I went last night for a nice dinner at the only restaurant in town whose food I'd *recommend* (got some places I recommend for beer, but really, the food out here is pretty pasty, bland, salt and fat free, and barely cooked at best). The Himalayan Cafe was a genuine find. The cook there loves hot food (grows his own chilies).
So, last night, there was a belly-dancer (which is how I determined that I would bother for the sit-down dinner deal).
Now, in Albuquerque, I'd run across quite a few different flavors of this, but mostly they tended to run in two veins, the classical Turkish style, and the 'Tribal' style. In both cases, the jinglers were still little metallic items (like coins), but the Tribal style tended towards more sarong like clothing styles (I suppose it was more influenced by Indian styles).
I should add, too, that there's a faction of the 3SH contingent that are 'tribal dancers' but are not 'performers' in the sense that they have no 'act' (dancing, but not really belly dancing). It's difficult to separate them from the fire-dancers in that group.
In any case, I'd not run across a 'Global Music' school (I think that's what she called it), nor did I expect anyone to dance in what looked nearly like Native American decorations (beads and feathers--with the beads as the clackers).
It was a different experience with no jingling. She actually had a homage to the coin set in a top that had some coin looking things on it, but they didn't jingle. She clacked and whirred (the feathers and beads, when she was spinning, spun out from her like a little cloud). Her waist-length black hair was braided up in numbers of pigtails with beads and feathers on them, too.
And she did *three* different sword dances in her set. I've never seen anybody do more than one before, and they've always had these incredible grimaces of concentration on their faces while they were doing them.
This girl not only did three flawless performances of the sword dance, but actually looked like she was having the time of her life (except for one little bit where she snagged her foot and the sword started getting ahead of her, but she caught it almost immediately--I doubt anyone else noticed).
I was impressed by the performance, but the part that touched me the most was when she found a Brown Recluse in the money pot and transferred her to the wall so she wouldn't be hurt by anyone putting money in for her.
Most girls don't particularly like spiders (kill them on sight). Some will tolerate them, but few will actively assist one.
She also had some of the most interesting music I've heard for a belly dancer. I started getting intrigued in the first set when what sounded like bagpipes in the background, and some of it was electronic (nearly Enigma sounding).
Her name was 'Papillion' (when she did one dance using a red/gold tie-dyed cloth she looked almost like a Monarch Butterfly--the black lines being her hair).
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