Vote for Isis - Win some whiskey!

I didn't win the liquor. But I thought this was about the coolest illegal maneuver anybody could pull at a popularity contest voting booth. As you came into the Chico y Chica UNPA finale dance venue, you had to put your ticket into one of these receptacles to vote for your favorite. One of the contestants, Isis, had a crony holding this sign: After you vote for Isis, Ariadna will give you a ticket for the whiskey raffle!
Of course you must know how I voted...

Pool with some professors

Ahhhh, the joys of Mexican University life! Here, it is completely normal to have a popularity/talent contest to elect a Boy and Girl UNPA every year. The last round of the competition is a dance routine competition where the contestants rope their most graceful friends into doing a disco-dance spectacle. I knew I couldn't miss this.
But before we went, we met up with some of the other professors and went to the Trova bar to get a buzz. I was really looking forward to it because they have shisha there and I was about drooling over the thought of tobacco. So we got there and OF COURSE they had no charcoal so we couldn't smoke shisha. Tuxtepec giveth and Tuxtepec taketh away.

Dancers

Little Dancers.
In the main plaza in Tuxtepec there is a stage. And a bandstand. But the stage is where they mount public productions on the weekends. They have a lot of events: music, fashion shows, speeches, and traditional dance. I was coming home one day and passed this group of kids. They were a little shakey in their performance. Like kids do, they stood around some and stared at each other when they got lost. But they were all right. I figure they'll improve and end up being quite good at it.

Las Guitarras de España

I went to see Las Guitarras de España tonight for free at the University theater. They are a sort of a loose confederation of a Flamenco group. The musicians that played at this performance were two guitarists, one percussionist, one singer, and one dancer. Well, the singer did a little dancing. I want to say first that the singer, Chiara Lucia Mangiameli was without hesitation the absolute best part of the show. Her picture is posted here. She was fantastic. Absolutely the best. I bought their CD because of her.
I mean. Really. Anybody can play the Flamenco guitar (well, you know what I mean) but a voice like hers is few and far between. Flamenco music is heavily influenced by Arabic, North African, and Indian music. Chiara's voice is perfect for that and you can feel those places in her voice. If you remember the vocalist from the movie Frieda- that sang La Llorona- well, Chiara is kinda like that but better.
The guitars were good, I don't mean to dismiss them. And the percussionist was okay too. Maybe she was really good, I'm not a good judge of that. She played traditional instruments, one called a cojón from Peru that was basically a box she sat on and hit. It sounded nice but I feel like I could have done as good a job. She also played a North African drum, again it sounded very good, but I felt like I could have done that.
The worst part was the dancer Wendy Clinard. Everything about that woman just bothered me. Her accent, the way she answered questions, but especially the way she danced. Ok, I don't know anything about Flamenco. But I hope that what she did is not traditional. If any of you have read my post about the scourge called modern ballet then you'll understand when I say that she looked like she was posing for a body-building competition half of the time. Also she had an expression of pain on her face the entire time she danced. Not pain like a soulful heart-achey pain, but like she had a toothache.
Overall it was fabulous and I'd be willing to overlook the hideous dancer again just to hear Chiara sing with the band.

The Firebird Ballet

Well, here goes my first attempt at a ballet review. Last night I went to see Ballet Memphis perform Stravinski's ballet abstracted from a Russian fairytale. That it was "Rites-of-Spring" Stravinski, the instigator of modernity in music, should have hipped me to the fundamental fact that this would not be classical ballet. I was expecting Orientalism, exotically beautiful, in all its rich layers of (colonizing) fiction. I was expecting silk and color and grace. Ha. Again, Stravinki should have clued me in.
The Ballet Memphis is a modern ballet group. This means that the movements are based on classical ballet, but this has been adulterated with modern ideas about choreography. The choreographer, Mark Godden, has won multiple awards, including an Emmy for Best Performing Arts Film. Alas, I am no fan of this style. To me, dance philistine that I am, the punchy arm movements and the staggering footwork looked more like Tae-Bo than ballet, and the costumes, aiming for an ultra-contemporary minimalism, were a foot shy of the elegance needed to pull this look off (see the top picture for an effective version of this kind of costuming).
All in all, I enjoyed going. I had a kick-ass seat, and it was fun to just go out (a little sad, though without Gilligan to come home to). However, for the Nutcracker, I'm getting a ticket for the Moscow Ballet performance and I think I'll give Ballet Memphis a miss from here on out.

Egyptology Halloween Party

The Egyptology Graduate Student Association Halloween Party 2008.
I squeezed into the Xena costume and danced all night. Well. From 9:00 to 10:30.
I must catch the rhythm of Mid-East music.

Belly Dancin' Professors

Whoever said Egyptologists don't get down?
Dr. Corcoran and Dr. Ayad show us all how it's done.

K9 Freestyle - Take 2

Here we are again, the day after Gilligan's 8th birthday. As you can see, he is really getting into this. We're gonna be champion material soon. Note well the expertise of the step-ball-change spin he does at the end. If he looks a little unsure it's only because he's about 56 years old in human dog-years. That's a little long in the tooth to learn to merengue.

K9 Freestyle - Take 1

A friend of mine emailed me a youtube video of a woman and her dog dancing in some kind of competition. Apparently this is all the rage and it's called Canine Freestyle, or, in the demotic, Doggie Dancing. Gilligan and I got very excited about this. Here is our first attempt. We're really just trying to find each others' strengths at this point. I have found that Gilligan is very good at remaining calm and staying still when I do the leg kicks. Gilligan, I believe, appreciates my delicate sense of rhythm.

Dancing

Ok, this clip is from my award-winning dance at Luis's birthday party. You can see the panel of three judges seated on the couch at the end of the room. I MIGHT have won because of the skill of my awesomely groovy partner Clarís. Or maybe it was the bribing the judges part... But I prefer to think that Clarís and I won because of my much-coveted ablity to embody the soul and Form (a la Plato) of "dance". You can also see a lot of other people dancing. Luis took the video so you won't see him.