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Wednesday evening brought out a heck of a pile of belly dancers and their supporters.  We all descended upon the Bronson Centre in Ottawa and danced and cheered and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

I start the planning for the Ottawa Centre Class party-Holiday Edition in September.  At that point, I know my class schedule, and since I have been organizing these parties for a few years now, I have a pretty good idea of how things may go.

Unforeseen: OC Transpo Bus Strike hitting one week before the party!!!!

Damage: Somewhat affected the dancers lists for the student groups, and definitely affected attendance and last minute ticket sales for cheering fans.

While the ticket sales were in the 350 range, I know that not everyone who purchased a ticket was able to attend.  But the audience did it’s best to give lots of good energy to the dancers!

The flow was adjusted for this event as well.  More on that in a moment…

I am blessed with what I hope is a good rep for these parties, and thus am contacted by dancers directly who would like to perform.  It also might be the $5 ticket fee that everyone pays, but it makes it inexpensive for student dancers,frugalistas and families to come out and see what great fun and skills are found in our belly dance community.

Back to the flow:  with over 35 performances originally booked for the event, even with a 3-5 minute guideline for each performance, that’s a long show!  After asking the teachers what they thought, I had to make some choices and hope for the best. I organize, am responsible all the financial aspects of, and take most credit for the event; I could not do it without the support of my colleagues and friends who are also dancers/volunteers/teachers.

The choices involved imposing tighter time limits on the music choices and with only a few logical bending of the rule for combined classes, everyone seemed fine with the limits.  It also meant that I needed to deal with introductions of each group in a timely and efficient manner.  Dropping an official MC and choosing the “Voice from Beyond” method, I was able to share the task of simply announcing the group name before each performance without listing each of the sometimes up to 12 dancers who would be on stage at any one time!

If you were there, this is all pretty much: ‘Been there, saw that” and for you, I have more coming later in this post!

Back to the reflections…The dancers were all very organized and ready to go – AiWA!

There were a few on stage glitches, but this is a student show for the most part, so that is to be expected.  I have always tried to make my shows as welcoming and relaxing as possible for all dancers – from the first timers to the seasoned pros.  I would say, “Leave the judgements and egos at the door” – but really, I have never had to actually say that as people just seem to “get it”.

The Bronson Centre has a new sound and light system in place.  Dave, our sound technician for the evening, was fabulous!  This really nice, easy going and helpful guy made the evening so easy!!!!  Thanks Dave of Wall Sound!  Sorry I don’t remember his last name, but kudos will go out all over the place!

K was in charge of backstage as usual, Michele arrived with her gorgeous fabrics to decorate, and my new main helpers on the front lines were Katheryne, Cynthia, Rain and Chantal, along with Jocelyne helping once the show started!

Howard Sandler was our official photog for the evening and Darner Media shoots and edits the video for the performers!  

I am so grateful to all of these people for helping make the evening run smoothly, the dancers for taking the time to come out and share their talents with us, and the audience members for being so supportive as they watch the dancers develop their craft!

Three cheers for the Ottawa Belly Dance Community!!!! 

So, if you were there, and are therefore a part of the community, I am asking for some feedback.  Just a couple of questions and also if you have any further comments, you can submit them in the comments section!  Please note that i tried to create a poll but something is funky, so regular questions it is!

 And if you were not there but feel like voicing an opinion – go ahead!

1 – How was the “flow” of the evening for you?

a- Great – fast and fun!

b- Pretty good, but I felt I wanted to hear more about each group before they danced.

c-Good but still too long of an evening for me, I had to leave before things ended.

2-Did you get a sense that this would be/was a “community” event?

a- Yes, I had that sense when I decided to come, and that was why I came!

b- Sort of, though I had no real connection to the community other than a friend who was dancing in the show.

c-No, I did not really think of it as a community event.

3- Did you have fun?

a-yes

b-no { what?}

If you have thoughts you would like to share, please feel free!  

I do my best to make the evening run as smoothly as possible, and there are always new things for me to learn about audience perspective etc.

Thanks for reading! Pics will be up soon!