In other news, my dear friend Vanessa is entering me in the Miss Belly Dance South Africa competition next month. I have till then to get together a veil, sagat and drum solo performance which I’m doing in the Turkish Fusion style. There are enough Egyptian style dancers here to create a small country so I thought it would be a good move to do something different, plus I find the Turkish flair far more interesting and ‘fusion’ because I can blend my Bollywood and Tribal and Latin styles in when I feel it’s artistically called for.

I feel the whole point of Belly Dance is the ability to interpret the skill (of the wide range of shimmies, isolations, props and undulations) with each individual dancer’s artistic feel of the music. Some will obviously be better than others as far as creativity and skill go but each to his own and the audience is always varied so what some will like or appreciate, others won’t.

I like to use my audience for inspiration as there’s nothing more fun than a great crowd who get involved and have fun and who you can connect with. I’ve also performed for very stuck up people who try their best not to look at you. The joy of performing at restaurants is that if that you can leave those sad little people to themselves and spend more time performing for those who do enjoy your effort.

Do pray that I can do well as I’ve never done anything like this before so it’ll be a new challenge. Yay!