Big toe blues
January 8th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
I have been mastering the strange art of the ‘avoid my toes at any cost’ dance this week. After too many successive months of what I can now deem excruciatingly unsuccessful self-treatment, I have finally relented and made my inaugural trip to a podiatrist. The bane of my existence, a series of inflamed ingrown toe nails, the slightest bump of which has been sending me to the floor in a strange writhing bleating mess, reminiscent of a good man who has been kicked squarely in the ghoulies.
Give me the pain of child birth any day, who would have thought that a simple thing like a toe nail could inflict so much pain on a seemingly ordinary person? Must be a bad week for toe karma for me.
The dance of the ingrown toe nail is not for the faint hearted. The level of bravery I have exhibited in the first movement – taking a giant step away from anyone else with feet – has taught me one thing, TRUST NO-ONE!
So I have gritted my teeth, and practiced my heavy breathing whilst a smiling podiatrist has poked and prodded my offending appendage with her extensive range of shiny tools, dutifully removing large clumps of unspeakable flesh to the styling tunes of Enya, (listening to which is potentially more painful than the treatment itself).
“Rest” she says. “Of course” I reply, marveling silently that it will be a miracle if I get to even sit down before 10 pm that evening. Hobbling to the car I can already feel the beginnings of post traumatic stress disorder setting in, and, the anesthetic wearing off.
A few days, and a few medicinal cakes of chocolate later, things are on the improve and I am heading off to the video shop to hire Absolutely Fabulous for the umpteenth time because maybe, just maybe, I will be able to laugh at myself, if I watch the episode with Eddy hospital bound with an ingrown toenail, one more time, this time with feeling!
I do know one thing. A private room, sympathy cards, flowers, Patsy in the next bed and a never ending supply of gin and tonics would have certainly improved my recovery. Maybe tomorrow I wont have to walk like Quasimodo in Manolos.
In the meantime, if I see you approaching me on the street, don’t be offended if I back away. Like a Pavlovs dog experiment gone wrong, toe plus people equals pain and the dysfunctional dance routine continues.
Anyone know where I can get some good toe karma?
Or some decent going out thongs?
The gypsy in all of us
October 25th, 2009 § Leave a Comment
My performance troupe Zaar Bellydance has just been booked for a gig end November, so we are all reigniting our inner gypsies while we ponder set lists, rehearsals, music and costumes.
Dancer - Latcho Drom
I have spent hours trawling though the catalogue of music we have amassed over the years, searching for new songs to inspire us, a journey accompanied by zills and ud, misma and tabla.
We are a tribal gypsy style belly dance troupe and so the very nature of our dance and costumes is eclectically influenced by cultures far and wide, past and present. Rajasthani, Banjara, Flamenco, Egyptian Bellydance, even Goths have their place.
Like gypsies, we borrow and integrate this richness and variety into something that expresses who we are in this moment, in this place, today. We have been playing with the idea of dancing to a didgeridoo track, music and movement seem to oddly but naturally fall together, the drone of the dig and snake arms in perfect harmony. It’s a respectful cultural borrowing that provides a big picture metaphor for integration and acceptance without a word being spoken.
Whilst the ancient nature of this dance form, as reinvigorated by Fat Chance Bellydance in San Francisco, is sometimes an abstract concept, it is through the amazing film making of Tony Gatlif, a French/Algerian gypsy himself, that I so often realise the privilege afforded me to dance in the shadows of this history.
In particular his films, Latcho Drom and Gadjo Dilo, are glorious and timeless expressions of gypsy culture. Other films like Exils, Vengo and Swing are sensitive and detailed accounts of lives that are simultaneously diverse yet mythically familiar to us all.
Oh, to be able to barrel turn like the young woman in this clip!
