Today, Melanie and myself did a local talent competition, which included music, dance, acting and modelling. The judges were from various fields, but "star judge" was a judge from South Africa's So You Think You Can Dance, Didi Moses.
I was super nervous. I hate competitions. The fact that they were running about an hour late didn't help. I sat watching the end of the music section before heading backstage and waiting for our turn. Luckily, I didn't have any coins on, so I could shimmy my nerves into submission.
Before we got to dance, one of the other teachers told us that her girls who had gotten golds in the P.E. Dance Festival just 3 weeks ago, were pulling marks in the 30s. Obviously, this wasn't great news. I was hoping this competition would help me feel more confident. I was determined to go out there and stun the judges.
We started our duet with a mighty big mess, but got back on track quickly enough. I thought that surely the duet would be our lowest mark.
Then it my my solo. Each piece had to be a maximum of 2:30, but I don't have any solos that short. I spent Monday trying to cut various pieces to see which one would work. I settled on "El Hantour". I managed to cut it to 2:31. I know the song well, so even if I lose track of which parts of the dance I've cut, I can easy just improvise or pick it up on the next phrase. There was one part where I fluffed it up and ended up doing some snake arms, but no one other than I would have known.
Mel's solo was up next. She did a techno drum. She danced it beautifully, not missing a beat.
We weren't mentioned in the feedback session at all. There were some general comments about hands and facial expressions. Some hip hop dancers were given special mention. That's about it.
We waited for our certificates which contained our marks and ... eh.
Our duet got us 62%, a bronze. Remember this is the one we messed up the beginning badly.
My solo got ... wait for it ... 55%.
I won't divulge Mel's mark as that is up to her to tell people if she wishes. What I can tell you is that it was way below what she deserved.
I have to say that even though I had been warned before that the marks were all low, I couldn't help but feel disappointed. I really thought I'd done a good job (especially because we only had 1 week to prepare) and even if they didn't know much (or anything) about belly dance, they should have enjoyed my performance. My mom (who has been a dance mom for about 34 years) said:
I don't want to sound like a bad loser and blame the judges, but I do feel our performances were worth more than what we got. Especially seen as how the dance we feel we did the worst in got the higher mark. We will only receive our individual feedback via email (hopefully) next week. SO we will have to see what they had to day about us.
Mel told me that seen as how they have no experience with belly dance they don't understand it. They have nothing to compare us with, just what they think is a good belly dancer. This is very true. We can't judge what we don't know. This goes through everything in life as well. You can't judge a person without living their life and experiences. But I diverge.
Basically, this experience hasn't brought me more confidence like I had hoped.
One of my students videoed us. I'm being very brave by offering to show you my solo. The image is fuzzy as the camera wouldn't focus on the stage properly, but you can see enough.