Dance till you can’t dance no more

Greetings one and all.
Again thank you all so much for contributing to this series. Today I am happy to present the ideas of the self proclaimed "Dancing Queen of Tucson"
I might have seen her without even knowing it as I attend most of the activities that she has mentioned. Well, put on your dancing shoes and get down on it girl!

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I love to dance I go to the club's. I go early so that I don't have to pay a cover charge and I dance all night. I do this at least three times a week it keeps me healthy; I have a lot of fun, and enjoy myself. Yes I drink a little bit, but not much I don’t go to get my drink on and since I don’t drink I can be a designated driver.
I get out to a lot of different events throughout the city throughout the year, last fall I went to the Tucson Meet Yourself festival and I saw some of most amazing cultural dances and displays it's just wonderful that you could find so many diverse cultures here in what's considered a small metropolitan area. There were several things are really caught my eye on one of the stage as they had some Hawaiian dancers and although you could tell some of them were really needing some more practice but there were a few dancers that were so graceful and beautiful that I decided to take up Hula. I started taking lessons after the first of the year so it’s only been a month but so far I think I’m doing pretty well. I have mastered 3 of the as I’m told 8 basis steps of Hula and hopefully by summer I can learn a dance. I am so excited! I had taken up the Belly Dancing through the Parks and recreation a couple years ago and can see a lot of similarities between the two styles, but I really do love the Hawaiian Hula more. I even attended a Bollywood Dance [From India} class at the public library at the Martha Cooper Branch late last summer it was so much fun it was a little different than what I thought it would be. There are apparently a lot of different movies that this form of dancing has been featured in and although it was not for me I did enjoy the class and the instructor was great and she said that she had actually been injured and as such could not really do as much as she normally would, and I was thinking yeah right. Here I am huffing and puffing and barely able to keep up with you. I thought that was funny but she was a wonderful girl and I enjoyed the class. I ran into a group of belly dancers there who were taking the class and then I saw them down at the U of A performing they remembered me I was flattered. The form of Belly Dancing they do is more of European origin, I have observed this style before, and they did have great costumes. This was part of the Renaissance Fair at the U. of A on the Mall. I used to know someone who was a really into the Renaissance Festival she had made a lot of her own costumes and I recall her telling me that a belly dancing group practices at one of the Ramada’s in Reid Park near 22nd St and Country Club. Last summer belly dancing I met a native of Alaska and she was kind enough to show me some of their dances and they were also beautiful, and had I had more time to spend with her I would love to learn some of those as well. I don't pass up any opportunity to learn a dance.
At the Tucson Meet Yourself Festival I saw Pasqui Yaqui and the Tohono O’odham also performed a sacred dance, in all honesty they were so boring it amazed me that the Pasqui Yaqui had asked that no photographs were to be taken during their time on stage. I sincerely mean no offense by this but I can’t imagine anyone wanting to photograph the dances that I witnessed. I respect their culture and their beliefs I thought I was gonna see something really spectacular and to make matters worse they were half hour late starting I waited an extra half an hour to be bored to death literally.
I watched many different cultures perform over those three days and most were amazing I have temporarily misplaced my program so I cannot specifically name the ones I saw, but there was a group of Middle Eastern Ladies, a Native American group that would be hard to forget as they had large peacock feathers in there head-dresses, lots of Latino dancers and honestly the Korean drummers stole the show for me! I spent 3 wonderful rhythmic filled days and nights there. I would love to learn some of the dances that I saw there the costumes were just as creative on a scale that makes it hard to even describe so beautiful. When ever I see a style I like and think I can learn easily enough I go for it, and then I can incorporate all these different styles and moves into my own dance. Which is why I consider myself literally the; ….. Dancing Queen of Tucson


BTW I do have some photo's of some of the events mentioned in this article, check back for links to my sister site and updated photo's

Peace,
Loko, Queen of The Night