I love the beach. Especially the undeveloped, open, natural beaches, where you have to walk over big sand dunes to get there.
Some of my fondest memories are of going to the beach with my family and walking (for what seemed miles as a little kid) along the deserted beaches, swimming in cool, salty water and climbing the rocks to look in rock pools.
However, when it comes to performing on the beach ... No.
The first time I was asked to dance at a beach, it was for a night function. I couldn't think of anything more exotic and romantic than belly dancers dancing on the beach, lit by tiki torches. My teacher organised who was dancing what, and I was assigned a veil dance. When we got there it suddenly became apparent that this was not going to be easy.
Your feet sink into the sand.
Sand is uneven. You will overbalance. Even if you dance on wet sand, which looks solid, your feet will sink it causing holes, and as you move the sand become "churned" and very uneven.
Turning is impossible. Your feet sink in and the sand becomes disturbed making it very uneven. There is nothing you can do. When we were doing our veil dance, instead of doing 4 turns, we could only do 2 1/2. We ended up facing the back when we were supposed to face forward. We tried moving further back slowly so that we constantly had undisturbed sand, but it didn't help and we just got further and further away from our audience, and closer and closer to the waves.
Hip drops with a kick becomes more of a hip drop with a toe stuck in the sand.
The beach tends to be windy. Veils, fan veils, wings and anything involving candles, don't work. The veils and wings just fly in your face and the candles will go out before you've even started.
If you are dancing at night, the sand (especially the wet sand) will be cold. The air will be cold too. It's cold. Your feet are cold, your body is cold, and dancing cold isn't a good idea. Of course this may differ depending on location, but here is Port Elizabeth the beach gets cold as soon as the sun goes down and most places I've been to it's the same.
Then there's the well known fact that sand gets everywhere. Even places that never came into contact with the sand. Feet, hands, hair and underwear are easy to clean. Your outfit may not be.
You must always be aware of the waves. In some places the tide changes very quickly. You could end up with a wet hem or worse. This happened to us on Sunday during a photo shoot. We were having some group photos near the waves but far away enough to be "safe" (Probably about 3 metres from where the waves ended). Suddenly we all had cold wet feet and soggy hems.
Since that first beach performance we've thought of ways to make these gigs a bit easier.
Take along a carpet. Flatten out an area of sand and place the carpet down. It won't be perfect but it's better than dancing on the actual sand.
Avoid doing turns, moves that require fast movements with your feet and lots of travelling. My teacher literally stood on a small spot of carpet in the middle of all the people and danced.
Wear a costume that'll be easy to clean the sand off and wash any potential salt water out.
If you can, just avoid performing on the beach.