Wow!  July!  How did we get here?

Another great movement-oriented weekend.  Add another amazing lady to my list of girlcrushes.  I totally heart Cammi Vance.  What a spirit!  What a force of nature!  Giddiness, smarts, inspiration, positivity, adventure, wackiness, creativity, forthrightness and friendliness.  What an incredible weekend!

We learned the choreography for the PURE group that Cammi founded (www.puredance.org) and did our guerilla performance on Saturday night in the 9th Ward.  Cammi and I had scoped out the place for performance the day before as part of the Katrina tour that everyone takes when they visit.  We ended up talking to some folks from Common Ground -- and we hitched a ride in a hummer with some National Guard guys who no doubt found to be a couple of charming oddballs.  So post-choreography (which was pretty trying for me as a non-bellydancer), a big group of us donned ourselves in tribal bellydance gear and performed the dance twice for small gatherings of guardsmen, residents and Common Ground volunteers.  It was pretty damned cool -- our audiences were just as giddy as we were and had us pose for pics with them afterwards.  My business even raised enough money this weekend to donate a hundred bucks to Common Ground to help with their rebuilding efforts.  That felt really nice.

And getting geared up for the performance -- whoa, these chicks are something altogether different than what I'm used to.  They travel about with trunks full of costume choices -- big chunky necklaces, crazy feathered, beaded, shelled and fringed skirts, hairpieces, bracelets, what have you.  They'll throw all kinds of crap on you if you come naked and unprepared (like me) with no hesitation at all.  And all together -- theatrical and gorgeous -- they descend with great vigor upon whatever venue they'll perform at.  They're troopers too -- at a social outing this weekend, a couple of girls were talking about how they performed outside once under a caterpillar tree.  They had caterpillars (the stinging ones!) in their hair, on their clothes, under their feet -- but they kept dancing.  Hardcore!  They were an awesome posse -- upbeat, friendly, artsy, accepting -- to hang with. 

So it was a stellar weekend.

Cammi even introduced me to Trashy Diva (dagnabbit rabbit), which I totally now adore.  Like I can afford to adore it.  Turns out that there are alternatives to affording such glitz though.  A gang of transvestites has apparently been terrorizing Magazine Street boutiques -- no joke!  Let's see if I can't find a link to the article....http://www.neworleanscitybusiness.com/viewFeature.cfm?recID=434