I’m alive! I survived my first live drum solo!

It’s funny after a dance – there’s this awesome adrenaline rush/euphoria, followed by trying to remember what I did and wondering how it looked and worrying that I did something stupid or awkward. Since I usually do choreography I just assume I performed said choreography, but improv?? What the hell just happened? Being a dancer (or any performer, I’d imagine) is weird because you never really get to see your own work – the video isn’t the same because the energy in the room has a lot to do with it (there are many performers who blow me away in person but put me to sleep on video).

As I was dancing, I only had two thoughts:
1. Am I doing a grapevine right now? That’s weird.
2. WHY WON’T THEY STOP

I was supposed to dance for about 3 minutes but it’s not like there was a clock on the stage. I started getting a feeling like I was on stage too long so I tried spinning to get the drummer to give me a roll so I could stop – didn’t work. So I went back to dancing. Tried spinning again – nothing. I suppose if I had stopped spinning and done sort of a bow and flipped back up that would have been a very clear signal, but I wasn’t confident enough to do that. Actually, I lied, I had 3 thoughts – thought 2(a) was something like, “If I do the bow thing and they don’t stop it’s going to look really stupid.”

So I just kept going at the mercy of the drummer until finally he did the “Shave & A Haircut” thing which was a pretty clear signal that he was done and I managed to pose and stop at the same time he stopped (not stopping at the right time was one of my concerns).

Anyway, I don’t think I was a stage hog or awkward or stupid looking because I got a lot of excellent audience feedback while dancing and after I was done I got many compliments from other people. I’m nervous to see the video because nothing ever looks as good as it feels – of course I’m pretty hard on myself and I see imperfections that nobody else picks up on, so blah.

The important thing is that I had a geniunely good time (somewhat to my surprise – I was worried I was going to burst into tears on stage). I’m really glad I did it, although I’m not itching to do it again too soon!

It was really interesting to be in the moment – scary, but not as bad as I thought. I was worried I would go blank but I seem to remember moving the whole time. I would hear something and react to it and that was it. Sometimes I’d miss accents or move with an expectation and have him change up on me (the beginning was awkward because it took a few seconds for me to catch on) but it wasn’t a big deal, people still seemed to like it. And, I mean, it’s live and the drummer is improvising as much as I am – it won’t be perfect.

Someday I will hopefully get to a point where I can get that sort of empty-headed/present feeling while still keeping some sense of control over myself – the fact that I really couldn’t tell you what I did is a little troubling, ha ha.

Anyway – now that it’s over, it’s back to our regularly scheduled programming (whatever that is)!

For those who have no idea what a bellydance drum solo looks like, here’s a good one (I doubt I was as elegant…in fact I was probably pretty frantic, ha ha):

Fun fact: Issam Houshan played at some show that my friend and I went to; we didn’t even know he was gonna be there until we got there and saw him in the lobby. We kind of fangirled from afar a little bit which I think is really hilarious; who fangirls over tabla players? Oh right, bellydancers do.

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November 9th, 2009 |