one show, one costume

Dancing for senior citizens is fun, and they do enjoy the sights and sounds of a bellydance show even though they sometimes don't express it as much as a younger audience. I think that they enjoy seeing dancers so much because of the colorful costumes and happy faces we wear; so for the latest show this past weekend I decided to keep all the dancers onstage throughout the entire show. That is, no costume changes - we just wore one costume through the 30 to 40 minute show (about 8 numbers). Usually we change two or three times, for the different styles of bellydance we do.

So the best choice for an "all-purpose" costume seemed to be beledi or costume dresses, and some of us added Skirt Panels* so we could do the Skirt Combos during the TOBD (Tribal Odyssey) section of the show. Here's a nice shot of our group (PRISM Dancers), several of us dancing together in front while the others are upstage (behind us): 

PRISM Dancers wearing beledi dresses and skirt panels

The dresses were a great all-purpose choice that let us stay in view throughout the show, even when not dancing. Usually I would not recommend dancers to upstage performers, and to stay out of sight, but somehow I felt that in this case the seniors would enjoy seeing as many dancers as possible. And having all the dancers present and experiencing everything together gave us a stronger communal bonding moment too, so it benefited as well.
It's times like this I really feel blessed having this dance in my life! And I'm so happy to share it with others.

*the Skirt Panels DIY tutorial is here on my TOBD blog.

 Anthea / Kawakib
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