Baladi

Last night I went to Bonnie's second baladi performance before a live audience. The show was hosted by well-known local dancer Lala Hakim . . . who invited former student Lauri Boivin to bring her own troupe . . . to which Bonnie happens to belong. There were about 20 numbers all told over a period of a couple of hours. Two hours just flies when lots of pretty women in great costumes are demonstrating timing, flexibility, and muscle isolation the likes of which most of us will never possess, accompanied by high-energy music (not all of it traditional – one piece was a Metallica adaptation!).

Lauri's troupe had two numbers, and Bonnie was in the first of these. She's new at this, so of course her role was a supporting one – i.e., "You new girls stand in the back row!" This made it difficult for me to get clear photos of her (of course, my lack of skill with the digital SLR and telephoto had nothing to do with that), so all I have to show you are blown-up sections of very blurry snaps, which you can see to the left and right. I wouldn't normally crop out the people to whom those other arms are attached, except that there were lots of glowing eyes going on thanks to the theater lighting. This made the other dancers look like demons . . . and I'm not one to post unflattering pictures of attractive women.

As an aside, I sat with E. & D., and their six-year-old daugher Z. Z. is currently in a "pretty princess" phase, and the spectacle was exactly the sort of thing she would love: women dancing around in glittery costumes. I'll have to buy her some zils for her next birthday, so that she can more effectively drive E. & D. crazy.

The Company

The very first session of my new campaign took place last Tuesday (May 12, 2009). Present were Bonnie ("Xiang Wen," a.k.a. "Wu Xie Zhi"), Marc ("Anabel Windsor," a.k.a. "Abigail Wilson"), Martin ("Zhu Zhang," a.k.a. "Harold Lee"), Mike ("Vincenzo Calliente," of many aliases), and Stéphane ("Jean-Baptiste Dieudonné," a.k.a. "Jimmy Matthieu").

( Last session's events . . . )