Thread: Your favorite performance blunders? *UPDATE: Can I quote you?*

**UPDATE 12 FEB: I've enjoyed your stories on this thread so much that I'd love to quote some of them in my article - using your Bhuz ID name as the source (or any name/ 'anon' if you prefer). Is that OK? The article will be posted on my website as a free download. If anyone has a problem with this, please let me know by PM or on this thread. Thank you!**

ORIGINAL POST:
I have it in mind to write a light-hearted article on common bellydance performance blunders (whether for hafla or professional), in the hope that it'll help my students avoid them! So tell me, what's your favorite performance blunder? I always love a good flying-zill-missile story. I'll post the article on the web when it's done. Here's my starting list:

Costuming:
- Raqs beaver (otherwise known as 'the dancer with no knickers')
- Costumes that end at the neck (no hair and make-up)
- Catchy jewellery (attaching your earring to your hair or veil and other ouchy things)
- How not to flash the girls (the benefits of practicing in costume beforehand, safety pins, and buying a costume that fits)

Your dancing:
- Graceful backbends (no crotch-pointing at the audience - see also Raqs Beaver)
- Loose elastic= zill missile= wounded patron
- Veil on floor= distracted audience, possibly= broken neck
- How to exit like a dancer (ie: not bending ass-up to pick up the veil, no bored teen stompy walk off stage)

General ettiquette:
- Undercutters go to hell when they die (or perhaps pergutory if they were just naive...and are Catholic)
- How to help a happy hafla host (turn up on time; stick to the time limit, etc)

Other:
- Dancers' emergency kit (back-up CDs, safety pins, spare sound system! Kitchen sink, etc etc)

This is fun!

I sliped once in a coffee house. Ass over tea kettle. Thank god for harem pants. I was 50 back then...so all my young troupe members were in shock. They instinctively knew not to come running over to see if the old broad had finally broken a hip ( I would have had to kill them, poor things) but they were unsure of how to react other than that. When I threw back my head and brayed with laughter...they knew the worst had happened and I had lived. Then there was the time I lost my fake braid from under my turban at a RennFair....

Re catchy jewelry: Watch out for ankle bracelets. I have a nice sparkly one of rhinestones on a stretchy cord that I bought cheap at the local drugstore. Unfortunately I had it on once when I was doing some floorwork -- hadn't done floorwork for years, never been terribly good at it in the first place, but it seemed really right in the music I was using and I was in a setting where it would be enjoyed. So, after getting my legs all gracefully stretched out, I got the ankle bracelet caught in the edge of my skirt and couldn't get it extricated without a lot of frantic tugging that I couldn't hide. Not graceful.

Lebanese Festival.
Enthusiastic, overhead twirling cane.
Somehow leaves my hand.
Becomes slender, deadly missile that is launched into the crowd.
Lands across the laps of 2 dancers and does not poke anyone's eyes out.
Every time I turn to the band thereafter, they duck.
..c:: ..l;, ..cr.:

one of my most embarassing near miss moments:

on stage at al andalous, live band, full house, one of the royal saudi princesses and her entourage taking up half the tables in the club...no pressure right?

so i promptly get my big toe stuck in my skirt, which was one of those old turkish sequin crochet net things. i thought i was gonna fall on my butt in front of a real princess. that would've been so elegant! it was a total fight-or-flight moment.

somehow i managed to hop in a circle on my free leg, to simulate some kind of hideous turn, while reaching backward and extricating my toe from the net tangles.

omg! i still can't believe that worked. wish i had a video of it. hehe

Originally Posted by Azhia

Lebanese Festival.
Enthusiastic, overhead twirling cane.
Somehow leaves my hand.
Becomes slender, deadly missile that is launched into the crowd.
Lands across the laps of 2 dancers and does not poke anyone's eyes out.
Every time I turn to the band thereafter, they duck.
..c:: ..l;, ..cr.:

hahaha
i've also performed the deadly cane-missle dance! wanna do a deadly duet?

Losing my skirt in front of 400 people (mostly women, thank God) at a Yemeni wedding. Showed my arse to the bride and groom. Beat that!

Oh golly. I once decided immediately before a performance (ie, without testing) to switch which arm I was wearing a big upper-arm snake bracelet on. Can't remember now why I thought I should do this. Anyway, I swept my right arm across my front while doing floorwork and got the tail portion of the snake solidly hooked down my right bra cup so my upper arm was pinned to the front of my boob. I had to use my left hand to mess around and get it unhitched, as just forcefully pulling it away was obviously going to cause a serious disaster. After the show, friends who had been watching told me they never saw this happening (!). Some time later I received video footage which captured it most obviously. ..l;,
Rosette

Originally Posted by kharis_UK

Losing my skirt in front of 400 people (mostly women, thank God) at a Yemeni wedding. Showed my arse to the bride and groom. Beat that!

omg! you could've charged quite a bit extra for that show.

"the benefits of practicing in costume beforehand"

Needs to include not just bras, but skirts as well.

Two weekends ago I saw a girl, in her first flash spandex costume, nearly shimmy herself out of costume. The skirt was a pinch too loose and we all got a good view of at least 1 inch of white thong.

She hiked it back up, the audience relaxed, and she was a bit embarassed.

She was embarassed because she thought she'd had a close call, she was even more embarassed when we had to tell her that, no, we'd seen her whities.

I've also seen troupe footage of a group I used to work with. One girl hadn't stitched her padding in, so it worked its way up...and dove out of one of her cups to the safety of the floor.

As for me? Always know your stage. I didn't know the stage floor would be lit from below, disco style, and knew instantly that my double chiffon skirts would be more risque than normal. Took most of my performance into the audience.

Raqs beaver (otherwise known as 'the dancer with no knickers')

OMG, i remember my first teacher, loved to raqs beaver!

Originally Posted by ozma

She was embarassed because she thought she'd had a close call, she was even more embarassed when we had to tell her that, no, we'd seen her whities.

Could have been worse.... she could have flashed her bearded clam.

I had one a couple of weeks ago when I was dancing in a Turkish restaurant.
It's a restaurant, so obviously you have waiters there... when I was doing some spins, a waiter passed by me with a plate full of snacks... Wham! My hand landed right in de middle of the plate! The feta cheese and olives were flying all over the place ..l;,
Everybody had a good laugh ,r:;

Flying olives ..l;,

My absolutely most embarrassing blunder.... A surprise gig at an anniversary party, hostess didn't clearly specify how the celebrating couple looked like/where there were sitting/what they were wearing.... "Oh, you'll notice right away". Yeah right. Congratulated the wrong couple (they were so in the spotlight! the real celebrating couple was tucked away in a little corner!). Lesson learnt. No one offended, fortunately. They thought it was pretty funny, got pictures with the right couple.
Now, I prefer the ones who are forced to wear a crown. Can't miss.

I hope the hostess learnt something as well. She thought everything was going to run smoothly by itself

Originally Posted by jewelbellydance

- Veil on floor= distracted audience, possibly= broken neck

I've had this problem once a long time ago. It was one of my first performances, at a hafli. I tossed my veil on the floor as part of my choreography. Later on, I 3-point-turned onto it and slid a bit - I tried to make it look like I was going into a pose for the taxim. You couldn't tell on the video that it happened because somehow I kept m face composed. But inside, my heart felt like it dropped out of my stomach.

My other FREQUENT issue is the dang arm gauntlets falling off. I learned to sew elastic into them and it usually helps. Still, there usually comes a point where I need to just take the dang thing off - and then I'm dancing around with one arm gauntlet. I had a matched pair from L-Rose that started to come off during a drum solo, I turned it into a move to remove them and toss them to the side. Anyway, I'm hoping it doesn't look like I'm disrobing for the audience but I hate fighting with a gauntlet. For those who say that you should always practice in your costume, I will add that you never know when a good gauntlet is going to go bad on you.

Ha ha ha ha, these are so funny. I've suffered through many of them, too. No skirt falling off...yet...

Not to me but one of my troupe members...vigorous head tossing + one fake ponytail = what has henceforth been referred to as the flying muskrat incident.

I had a wardrobe malfunction at a film premiere!!!

Me and another dancer were performing at a local aquarium (in the room where they keep the seals ..l;, ) at the premiere of an IMAX movie about Greece. The bouzouki band was amazing. I was having a great time and rockin' out. Everything was going swimmingly. And then I felt something heavy around my hips. And then, POP! A hook burst and my heavily fringed belt (which weighed nearly 5 lbs) crashed to the floor .

The other dancer was very nice and scooted off into the little girls' room with me to help me get re-situated with safety pins and a strategic veil wrap. I laughed it off (better my bottom falls off than my top!!!) and chalked it up to stupid luck (I finally get hired for something other than a Sweet 16 or a nightclub appearance and my effin' belt decides to revolt against me!!!).....but man, is that ever a good advertisement for why everybody MUST make sure to reinforce their hooks. Especially if you're wearing vintage like I was.

(Or maybe my costume has bad karma from the previous owner: the other time I wore it, my veil got stuck in a TREE ).

Lisa

None of mine are as good as all these! But here's a little one: dancing at a local restaurant, got the beaded edge of my skirt caught on a chair somehow...didn't know this until I ended up dragging the chair with me for a couple feet...that was dead sexy, let me tell ya.

Originally Posted by jewelbellydance

Costuming:
- Raqs beaver (otherwise known as 'the dancer with no knickers')
- Costumes that end at the neck (no hair and make-up)
- Catchy jewellery (attaching your earring to your hair or veil and other ouchy things)
- How not to flash the girls (the benefits of practicing in costume beforehand, safety pins, and buying a costume that fits)

Great idea for an article, Jewel! Your advice is always very helpful.

Another to add to costuming is that a professional gig calls for professional costuming. It seems like a given for most of us, but I've known a handful of "pro" dancers who go out and get paid work in broomstick skirts, low-end tribal-look coin bra tops (with or without nipple tassels), hip belts like you'd wear to class, and a load of cheap bangles and bindis. This is suitable attire for student shows and other low-key events for friends and family, but doesn't do a whole lot for our efforts to maintain a high-end image.

No need for a Bella if you can't afford it, but at the very least, get a Necklemann's and a nice L. Rose skirt. It pays for itself in one or two shows.

This one is SUCH a no brainer... but I was in a hurry!
ALWAYS pay attention to parking signs when parking for a gig...
Doh!
Nice Arab shisha place- a birthday party and an anniversary party are going on so it's full of happy interactive people. They're singing along, they get up at the right times, they GET when I use the Manga song and I do the dancer impersonations...They zaghareet, they laugh out loud at the Sahar Hamdi and Dina impersonations... about halfway through the DJ announces in that microphone fuzzy voice
"Whoever owns a cream color Nissan Altima, your car is about to be towed" ...
That's me.
Hey! Holy crap! That's me! OH NOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooooooo!
What do I do? (frantic panic sets in) .w.: .w.: .w.: I'm in the middle of my show! If I leave, well that would suck. I can't have my car towed- that would thoroughly suck, too. ..cr.:
Ahhh, lucky me. The staff is really nice and they know me. A guy asks where my keys are and offers to move my car. I tell him "They're in my pocketbook in my suitcase in the office". I don't have to leave to move my car, I stay. The whole place, KNEW what was going on and they laughed and cheered. What that tells me is that the audience really IS on your side. They WANT you to succeed. They WANT you to be happy. A minute later from my vantage point on the 2nd floor I could see out the window.
The sweetie staff member rushes in and opens my car door JUST as the tow bar was millimeters away from my car.
*sigh of relief* Whew! It was ALL OK.

Ozma's "the benefits of practicing in costume beforehand":
Wasn't in performance, but was just last night, so mine is practicing beforehand with dangly sleeves. Troupe has new "Fifi"-style dresses (each has different sleeve styles). Mine are long and slit up to the elbow (love the look). We rehearsed last night with our student troupe for next week's cultural show for the university's international festival (letting our students critique our costuming for us to help us identify any ah.. trouble spots that we haven't already attended to). First run through of the night and we get to the point in the choreo where we do the right arm swept in a counter clock wise circle over the head. WHAM! Dangly part of sleeve smacked fully into the face. Oh! Did I mention that my sleeves are trimmed in coins? ..l;, ..l;, ..l;, I kept dancing as best as I could at that point, but I could NOT stop laughing. Now I know what to expect, so I won't *begin* that movement quite so forcefully in performance.

If you're dancing in a venue where you've performed before, make sure the dimensions of the stage remain the same. Sometimes event organizers don't understand that drastically changing the dimensions of the stage can impede a performance.

About a year ago, the troupe I'm in performed at a local weekend-long event. For Saturday night's performance, the organizers added several rows of chairs, which drastically limited the depth of the stage. The back and sides of the stage were lined with expensive musical equipment (not ours). We also were practically on top of the audience and since we'd planned a lot of large, impressive group numbers, this was very difficult.

[QUOTE=ozma;121082
I've also seen troupe footage of a group I used to work with. One girl hadn't stitched her padding in, so it worked its way up...and dove out of one of her cups to the safety of the floor.

[/QUOTE]

I have seen this happen at least once at the last two haflas I've been at! At one, the dancer had those silicon pads that sit inside your bra. Sure enough, in the middle of her performance, one fell out of her bra and sat there, in the middle of the stage, for the next 2.5 minutes while she finished her set.

She's a great sport and could laugh it off, but I'm sure it was mortifying to end her performance, take a bow, and then lean over and pick up her plastic bra padding from the floor! ..l;,

Ugh, and I think I have had almost every blunder listed here happen to me - I've lost my bra, my belt, my zils, my wig, my shoe, my sword, you name it.

I think there's something to be said for the fine art of rolling with the punches - that would be a good section for the article - something about how whatever can go wrong, eventually will, no matter how much you prepare.

So some topics like "don't make a weird face when you mess up or forget your choreography" or "how to recover from a costume mishap" or "how to laugh it off" would be great too, or maybe as a follow up article?

Well, of course there've been the whole run-of-the-mill variety needing to jump down off stage and needing to get an emergency pin when not one but two hooks on a bra break simultaneously (you'd think I had an impressive bossom....) But I think back several years ago when I used to do Ren Fests...now THAT's where the real blunder action was:

* Skirts blown up over head (stage was in a cyclonic wind tunnel--thank god for harem pants) and hair blown and wrapped around face/head such that there was no graceful way to get loose....
* During the cane dance on a windy day, one drummer was sitting very close and canes kept getting blown a little as we'd swing them--drummer got smacked three times by three different dancers--finally jumped off the stage and finished the piece cowering next to the stage (fortunately, he had a great sense of humor and was very theatrical--played it off really well as part of the show.)
* Another gal in the troupe didn't stitch in her bra pad...started to come out in performance--it was just sort of "waving" at the audience, but she hadn't noticed yet. ...So...another one of our other dancers danced over near her. Faced with the decision whether to pull it out or push it back in, she, without warning, swiftly plunged her hand down into the bra/vest of the unsuspecting dancer with waving foam plumage, turned on her heel and danced away. ..l;, I don't think the first girl even knew what hit her until after the show when K. was able to explain why she'd done that!
* I lost a toe nail during the show. My BIG toe nail. Ripped off on a floorboard on the stage as I moved forward. OOOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!! Fortunately, in the choreo, I then got to turn to face the back for about 10 seconds (during which the band saw me make terrible faces and mouth some of the most foul words I knew) before I turned back to the front with the biggest cheesiest, toothiest smile you ever saw. I kicked the toe nail (it was just laying there) to the back of the stage and kept going. For the rest of the run, I wore a bandaid with a red toenail painted on it. (sexxxxxxxxy!)

Is it any wonder I gave up the glory of the dirt pit years ago?

Okay, this one isn't humorous or a great story. But you sometimes see novice dancers performing to a piece of music that they love but that has no musical changes in it. Five minutes of the same tempo, instrumentation, rhythm, etc. gets very long.

Or a dancer's costume choices will clash with her music choices. Bad example, but a big Gypsy skirt and coin bra with modern Egyptian music.

I know I've seen at least one dancer in a sequined bedlah and chiffon skirt dancing to Gypsy Caravan-style music. That clashes, to me.

Originally Posted by ozma

"the benefits of practicing in costume beforehand"

Needs to include not just bras, but skirts as well.

Two weekends ago I saw a girl, in her first flash spandex costume, nearly shimmy herself out of costume. The skirt was a pinch too loose and we all got a good view of at least 1 inch of white thong.

She hiked it back up, the audience relaxed, and she was a bit embarassed.

She was embarassed because she thought she'd had a close call, she was even more embarassed when we had to tell her that, no, we'd seen her whities.

.

well at least she was wearing something under, last year i saw a troupe all wearing their belts really low , and when during their number a couple of belts slipped lower we saw a lot of their behinds and buttcraks ...unfortunately they also had many moves with their backs to the audience and none of them pulled their belts back up .w.: it was a little distracting.

There is one story i tell my students when i ask them not to wear G-strings under their chiffon skirts: i was at a students show in the US and one dancers was spinning nicely for her finale , she lifted her skirt a little to give a nice effect , but what happened is that she gave evryone a full view of her wearing a g-string while spinning, and the singer said on the microphone 'thank you , thank you very much ' at the same time ..g.:
It took a lot of will power not to laugh cause i felt bad for her, but it was funny.


I am not perfect either, one time i organized a gala after some workshops , got my costume and when i put it on before the show the belt was too big, i always loose weight before events..
i readjust the hooks during the rehearsal and i put matching colour undewear but unfortunately high rise , instead of low rise i usually wear. after i did a big backbend and floorword of course the belt shifted and my underwear was showing from the top of my skirt , i felt so bad....some of my friends just tought it was my skirt coming out from the top of te belt because it was the same colour, but still i felt bad .
I remember Meissoun trying to make me feel better saying she saw Dina had a tag coming out of a dress once.

Before my BD days...
I managed to fall off the stage. The lighting was set up so I didn't see where the stage ended and I thank G-d I had a leap and I literally just "jumped" off the stage. I fell only where the first few rows could see me.

Also ended up falling on my head after miscalculating some summersault. Again, in the middle of the stage.

BD days....
The hook in my bra broke... I now have velcro, hooks and a few snaps holding it together.

My earring once got caught in my nose ring...sexaaaay

Originally Posted by aamel_MirahAmmal

* I lost a toe nail during the show. My BIG toe nail. Ripped off on a floorboard on the stage as I moved forward. OOOOOOOOWWWWWW!!!! Fortunately, in the choreo, I then got to turn to face the back for about 10 seconds (during which the band saw me make terrible faces and mouth some of the most foul words I knew) before I turned back to the front with the biggest cheesiest, toothiest smile you ever saw. I kicked the toe nail (it was just laying there) to the back of the stage and kept going. For the rest of the run, I wore a bandaid with a red toenail painted on it. (sexxxxxxxxy!)

Oh my god, I would have thrown up and died. I have a huge illogical fear of losing my big toe nail. Ah, just reading this story makes me want to faint.

Problem: Corporate function, solo gig, cane flies out of hand, sails across the dance floor and lands on the dessert table.
Solution: pretend like you meant to do that, smile furiously, casually dance over and pick it up.
Lesson: Nobody will notice a mishap if you don't draw attention to it.

Problem: (this is a repeat) - bra comes undone at back during first solo performance.
Solution: change arm position, act like nothing is wrong, smile furiously, casually dance off stage.
Lesson: Nobody will notice a mishap if you don't draw attention to it. AND - practice in your costume BEFORE your stage performance. Invest in good clips, hooks, and add three extra just in case.

Problem: Skirt w. build in belt (my profile pic) slips down during solo even though skirt has been danced in before.
Solution: surreptitiously use creative hand/arm positions while turning to pull up skirt. When this fails, and it is clear by the looks on the faces of the front row that everyone HAS noticed...be bold and spontaneously improvise one good skirt hike into the shimmy section - provide comic relief. Smile furiously.
Lesson: you will gain and lose weight. Practice in your costume THE DAY BEFORE your performance. Adjust costume as required. Better too tight than too lose. Crack kills.