Dance World

Boy, I’m tired!    I feel like I walked for miles last night!   I dance with Terezka ’s belly dance studio, and she was asked to provide some belly dancers for the pre-parade entertainment at the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras.

I had no idea there was such a thing!  But there’s always a huge crowd for the parade itself - some people camp out to get the best spot! - so giving them some entertainment is a good idea.

We gathered at the start point at 2.30 - it was a very last minute invitation and we hadn’t had time to rehearse, so we needed some run-through time.  We were ready at the starting point at 5.30 as requested, but didn’t get the go ahead until 6pm.  The Brazilian samba group ahead of us kept us amused with their drum playing - we were tired out before we started from dancing to their music!

Because of the late start, our main performance was cancelled - which I have to admit, I didn’t really mind as we had to dance all the way along the parade route, which was quite long enough!

We had a disaster only 2 minutes in, though, when the generator powering our music blew up!  Unfortunately the samba band were too far ahead to use their music so we just had to dance to the sound of Saphirra’s zills - which wasn’t quite the same.  It was hard to keep the motivation going with no music.  Occasionally we’d pass someone with a ghetto blaster, or a pub whose music was spilling out on to the pavement, and we grabbed it gratefully and did what we could!

Once we reached the end of the pre-parade route, we still had a long walk to the rest station where our bags had been taken for safe-keeping.  Then, because all the roads had already been closed for the main parade, we had an even longer walk to meet up with our friends and families.  I was exhausted and sore, and as for my feet…..

It was fun, though, but I would have enjoyed it so much more if we’d had some music.  We may do it next year too - if so, I’m going to take my own zills!