Rakassah 2008

This past weekend, I spent it with my troupe members dancing at the annaul Rakassah East festival in Sommerset, NJ. We drove up on Saturday and spent plenty of time shopping for more additional bellydance stuff (as if I didn't have enough in my drawers now. :-)) then got ready for our performance on sunday afternoon.


By saturday evening - I was so exhausted - I was ready to collapse....between the drive and wandering around the shopping venue - food was definitely the only thing I was looking for aside from sleep. Both Katie and I looked like we definitely needed a dose of energy and I needed the wall to prop me up. The chinese restaurant we went to was good though...I'll have to keep that in mind next time I'm up this way again. Hunan Delight had a favorite dish of mine that is offer nowhere else - rice cake....

Anyway, we made it through the evening with a lot of tossing and turning - I barely slept at all which probably wasn't good for getting ready to perform the next morning.

There is something to be said about going away together. It's a great way to get to know others, while I've always enjoy spending time with my troupe, this was a nice way to get to know them better and their idiosyncrasies...and them mine....yes, I concede - I'm a horribly cranky person and get irritated at a drop of a hat....hense I was dubbed the bossy dragon when I was being obnoxious, and sometimes the pensive dragon when I'm ignoring everyone and staring into space (which I'm sure most of my close friends are familiar with), but mostly as the momma dragon (with some affection I hope)....with three very hyper and precocious dragonetts. We spent most of the weekend cracking up over an inside joke that our happy dragon told us and for the rest of the trip - it became an inside joke that stayed and brought comradie to us all.

Annette is the happy dragon and you can tell from her joyful smile and arm up in the air. Allison is the coy dragon (look at the Diva stand :-)) and Katie (who did a fabulous job of leading this weekend) was dubbed the leo (or lea for girl) dragon...not sure why now....but anyhoo...they're ALL definitely precocious. Since I'm the one that tends to be more pensive - you can imagine they were running me ragged. ;-)

We had a fabulous time, and I was so psyched when we saw the video - we looked pretty good if I do say so myself. It was a nice little adventure.....do we not look good in our costume???

It has truly been a priviledge for me to dance with all of these lovely dragonettes. They kept the humor up even when we were all tire and when the practices were not going well. It has been a very good experience all around and I look forward to our next adventure.