fun. I had loaner zils from another dancer I dance with on Wednesday nights and was able to bring them out for class. Since mine have been missing quite some time, to the point I'd assumed they were left in Texas, I didn't jump on starting from the beginning. I was intending to wait until the sale on Saroyan to pick up some new ones and maybe some loaner sets for class.
You know what those are? Well, if you read the caption you do. Those are a full set of bronze, Fat Chance Belly Dance Afghani zils by Saroyan. I bought them back in 2007 or 2008. Since I hadn't seen them since I moved, I figured they never made the move from Texas, which is what happened to so many of my other belly dance things. Yet when I virtually emptied my jewelry box to find as many treasures as I possibly could to bring to the ATS® World Flash Mob tomorrow there they were, sitting at the very bottom on the box among a pile of broken jewelry pieces (that I really need to clean out of my box... Elastic doesn't last forever.) I was so excited! I thought these things were gone for good! And since they're limited edition and they don't even make the bronze ones anymore, I was so upset that I lost them!
True, they're a little worse for wear, but they still sound okay. The elastic is fair well shot, but I expected that, given they're at least 10 years old. Elastic doesn't last forever. They could probably use a good cleaning to get them back in proper appearance, though the aged look is kind of cool. They have a lot of personality.
But you know what this means? We're going to be zilling a little bit every week. Since zils are such an integral part of ATS® fast music it's something I've wanted to do for a while now. It's also something I'm going to be drilling quite a bit myself in my spare time, because I've got to clear off all that rust from my own playing. It's just so good to have them back and to make ATS® exactly what it should be again!
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