Natalie B.

I love South Carolina.

2009-04-27T15:26:21Z

Me, the last few weeks: I need to get business training and work on getting funding for cirque.

[Phone rings]

SC Arts Commission: You should come to an SC artist networking retreat at the end of May and teach a masterclass. Also, we're hosting business classes for artists this summer for only $150, and then you can apply for startup funding from us.

Me: ..........

WIN!

Delirium Tribal at Tribalcon.

2009-02-26T22:18:13Z

Six person sword piece of doom. Woot!

After doing some research....

2009-02-15T22:19:00Z

I think the second piece looks like a 19th c. Ottoman belt buckle. But it's far more elaborate than any of the pieces I see being sold on ebay. Definitely going to be a belt, I think.

Speechless.

2009-02-15T19:31:24Z

Robin's parents invited us over this morning to see if I wanted "some stuff" that Robin's mom was giving away. So we went over with no real expectations.

Ginny gave me this amazing floor length black vintage coat with beautiful rhinestone buttons and a sassy vent in the back. Awesome, and beautiful. Apparently her mother used to kick around in it back in the day.

But what killed me--I just don't even have the words. Ginny's dad was in the airforce and stationed in Turkey during WWII and afterward. Ginny and her family lived there until she was 7. Her father picked up a LOT of stuff, including a couple of bellydance pieces. One is a gold and brass filigree belt that is absolutely stunning. The other is an antique bellydancing bra piece, all metal, brass filigree with green glass, stones and coral--we're talking real, museum-quality, Mata Hari breastplate kind of stuff, probably from the early 1900's. I have never held anything this exquisite in my hands. Ever. Words fail me. And she just gave it to me, and told me she hoped I could use it in costuming and give it a new life.

How do you ever repay a gift like that?

Also, I found a good lot of black jet and gutta percha Victorian mourning trim yesterday at an antique store. On sale. Score! Tempest and Asharah, I'm making headbands, and they have your name on them.

Meme taken from the DC crowd....

2008-12-24T21:44:26Z

Places I've slept in 2008:

Columbia, SC
Arlington, VA
Alexandria, VA
Ashburn, VA
Decatur, GA
Athens, GA
Knoxville, TN
Folly Beach, SC
Greenville, SC
Black Mountain, NC

This year... is going to get crazy.

Why I teach.

2008-12-23T18:48:34Z

There have been a lot of kinda disturbing conversations on tribe in the last few days where a lot of the younger dancers need ~~to be smacked~~ mentoring and guidance. One, in the ATS tribe, posted a sarcastic list of things she wanted to tell students before they got started. The thread veered off course into a discussion on whether you should teach people no matter what their motivations, or whether, like the original poster believes, teaching people who have no aspirations to perform is a "waste of time."

I posted a response, which kiaroskuro urged me to post here, lest it get lost in the fray.

I teach.

I teach because I have to. It's like breathing.

I teach because I found ATS and it changed my life. And it's saved it a couple of times, too.

I teach because I want to share this absolutely amazing thing with other people.

I had no intentions of teaching or doing this as a career when I first started. I started bellydancing because I'd herniated two disks in my back and was looking for a low-impact way to get back in shape. I thought I was going to be a writer in New Orleans and marry my photographer boyfriend. HA! Never make long-term plans.

I was blown to a small southern town in South Carolina three years ago by Hurricane Katrina. Dance and teaching was my therapy and got me through a shitty time. A year and a half ago, my dad was diagnosed with terminal cancer and he died last February. Dance is still helping me through that one.

There was no tribal in the state of South Carolina when I started. Now I run a respected company (and circus), both in the scene and very much so in my local community. And I'm teaching tribal in Greenville and Charleston, too, and helping the girls getting started there as much as I can.

I teach all types of people. The determined upstarts who want to join the company by next month. The giggly people who are curious. The people looking for exercise. The people looking for a fun outlet. This is a dance company town (even though we're small, we have three professional ballet companies, three professional jazz/modern companies and a major university dance program), so I get girls coming over to crosstrain from time to time. I get people who want to join Delirium. I have people who never ever think they will ever want to get onstage. Some of those change their minds, and some don't. I create a safe place to come and try it, and an established protocol for working your way up into the company if you really want it. After that, I just have a lot of enthusiasm and patience, and everyone tends to weed themselves in or out on their own fairly quickly.

I live in an area where gender relations are still trying to catch up to the rest of the civilized world. I live in a state with the highest rate of domestic abuse in the country. I live in a culture where kids get married at 20 and divorce at 30 and need to find themselves. I drive past the confederate flag on the statehouse grounds every day.

In my classes, I have women who have been abused, women whose husbands have left them after twenty years for younger women, women who have been raped or molested, women with tragedies and scars, cancer survivors, overworked moms, beaten down caretakers, young women looking for a direction and guidance.

Performing is a fantastic ego boost, and man do I love throwing down an amazing and energy-sharing set with my girls, and making my community better and richer. But when you get those emails from someone thanking you for raising their self esteem, for saving their marriage, for helping them feel better while they're struggling with illness, for playing a part in giving them the courage to leave the bastard that beat them for decades..... God, what a humbling and amazing thing. This dance, and all dance really, is so much bigger than me, and so much bigger than my personal reasons for doing it.

_____________________________

A helpful hint I've learned on the business side of things: word of mouth is your best friend. Especially in small towns, and Southern ones. The woman who's been dancing like nobody's watching in the back of my class for two years with no designs on performing? A reporter for the big newspaper in town. She helps us get huge color photos on the front of the metro page when we have big shows coming. The woman who popped in once and was never seen again? ATS wasn't for her, but she works for the state arts council and has recommended me for gigs and helped put me in touch with a venues when I was scrambling for one. The five women who laughed and giggled their way through a month of classes and then disappeared? All well-known theatre actresses here in town who didn't stick with it, but DID tell a lot of the arts community here about how nice and professional we were. And every person who walks through that door, no matter what their motivations and how long they stick with it, is an opportunity to educate my community on what tribal is and is not. And stuff like that has made all the difference for me doing business in the middle of the Bible Belt.

Not to mention I get paid.
_____________________________________________

I actually share a lot of the rules that Salome has. I approach them in a different way. So often I have to reassure or readjust the expectations of people coming into my class. How long and how much I had to struggle to get 3/4 hip shimmies. How I was petrified of 3/4 shoulder shimmies for two years. How long I had to drill to get this move. Zils. I talk about my ballet and music training and how I thought I'd take to bellydance no problem, only to have the first basics class with n.o.madic tribal kick my ass. I talk about converting many of the girls in my company from cabaret to tribal, and how you have to learn to do things a different way (usually they chime in. Most of them audit my lower classes). And I am a technique nazi, though a lot of encouragement comes with it. I think it helps the newer students to know that the pros in class went through all the same struggles, and that after 3 years, this is what we have accomplished.

And I am no nonsense about rehearsals. I created a culture from the very beginning where you show up, work hard, retain what you learn, fix stuff at home, or you don't perform. I've pulled members in the past from shows. Not mean or holding grudges over it, just doing it when needed and telling them we'll see them next month. If my dancers have to pull out of rehearsals when they have too much real world stuff going on, they now pull themselves out, and usually well enough in advance for us to make adjustments. It works well for us..

Black Monday.

2008-09-15T17:02:39Z

Working the phonelines at a financial institution while the stock markets melt down is FUN!

Dreams

2008-08-27T05:33:01Z

We were fighting tropical storm Fay during our outdoor Art Bar show last Friday, so our backdrops were diminished and we didn't have a lot of our lights up. So the video of the new Dreams set isn't where I want it to be, and I won't be posting the full footage this month. I did manage to rig up a teaser trailer though, since we're running both that set and "We're All Mad" to the close of the season.

</lj-embed>

Oh no.

2008-08-26T15:05:28Z

Tomorrow marks the three year anniversary of Toby's and my evacuation from New Orleans and hurricane Katrina. On the heels of that, I opened up weather underground this morning (and Dr. Jeff Master's excellent tropical weather blog), and saw this:

Not good. Not good at all.

ladyviola5 @ 2008-08-06T16:36:00

2008-08-06T20:37:58Z

Puppy hacking and gagging = sleepless night.

Vet bills for kennel cough = $135.

Getting the news that after nearly three years of treatment, C. Ray is finally heartworm negative = priceless.

I am so goddamn broke, it's sooooo not funny.

ladyviola5 @ 2008-07-25T12:23:00

2008-07-25T16:23:29Z

Alternacirque, Deft Key and The Mezmer Society at Art Bar tonight!

I've had the worst time getting this video together. Is mercury in retrograde?

ladyviola5 @ 2008-07-19T22:40:00

2008-07-20T02:48:17Z

My back aches. I've not been to yoga since this session started and my body is starting to go to pieces. My mind races forward to all the impossible things I want to teach myself to do, my body lurches backwards for lack of basic maintenance. I'm not eating well. I see Chris Orr for massage and torture on Thursday. I have to do something about this.

I'm introverted lately. I don't go out. The denizens of this town are collectively getting mired down in petty squabbles, drama, intrigues, seductions. Little lost birds in tar pits squawking for me to help them, to pay attention to them. I don't have the stomach for it, and find myself tuning out and futzing about inside my head instead. The last few parties I've been to have been ruined by someone's insecurities and guilt. He flees the room when I enter, and can only be near me after consuming copious amounts of alcohol. He's turned my life upside down and continues to punish me. I've left the social scene to give him room to breathe and move around in it. He needs it more than I.

I've spent three weeks updating my web presence. I've fallen out of the daily maintenance and have to rush to catch up, squinting through the dark at a bright computer screen and html code. Daily maintenance. I'm seeing a pattern here. Why can I not bring myself to do simple chores? I've not been outside today. Tomorrow I teach in Charleston. I'm tempted to drive down early and see the ocean, feel sand between my toes, be alone in the sunshine. Or the hurricane, as the case seems to be.

I'm creating things in my solitude. Posters. Websites. New pieces. New shows. New costuming. I sit around sewing feathers and sequins to a pair of nude boy shorts while I'm in them. Life of a circus performer. I tick items off my to do list, but the list always grows longer. My schedule is hectic and nearly full from here to November. I'll be on the road a lot, performing, finally breaking through, I hope, and living the life I've been clawing toward by my fingernails and sheer determination for three years.

I'm opening up to boys and just as quickly shutting them out. Late one night I escaped the house in frustration and exhaustion to visit one. I'd not seen him since before the auditions weeks ago. Through no fault of his, I no sooner got there than I wanted to be home asleep in my bed. I was too weighed down with the work I'd left behind and all that needed to be done. I stayed through a cup of tea and a chat. I ducked his kisses, his hands, felt guilty at the confusion on his face as I kissed his forehead and backed out of the door. Others underestimate me, patronize me or disappoint me and I grow disillusioned. Note to the opposite sex: condescension is the quickest path to royally pissing me off.

To the person that is supposed to restore my faith and be my partner: where are you? I am losing hope that you are coming, and I increasingly can't tear myself away from my work to go hunting for you. Please find me soon. I'm currently found alone in the dark in my mom's basement with the Art Bar setlist blaring on repeat. Thank you.

My eldest sister is seeing people on the ceiling again while she sleeps. Four nights spent on the couch while the negative value shapes of the spirits who follow us try to warn her. My family looks at each other and wonders who will fall ill this time. Is it my mother? Is it one of the children again? Is it my turn?

The air is humid and heavy, and I have too much to do.