Tag Archives: halyma

The Dancers’ Bazaar – Thank you!

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Click on the pic to see more shots by @wtl

Tracey/Halyma (The Dancers’ Bazaar Organizer) flinging her hair in her booth with Linda, originally uploaded by WTL-Ottawa.

Sunday, February 22, 2009 brought out over 20 vendors with oodles and oodles of belly dance wares, music, chocolates, health make-up, and more to the Knights’ of Columbus Hall at 260 McArthur.

It was the 19th Dancer’s Bazaar organized by me, and run with the help of a pile of fabulous volunteers, and my wonderful partner/husband/floor manager extraordinaire, Tom [ aka @wtl] .

The Hall set’s up the table, and then we arrive at about 8:45 am to survey their work and re-arrange based on specific vendor requests. And signs go up outside, and balloons are blown up and attached wherever they will look effective and eye-catching.

By 10 a.m. the main onslaught of vendors begin arriving, though a few arrive earlier and help with the pre-set up. And the volunteers get to pre-shop and help the vendors as they set up.

It is a crazy and fun morning setting up for the potential of 100s of shoppers coming through the doors starting at noon.

We had over 300 patrons come through for this one, and many bags were seen dangling of their arms as they left, so we know that some serious shopping was done! Yay!

Upcoming events were advertised, photos were taken, door prizes given out and Zahra Haddad graced us with a wonderful drumming demo and our favorite Bazaar floordancer, Mel, came through and provided some energy feedback as she usually does!

Thanks to all of the volunteers – I feel like I am being a slacker by not mentioning you all by name, but you know who you are – so thanks! And Congrats to @elkae as she won the volunteer door prize!

Thanks to the vendors who make the trip to join us for the day – some coming from as far away as Montreal, Sherbrooke, Mississauga and Barrie. And the local folks are providing gorgeous stuff too – so I am glad to provide a place for us all to showcase our stuff!

Plans are in motion for the next one, but I’ll focus on other things for a few weeks!

Back from the Wild Blue Yonder…

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Gorgeous place to be!
Gorgeous place to be!

… Cabin that is!  

 

The workshop this past weekend was so nice from my perspective.  I received a lot of positive feedback too – so that’s always good as well!  I like the down to earth nature of the ladies out that way – Trenton/Belleville/Madoc – they are there to have fun and and tolerate me being me without any fuss!

About 5 minutes in, I had to dig into my bag to find my ever handy facecloth – I tend to release a lot of moisture through my skin on hot days – profusely!  I drip.  So, rather than try to be discrete and lady like, I keep a nice absorbent facecloth handy in my dance bag all the time now.  Along with toothpaste, a portable toothbrush and some deodorant, I feel like I can maintain some sense of personal hygiene in most situations!

After we began to warm up and I got a feel for the different skill sets within the group, I tired to make sure I challenged the more experienced dancer while not totally overwhelming the beginners.  I think I found a middle ground that still gave everyone a sense of accomplishment at least a few times through the 3 hours.  We danced and I taught them part of a routine that I had created this spring, so while it had some challenging bits for the beginners, everyone at least got a sense of putting moves together.

There are a lot of drums at The Wild Blue Yonder Cabin and so we were able to take some time to play with them and some basic rhythms.  I had brought some music by Solace, the Rhythm of the Dance cd and we were able to use it to follow some basic baladi and chiftetelli rhythms – my two faves!

A reporter from the local newspaper came out to take some pics and interview the ladies – I hope to get a copy of at least a picture sometime soon!

Thanks to everyone who came out and the Debbie, our hostess – it was a great day!

Halyma~ Just before going on stage…

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HPIM4992.JPG, originally uploaded by campdancer2000.

Thursday, June 12, 2008 ~ the Ottawa Centre Class Party~

What a night. It was the culmination of a lot of hard work and a lot of fun. I am still recovering from it in that I have done the bare minimum accounting, putting things away, send out thank you emails and put up some pics in a private area on Flickr for those who performed and might want copies.

Sorry, not open to the public – that’s the domain of our official photographer. When I get that link I’ll let ya know!

But it was a blast, and I am happy to now look forward to some random workshops this summer and some more sewing.

And the sun is shining today, so I think we’ll take advantage and have some outside time – forecasting a rainy week ahead!

Happy Father’s Day to all of those Dads out there!

Three in Pink

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Click on Picture to see more photos

HPIM4919.JPG, originally uploaded by campdancer2000.

It all began Saturday morning. 9:30 a.m. And the lovely ladies Zamira, Halyma [ me] and Zeevah graced the Oasis with their strength and energy.

Supporting the Weekend to End Breast Cancer here in Ottawa is a fun and rewarding experience. Supporting any cause you feel strongly about in a way that feels right for you is always a win-win situation. I have already extolled my opinion on the importance of volunteer performances in a previous post, so I won’t go on about it again.

We worked hard both mornings, we had fun with each other, and the smiles on the faces of the Walkers as they came into the Oasis each morning were priceless.

Thanks to Zamira, Zeevah and Shade – see more pics of our fun weekend by clicking on this one!

Sorry about the tan lines; next year I will have some spray on 45 SPF – or maybe 60 by then. 30 SPF just does not cut it any more!

I was able to take the afternoon to relax – Zeevah continued out to Art in the Park and supported the other group of dancers gracing that area of town! Zamira headed home to prepare for the show that night as well.

Saturday evening took us to Ottawa U alumni Auditorium for Jalila’s – now known as “Jewel”- Welcome to the Dance Event – a multi-class recital that featured students and teachers from across the city. I was fortunate to be able to present my advanced group, Zafar [ Victory in turkish] and perform a solo myself. I did not get pics of me in my outfit, but I am hoping that Lainie did!

A great evening – lots of fabulous dancers and some really nice progression as we see dancers who started a while back and have improved in their skills with each consecutive show in which they perform!

A long day brought a quiet evening at home, checking over video footage [ Hubby shots the video of the show].

Sunday morning had me up not too early – I was able to sleep in a bit. I chose to go easy for costuming and was ready to head off by the time Shade arrived. We headed over to pick up Zamira, and off to Pit Stop # 2’s second location. Not too far form my place, but definitely a drive. And we were heading off to the Clutch afterwards, a non belly dance event of relaxing and nibbling of fresh fruit in a quiet lovely basement in Navan! So I wanted to have the car handing and ready to go.

Zeevah joined us at 10:30 as the Walkers were not moving so quickly on Sunday morning! We danced, had our pictures taken some more, laughed, felt hot, sweated, got sprayed, drink water and ate bananas!

Then Zeevah again headed off to Art in the Park while Shade and I finished off the final hour before happily finding our way to that air conditioned basement!

All in all a great weekend of belly dance – and I am happy to have a light day today to put away all of these costumes, and get back to work on Thursday’s Ottawa Centre Class Party that I am organizing!

Halyma~Dancing in a Mall!

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Click on photo to see more!

  

HPIM4671.JPG, originally uploaded by campdancer2000.

Our final event for the World Party promotion happening at The Bay. This one – Rideau Street location.
Shade and I went early – too early – remember for next time to no go so early!

Upon arrival it was difficult to get a hold of our contact as she seemed to have a lot going on, but the ladies at the Lancome counter were fun and tolerant of our hanging about and chatting!

Once we connected with our main contact, I was asked if I had a cd player with me…
What?

I had not expected that, but had brought my small ipod player/speakers for another gig/belly~gram we were doing right after the Bay event. So, fortune smiled upon us as I approached the musicians who were playing before us. They had the perfect set up – two or three speakers connected to what – their own ipod!

YAY!

They were so great to let me attach my ipod to their system and let us use it to dance! It was a life saver!  We had a blast and Shade’s mom took some fun shots of us dancing!

Then we headed off to our next gig – a birthday surprise for a friend of mine! He was shocked and we got a few other folks in the office to come out to clap and enjoy the show too! Short and sweet!

Third gig lasted less than a minute at Patty Boland’s as we gave a little pre-farewell show for Michelle – a wonderful server who takes care of Tom every Friday and me too when I am there for lunch!

She leaves shortly to bring new life to the world! We wish her all the best!

She was quite surprised when we suddenly had music and were shimmying all around her! Tried not to cause too much hassle as she was working at the time!

All in all a good day!
Happy Belly Dance blessings to you all!

The Final Mambo!

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Click on the photo to see more pics!

HPIM4545.JPG, originally uploaded by campdancer2000.

The Runway for the Cure Fashion Shows at Mambo restaurant have been a great adventure!

Thanks to Estrelita who asked me to provide entertainment for it, and to Marisol, the owner of Mambo, Kinki and Helsinki, who has been a gracious hostess to us!

The ladies who came out with me benefited from the opportunity to get out and dance for strangers and friends in some cases, without the heavy obligation of remembering a routine. The crowds have been lovely to dance for, we could always find someone smiling and moving to the music to play along with.  Thanks to Shade, Anastasia and Megan for joining me!  And thanks to my Thursday Creative intermediate class for their patience and understanding…next week = full workout!

I have benefited by getting some more exposure for my own classes and for “Halyma’s Belly Dancing For Fun Dancers”, my business of providing belly dancers at events. An entirely new flock of people have seen how much fun it adds in a friendly, family oriented and yet still exotic way!

And the event benefitted from entertainment and added energy to their fund raising – what a win win situation for all!

Now for those paid gigs to start rolling in!