It's taken me a bit to recover from the craziness of the weekend. It was a very
busy Saturday as I had a booth for the Las Vegas Bellydance Intensive at the
UNLV Festival of Communities. I want to thank Amira for loaning me the tent and
some products to sell. Thanks to Aaron for bring me coffee and Rick for helping
me set up, keeping me hydrated, and bringing me food. I also want to thank
Shifting Sands (specifically Nancy and Shirley) for helping attend the booth and
promote belly dancing to a larger audience. I also need to thank Rick, Jerry,
and Kendra for helping with the tear-down since I needed to be at the studio to
set up for the hafla.

I cannot rave enough about how much I enjoy the April Fool's Hafla. It is one
of my all time favorite evenings of the year!! Mostly because I break ribs
laughing with the Improv Contest as well as the kooky routines that show up.
Kali's interpretation of bad oriental dancing was simply no exception...bad
zills, bad veil, bad posturing, bad sword! I was laughing so hard throughout
the entire piece.

There were lots of other great performers. Nisha started the night off to warm
us up, followed by Tahira & Aleena (aka Tiffany & Amber) who performed their own
duet.

It was awesome to have some of our favorite dancers back...Noble and Shirley
were both there. Noble/Zahirah Noor performed her signature gypsy style, and
Shirley did her gluteus maximus dance. Both were brilliant.

I'm always so grateful when we have performers who not only dance their joy for
us, but those who are willing to dance a fuller range of emotion. Nisha danced
her grief via her performance piece dedicated to her great-grandmother who
passed away last month from pancreatic cancer. It was a powerful
heart-wrenching anguished piece that brought tears to many people in the room.

It's hard to follow a powerful performance, but Inara did it gracefully and even
transformed the energy back into a more joyous atmosphere.

The Improv Contest is always the biggest treat. I love seeing what shows up.
Somehow, people often manage to get the perfect song for them...regardless of
the theme, which btw, was "Angry Chick Songs" (thanks to Nicki for helping me
download and burn a bunch of songs...that was hella funny). Thanks to Shalini,
Cherry, Jamella, Nisha, Serena, Sandi, Lupe, Rick, Hanna, and Toni. Every
single one of you were amazing. Thanks for being willing to sign up, not
fighting too hard when I asked, or keeping your price low enough that I could
afford to bribe you!!! BWhahahahahahaha.

I do have some favorite moments. As usual, Serena's dancing was thrilling and
her musical interpretation was brilliant. I don't know how she manages to
immediately come up with a theme and create such a theatrical piece on the fly.
How many ways can she commit suicide with the props, eh?! My favorite moment
was when she doused herself in "gasoline" and then got more and more frustrated
when the "matches" wouldn't light.

She may be the undisputed champion, but there were some other amazing moments
that showed. Rick's infamous lap dance on Shadia was pretty impressive, and
brought the whole room down laughing. Toni performed the most brutal imaginary
chainsaw massacre--Lorena Bobbett-style!! Hanna grabbed Kali's boyfriend for a
hysterical interpretation of "Papa Don't Preach" by Madonna. Cherry threw
herself at all the pretty girls in the room during her boot-stoping
interpretation of "These Boots are Made for Walking" by Nancy Sinatra. Of
course, I love it when the entire room sings along to the music...which adds to
to the ambiance.

After the contest, Shirley returned to our "stage" to perform her gluteus
maxiumus dance. We've missed having her perform. Reema performed next. She
always has such vibrant energy (and great costumes too!!). Serena & Inara
performed a comedy duet to "Most Beautiful Girl in the Room" by Flight of the
Conchords, which had everyone giggling (it nearly invoked the choppin' broccoli
performance--hahahaha). Cherry was our final performance of the evening and
ended our night with her final song "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor (which
caused Rick to pout in the corner because she was performing the HIS
song)...bwahahahahahaha.

Thanks to the plethora of vendors that came to sell merchandise. There were so
many awesome things to check out. It was like our own mini festival.

I seriously had to take all of Sunday to recover. It was such a great night.
Thanks to everyone who came. It was a riot.

Happing Dancing!!
Samira Tu'Ala
www.bellydanceintensive.com