Once a month I veer off the path of the expected, the routine, into the world of "OffBeat". My friends may feel free to snicker here. Little I do in my professional life is expected or routine, and much less in my private life.
I look forward to the Third Friday of the month the way others anticipate Holidays. A week or so before, postings begin to appear on face book. Restless fan-participants and dancers chatting it up. More than that, a sort of reassurance. It seems like forever since the last time, but soon we will enter the enchanted Queendom of Dance, Costume and Friendship known as "OffBeat".
Altho its tempting to refer to the group as "offbeaters," the events creator, meteoric force and "Ringleader" Karissa Lowe doesn't like that phrase. Instead we are "supporters" if not performing. "Dancers" if performing. "Regulars" if one of the original group of several performers, and "family" in a general extended community way. The regular dancers are teachers of many of the supporters and dancers. Many of us claim more than one teacher among them The rest of the tightly packed crowd is made up of coworkers, partners, parents, daughters, and one very loyal Grandmother. Grandma Sylvia is Ringleader Karissas grandmother, sitting with Gary and Becky, Karissas parents, She is like that most favorite, beloved ornament on the family Christmas tree. It wouldn't be the tree with out that one special ornament.
Around Six PM The devotes start trickling in. At The Blue Monk, the lower level performance stage area is not open before six, so catching up begins at the bar as we wait for the portal to open. At first when you go down stairs, it seems like any other space, tables chairs, twinkly lights, barkeepers, music.
As more friends arrive, people arrange themselves in groups that follow a sort of unwritten pattern. If you arrive after Seven, space is very limited. A lucky person will have a friend saving a seat for them, the rest sort of drift into tiny spaces like sand in beach shoes. Before its too crowded, we place our food orders, get the first round of drinks in hand and gradually everything settles in to place.
Around Seven thirty the music is turned off, and the dynamic, beautiful, charismatic Karissa takes the stage, mike in hand. She will introduce dancers, offer quick down and dirty show etiquette for those unfamiliar with the nuances of Bellydance, like the correct way to tip. This may follow a call and response format "do we tip in the trunk?" "no" Do we tip in the Junk" "no". Throughout the evening, she introduces the dancers, jokes, following a ritual banter with the audience who interact with a reverent love force. She knows what they want, She has what they Need. She gives both, and always a little more, some unexpected twist, so that they will leave sated, but return like dying thirsty desert ramblers in time for the next installment. Its ok. It comes every month. Like Halloween, or your birthday. Its never enough.
The simple, but stunningly intuitive genius of Off Beat is this; In the world of BellyDance, what if there was a place where you could wear that one out fit, so over the top, so creative, so yet uninvented, that no one had seen anything like it before? Then what if you could dance your best belly moves to those couple songs that you secretly practice to in the privacy of your home, your guilty pleasures, from a fantastic sound system on a stage and your friends were there to watch, zagureet and howl supportively? Nirvana? Absolutely.
The rest of the equation is equally simple. When the non performers are all revved up from wonderful food, drink and all sorts of great music, the performers take a short break and Ringleader Karissa croons the most enticing words in my world. "All Skate". An "All Skate" is where really good dance music (you never know what this is gonna be, but it will be good) plays, and all the regulars who want to, get up and dance their brains out. Some times its the B52's sometimes a punk anthem, or rock classic. Music at Off Beat runs the gamut from ACDC to hip hop to classics and twenties style songs. What ever it is, you can find your groove joining the joyful dancing throng on the small stage, or on the dance floor in front. All Skate dance moves range from typical rock type eclectic, through swing type blues to the classic belly moves we all love.
Sometimes in the moments between performers, the crowd reverts to its preshow chatter. This is after all a pretty tightly knit group for its size, of 80 to 100. When this happens, Karissa makes the quiet coyote sign, if that's not enough she has been known to brandish her shiny silver flashing-lighted whirring noised plastic raygun trophy from the last Burning Man, in front of the mike and menace the crowd with pouty threats or a pirate joke. The thing is, while you want to catch up with your table mates, no one wants to miss a syllable of her funny, intelligent, irreverent banter. When she introduces each performer, you may learn something, no matter how well you think you know them.
At some point during the show the crowd sings "Happy Birthday" to the months birthday celebrants, and the show runs its little Off beat course with just enough unexpected highlights to keep every one really paying attention.
There are usually two all skate sets, and two long performance sets, made up of 3 or four performers dancing two to three songs each. Finally around 10:30, when you are horse from cheering, tired from dancing, full to the bursting of perfect drinks, olives, pizza, pasta, artisan breads, cheeses or beat spinach goat cheese salad, the evening comes to an end. The crowd is eased into the transition by Karissa as she signals the impending doom by saying "Get ready for some Pathos". The crowd moans emotively on cue, before they are summoned to the last group dance, then rounds of hugs, compliments, brief chit chat, and off in little groups into the night. Sometimes its fun to find the next place to dance, then another place for that last drink. Other times its nice to walk out into the evening mentally reviewing all the delicious moves, lux costumes, new hair arrangements, outlandish songs that worked, and just meander home through the night so full of satisfaction that nothing needs to be done or said. By morning tho, it will be like a growing gnawing loss, missed in increasing increments until the next third Friday of the month, when the talk will start, friends will gather, the portal will open and " The Queendom of "OffBeat" will hold court. We will be there.
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