Oh, The Glamourous Life!

Dear Constant Reader,

(My adventure started on Thursday)

I woke nice and early on Friday to start with an 8AM class. One of the smartest things I did was bring some instant oatmeal packets so I could use the coffee maker in my room to have a hot breakfast.

Morning Ballet Warm Up (Paris Original): I’m not an experienced ballet dancer by any stretch of the imagination, but I can follow along. I was a little daunted at the thought of a 90-minute class, but I’m tough. As it turned out, I lasted for half of it. It wasn’t that it was too hard for me (although it was challenging), but I was near the back of the room and I couldn’t see the instructor’s feet most of the time, thus making it difficult to properly follow what he was doing. Also, Paris has a tiny little voice and it was difficult to hear him from where I was. Maybe next year there could be a platform like in the ballrooms and a microphone. I’ll be back.

Seeing as I had a free 45 minutes before the next class, I went to hospitality and allowed the Boise Bombshells to ply me with a chocolate muffin and mini-mimosa, thus spoiling all the virtue of my early morning ballet.

Intermediate Modern Dance for the Burlesque Performer (Cherdonna Shinatra): I’m not familiar with modern dance, but the Babydolls asked that I take the class and report back. We did a lot of movement work, not surprisingly. The one that sticks in my mind right now was the “baby zombie walk”. We ended with a really interested movement exercise. I’m not going to give any details because I want to spring it on the Babydolls when we have a little down time (whatever *that* is).

After this were the keynote speeches. It’s always so crowded in there that I decided to take advantage of the quiet and have lunch by a fireplace. BurlyCon had to scale back their outrageously lavish hospitality (not surprising — I’m surprised that the hotel let them get away with it for so long), but the hotel stepped in with a lunch buffet, so we could get something quick & hot.

Massage: This year saw the first BurlySpa and I was going to take advantage of it! They were offering manicures, hair styling, massages, and sugaring, and maybe some other services I’ve forgotten. I had hoped to get my brows done, but at the time I made my appointment (soon after I arrived) they were only offering underarms and brazilians (later they added brows). So, I got a massage. I can count the number of massages I’ve had in my life on both hands and still have fingers left over. Sad, no? So I had my shoulders pummeled for 20 minutes and it did a *lot* of good.

Burlesque Floorwork (Peekaboo Pointe): I love floorwork and Peekaboo is so good at it! I took a class with her at BurlyCon many years ago and could hardly walk the next day. This class covered different material from the previous one, so I learned new stuff. Yay! I brought a pair of kneepads this year and it made a huge difference. We did the same combination several times to different music and it was a really useful exercise.

Basic Fan Dancing Using Marabou Hand Fans (The One The Only Inga): I use big fans and have for a long time. My intermediate students have started asking for a fan dance class and I don’t want anyone to have to invest in big fans for their first class. The technique is very different, so I sat in on this class to see if I could pick up some pointers for using the little ones.

Then I dropped in on the end of the music video class and discovered not only was it going to be much harder than I could handle, but that session only taught half of it. I thought it was that you took whichever session was convenient for you, but it was actually a weekend commitment. Okay, cross that off the list.

Can Can Kick It (Ariel Helvetica): This was so much fun! And so exhausting. We learned the basic moves of the can can: entrances, kicks, turns, and the importance of screaming. I’m glad it was the last class of the day because it’s unlikely I could do anything after that. And here we all are!

So I went back to my room, took a hot bath, and then passed out for a while. I missed the class photos. Oh well.

The theme of the dance this year was “Lust in Space” and I couldn’t come up with anything really spacy to wear. Brigitte suggested the Spaaaaace Apron (a strange costume piece we picked up somewhere). In the end I went with this evening gown because silver = space, right?

There were a lot of really creative costumes from a variety of fandoms and original concepts. I felt quite under-dressed, but at least I could move around easily & dance. There may also have been a Princess Farhana cocktail (pineapple rum, coconut water, and pineapple juice).

And tomorrow is yet another full day!