There are a lot of videos this year because I had 5 dances. The whole performance was me dancing, and then running backstage to change, and then running back onto the stage again. Rinse and repeat 5x. At one point, I had to have lorelali help me undo my hair so I could make my next dance in time.
The one above is my favorite dance of the year. We refer to it as the Cow Dance. It’s always fun when people watch it for the first time, because there’s this really confused chatter when the music starts moo-ing. This dance was originally for 3 people, we re-did it for 5 and then lost Aki when she moved back east, so we had to redo it again for 4 people. We spent hours outside of class teaching ourselves the dance and practicing lifts. The hardest lift was the one where I roll onto D’s back. The other lifts are a lot more technical but that one was the most erratic as far as us nailing it. I had a tendancy to miss and either overshoot or undershoot so I was SO freaking happy we nailed it during the performance.
For anyone curious: The dance is based on the Wa minority tribe who live in southern China, near the border of what used to be Burma. We watched a lot of the actual dances done by the tribe and they remind me a little bit of plains American Indians as far as dance style. The piece we did is extremely stylized because it was for a competition so I wouldn’t really call it indicative of the tribe but it’s still a very cool dance.
This is my fishy dance! I fell in love with this dance when I first saw it ’cause it’s so cute! I don’t think I did it justice as the original performer was so good but I love this dance so much.
There’s this weird editing in the middle because during the actual performance, they screwed up the lighting and the entire stage went black. It was kind of awesome. >.< Oh and in case you can’t tell, the videographer for the performances every year… uh, he’s not exactly what you’d call great. He drives us all bananas with his inability to get everyone on camera.
Cheryll calls this the Pajama Jammy Jam. =D This is the dance I did with the teenagers. I think I’m getting too old to dance with them. *sigh* I am probably not going to do a dance with them next year… watch them pick some amazingly cool dance that I love to death. >.<
This dance is very very loosely based on Korean dance style. And by loosely, I mean: when the rapping breaks out, it’s not even close. =D There is a minority group in northern china that is considered Chinese but they’re Korean by culture which is where the influence for this dance comes from.
This was originally a co-ed dance but we have no guys so anytime there is lifting, that’s me! Lemme just say those outfits are so slippery! Satin? Not so good for dance lifts. I was constantly losing the grip on my girl on the first lift.
The classic Mongolian Bowl dance that everyone has to do! I’m the one doing the tiny solo in the beginning, and the ones doing the spins in a circle (which are HARD cause you can’t spot with bowls on your head!) are the girls I did the Cow Dance with: DJ, D and Lorelai.
Someone told me that a couple people in the audience thought I had forgotten my bowls when the dance started. ‘Cause you know, if that were the case, none of my classmates would have noticed and maybe reminded me before we got on stage…
Tibetan style dance. I’ll be the first to admit that this dance is a little too long for a 3-person dance. It was originally for a huge group, but we altered it for three people. (Crappy camera work does not help the situation.) This is such a fun dance to do but it’s probably a bit boring to watch. What I should do is upload our first dress rehearsal where I accidentally unhooked my top with all those arm movements, and it totally came off during the dance. *dies* The lesson here? Always have a dress rehearsal. Wardrobe malfunctions during dance performances are 100x worse than cosplay ones. >.< (For the record, I always wear a skin-colored bodysuit underneath my costumes so I didn’t end up flashing everyone.)
Last dance isn’t mine but I have to share! This is D and Lorelai doing the Lesbian Tree Dance. The dance has a real name but I like ours better. =D I hear the guys in the audience stopped falling asleep for this dance specifically.
And that’s it for this year. Whew!
