Praise To The Call-in Gods

Sitting at the dining room table set up like a war room. Today is the Call-in day for Rakkasah, the biggest bellydance festival in the world. Every dancer and troupe in the United States is calling a single telephone number to the producer of the show. Starting at 9am, we'll all sit there like morons, punching numbers, hanging up and redialing, while praying to and cursing the dance gods to get us in.

Thank God for my dedicated and persistent students. They have never failed to get two dance times for my two troupes. This year we were particularly blessed. In less than an hour,we had secured two spaces at optimal times on Saturday and Sunday afternoon, when the audience is most heavy.

So, tomorrow we begin our rehearsals for the coming season. New dances, new costumes, some new troupe members. I envision everything going well. All the dances are finished, four new ones for each troupe. I've decided on costumes, which for me is the most difficult part of the whole process. Trying to costume ten women in each troupe with such a variety of age and body types is a task of vast proportions. From 5 feet tall to 5"11", 100 pounds to way beyond 150, each with some body part they want to hide or expose. I want to make everyone happy at the same time. Yeah, right.