Saturday night at the Bugsplat Family Centre.

In Bugsplat there's a long standing tradition of celebrating International Women's Day on closest Saturday night to the day at the Bugsplat Family Centre. Last night. It's $6 at the door, plus whatever raffle tickets they can wrangle, and 'a plate or an act'. We didn't bring a plate.
No, no, no. :)

We went to Honey's house early to choreograph our bellydance performance. We put it together in twenty minutes. Honey's husband and son were our first audience. I wore my red bellydancing skirt that our best friend Leila gave me for my birthday three years ago and the peacock scarf that Mia brought me from China. Honey wore an Indian outfit that her brother gave her. She looked truly beautiful. She looked like Salman Rushdie's new (and if Fury is anything to go by, seriously distracting) wife. She looked ~alarmingly~ beautiful.

There was a fantastic saxophone and keyboard band, and lots of women with guitars. Also, an acappello of Missy Higgin's "After the fight". That was so tender: it was really moving. Also, after supper, there were some comedy musical acts that were fabulous. As usual there was too much talky-talk, but it wasn't that bad. There was only a bit of poetry. There were theatre/improvisational type games which we really dislike. We just endure them, trying to manage our dread lest we be picked. They make the audience laugh, sure, but I think it's a nervous kind of laugh. Our friend Nadia did some and when she does them, it's almost okay, because she doesn't pick people unless they show some kind of willingness. Unfortunately there was a less experienced person there too who really needs to be sat down and given a little chat about boundaries and personal space and how important it is to refrain from humiliating people. I reckon I know just the young tomboy (Trouble, of course) to give her that.

We were the last act before dinner - on a beautiful red patterned carpet. The music was four minutes long. We danced facing each other at first, then the audience, then departing from the carpet and dancing to the audience, then returning to the carpet, to each other again. This we did three times with three different moves (kashlimah, circles in the sand, hip flicks). Back on the carpet then we sped it right up and put in a comic section with us both ostensibly squabbling for attention and muscling in on each other's 'big-bottom' moves (err, yes, that is a technical term) and that worked really well as a kind of 3 minute peak - and then we wound down slowly with pretty hands and snake arms and upper body shimmies.

Then, after the amazing supper (god but country women can COOK), there was more music, and Roz played her Clarence River song. Our friend Lanie was the compare and did a brilliant job of that. It was a really great night. I love this place.