Your most memorable or unusual performance venue

Recnadocir · 07-25-2006, 08:30 AM

I've danced on New Year's Eve in the living room of a luxury condo where a party was being held by some tipsy ladies and their indifferent husbands; at an exceedingly smokefilled nightclub operated by some drunk Bosnian refugees; on board a ship plying the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden, Sweden and Finland, and back again; at a county fair on a makeshift stage with dangerously dangling cables next to the livestock area (sheeps!); at a retirement party for an eminent pathologist, a party which just before I entered had been a somnolent affair with soft chamber music playing in the background; and at a 1 year anniversary party for a wealthy young Indian couple, at which a doddering dowager pawed my backside excessively while in the process of depositing a measly two bucks in my coin belt.

Those are just a few of the stranger settings in which I've performed. I'm sure some of you can top these. Have a go!

Maria_Aya · 07-25-2006, 08:40 AM

Damn I'm soooooooo boring

lol (theatre IS boring compairing)
Well I wish I had the opportunity to see Rico

xoxo
Maria Aya

Shanazel · 07-25-2006, 02:54 PM

Most memorable: a small restaurant/general store/gas station in central Wyoming 40 miles from the nearest town (which had 500 people). I figured about three people would turn up, not counting the Forest Service crew I was working on that summer, but when I came out to dance, the place was standing room only. I think every rancher and construction worker in a hundred mile radius turned up. I had a wonderful time and made more tips that night than I made any other time. One of the ranchers, a lady who had had several beers, followed me around the restaurant, hassling the other patrons to be generous with their tips. She snatched one poor guy's hat off his head and swatted him with it after he gave me a dollar tip and demanded, "Give her a ten, you cheap son of a bitch, don't you see how hard she's working?" This was back in the late seventies and ten bucks was my grocery bill for a week.

PS Rick, maybe the doddering dowager mistook you for an exotic type of sheeps.

maariku · 07-25-2006, 03:20 PM

Alright... here are some of my "top" memories

* my second performance at an open-air village party where we faced serious competition from an Estonian folk-dancing group, with an average age of 75 (those ladies were mean!)
* at a friend's birthday party (she is also a dancer) at her countryhouse... we managed to squeeze our sets right in between massive rainfall, dancing barefoot with mud squarting up and having a car's headlights directed on us as it was way too dark
* a gig at some company's Christmas party, where we were supposed to do three sets. The only problem was, that by the last set the crowd was rather wasted already, so the guy who had hired us just put on some random party music and told us to "go shimmy somewhere in the corner" instead.

Viv · 07-25-2006, 06:24 PM

We have a repeat gig every year at the Marine base for the Mardi Gras. The first year we performed they had us do a half hour set while people were getting their dinners at the buffet. Needless to say, the audience pretty much ignored us in favor of "FOOD". Never get between a Marine and food

The following years they have had us bring two or three sets of 10 to 15 minutes that we perform to between band and dj breaks on the dance floor of the banquet hall and nightclub areas. The "club" is broken up into three areas, officers club, dinning/banquet facillity and NCO nightclub all connected together by hallways. The rest of the 4 hours is spent racing between nightclubs and banquet hall dancing to whatever is playing and trying to encourage people to get up on the dance floor. Nothing like belly dancing to 70s and 80s pop songs on one side of the house to run over to the other side to dance to whatever the latest and greatest nightclub hits the dj is playing only to run bakc to the other side to do our set to actual middle eastern music and then race back to one of the other areas. I swear we loose serious pounds on that show, but it is sooo much fun!
(Try belly dancing to Brick House and the Cha Cha Slide, you just can't help but giggle and have fun.

)

Aaeesha · 07-26-2006, 04:16 AM

My most memorable was a birthday party for a young egyptian guy and it was held at a very upscale nightclub in downtown. I came out and started my set and I was immediately immersed in the ambiance of the club. The floor was covered in white smoke from a smoke machine and the lights were red reflecting on the smoke and making it look so intense. When I walked through it, it would part and circle around me when I would spin. Then, just as I thought it couldn't be any freakin' cooler, they whipped out the drums and I suddenly had the best live music to dance to! Now every gig I do seems very mellow. I did a birthday party last weekend for a 90 year old man and I danced in the dining room. Nope.... doesn't come close. I would die to do it again.

Moon · 07-26-2006, 11:06 AM

I can't really respond to this thread, as I only did one performance which was just quite "normal".
But I just wanted to say that I really like to read this thread. Nice and funny stories

Recnadocir · 08-06-2006, 08:27 AM

All I can say is, WOW! You guys have topped my stories. Hope there are more coming, very funny!

Then there was the time I danced with the troupe I was with at the time, at some Olympic swimming pool place, a benefit for the swimmers. They had this big anchor for a prop, with netting and crap all over it, some barnacles or something. Well, as soon as we entered, my veil snagged on the anchor thing and I pulled the whole damn prop crashing down on the stage. The audience all laughed, which made me indignant. I danced pretty fired up after that.

Then there was the Oriental Dance Festival of Finland. I was waiting in the wings to go on, and this Finnish lady was giving a long speech, I couldn't understand a word, starting daydreaming, then all of a sudden she was shouting "Rico Dancer! Rico Dancer!" and the music was playing. I lurched on stage and made it through...I think the audience was half drunk so they didn't notice the late entrance.

07-25-2006, 08:30 AM	#1 (permalink)
Recnadocir Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: La La Land Posts: 466	Your most memorable or unusual performance venue I've danced on New Year's Eve in the living room of a luxury condo where a party was being held by some tipsy ladies and their indifferent husbands; at an exceedingly smokefilled nightclub operated by some drunk Bosnian refugees; on board a ship plying the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden, Sweden and Finland, and back again; at a county fair on a makeshift stage with dangerously dangling cables next to the livestock area (sheeps!); at a retirement party for an eminent pathologist, a party which just before I entered had been a somnolent affair with soft chamber music playing in the background; and at a 1 year anniversary party for a wealthy young Indian couple, at which a doddering dowager pawed my backside excessively while in the process of depositing a measly two bucks in my coin belt. Those are just a few of the stranger settings in which I've performed. I'm sure some of you can top these. Have a go! __________________ http://a537.ac-images.myspacecdn.com...0267e2f1c0.jpg *Nos es in Hollywood , quod vos es non!* Last edited by Recnadocir; 07-25-2006 at 08:35 AM.

07-25-2006, 03:20 PM	#4 (permalink)
maariku Moderator Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Estonia Posts: 1,146	Alright... here are some of my "top" memories * my second performance at an open-air village party where we faced serious competition from an Estonian folk-dancing group, with an average age of 75 (those ladies were mean!) * at a friend's birthday party (she is also a dancer) at her countryhouse... we managed to squeeze our sets right in between massive rainfall, dancing barefoot with mud squarting up and having a car's headlights directed on us as it was way too dark * a gig at some company's Christmas party, where we were supposed to do three sets. The only problem was, that by the last set the crowd was rather wasted already, so the guy who had hired us just put on some random party music and told us to "go shimmy somewhere in the corner" instead. Last edited by maariku; 07-25-2006 at 03:21 PM. Reason: messy-messy typing

08-06-2006, 08:27 AM	#8 (permalink)
Recnadocir Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: La La Land Posts: 466	All I can say is, WOW! You guys have topped my stories. Hope there are more coming, very funny! Then there was the time I danced with the troupe I was with at the time, at some Olympic swimming pool place, a benefit for the swimmers. They had this big anchor for a prop, with netting and crap all over it, some barnacles or something. Well, as soon as we entered, my veil snagged on the anchor thing and I pulled the whole damn prop crashing down on the stage. The audience all laughed, which made me indignant. I danced pretty fired up after that. Then there was the Oriental Dance Festival of Finland. I was waiting in the wings to go on, and this Finnish lady was giving a long speech, I couldn't understand a word, starting daydreaming, then all of a sudden she was shouting "Rico Dancer! Rico Dancer!" and the music was playing. I lurched on stage and made it through...I think the audience was half drunk so they didn't notice the late entrance. __________________ http://a537.ac-images.myspacecdn.com...0267e2f1c0.jpg *Nos es in Hollywood , quod vos es non!*

07-25-2006, 08:40 AM	#2 (permalink)
Maria_Aya Moderator Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Athens, Greece Posts: 2,221	Damn I'm soooooooo boring lol (theatre IS boring compairing) Well I wish I had the opportunity to see Rico xoxo Maria Aya

07-25-2006, 02:54 PM	#3 (permalink)
Shanazel Moderator Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Rocky Mountains USA Posts: 4,563	Most memorable: a small restaurant/general store/gas station in central Wyoming 40 miles from the nearest town (which had 500 people). I figured about three people would turn up, not counting the Forest Service crew I was working on that summer, but when I came out to dance, the place was standing room only. I think every rancher and construction worker in a hundred mile radius turned up. I had a wonderful time and made more tips that night than I made any other time. One of the ranchers, a lady who had had several beers, followed me around the restaurant, hassling the other patrons to be generous with their tips. She snatched one poor guy's hat off his head and swatted him with it after he gave me a dollar tip and demanded, "Give her a ten, you cheap son of a bitch, don't you see how hard she's working?" This was back in the late seventies and ten bucks was my grocery bill for a week. PS Rick, maybe the doddering dowager mistook you for an exotic type of sheeps.

07-25-2006, 06:24 PM	#5 (permalink)
Viv Moderator Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: Yuma, Arizona Posts: 152	We have a repeat gig every year at the Marine base for the Mardi Gras. The first year we performed they had us do a half hour set while people were getting their dinners at the buffet. Needless to say, the audience pretty much ignored us in favor of "FOOD". Never get between a Marine and food The following years they have had us bring two or three sets of 10 to 15 minutes that we perform to between band and dj breaks on the dance floor of the banquet hall and nightclub areas. The "club" is broken up into three areas, officers club, dinning/banquet facillity and NCO nightclub all connected together by hallways. The rest of the 4 hours is spent racing between nightclubs and banquet hall dancing to whatever is playing and trying to encourage people to get up on the dance floor. Nothing like belly dancing to 70s and 80s pop songs on one side of the house to run over to the other side to dance to whatever the latest and greatest nightclub hits the dj is playing only to run bakc to the other side to do our set to actual middle eastern music and then race back to one of the other areas. I swear we loose serious pounds on that show, but it is sooo much fun! (Try belly dancing to Brick House and the Cha Cha Slide, you just can't help but giggle and have fun. )

07-26-2006, 04:16 AM	#6 (permalink)
Aaeesha Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 75	My most memorable was a birthday party for a young egyptian guy and it was held at a very upscale nightclub in downtown. I came out and started my set and I was immediately immersed in the ambiance of the club. The floor was covered in white smoke from a smoke machine and the lights were red reflecting on the smoke and making it look so intense. When I walked through it, it would part and circle around me when I would spin. Then, just as I thought it couldn't be any freakin' cooler, they whipped out the drums and I suddenly had the best live music to dance to! Now every gig I do seems very mellow. I did a birthday party last weekend for a 90 year old man and I danced in the dining room. Nope.... doesn't come close. I would die to do it again.

07-26-2006, 11:06 AM	#7 (permalink)
Moon V.I.P. Join Date: Jul 2006 Location: the Netherlands Posts: 3,627	I can't really respond to this thread, as I only did one performance which was just quite "normal". But I just wanted to say that I really like to read this thread. Nice and funny stories