Thread: First Upcoming Birthday Party Performance, Any Advice I Need To Know?

First Upcoming Party Performance, Any Advice I Absolutely Need To Know?

Hello everyone. :Abiggrin: First of all I’m new to Bhuz and I am an Egyptian/Persian style dancer and happy to be here.

Earlier today I received mail inviting myself and my family to a (short notice) surprise 50th birthday party for an old friend. Somehow we came up with the idea of performing (I’m so excited I can’t remember how it happened) for the party as a gift to our friend.
By “we” I should explain that my family is a live performing Middle Eastern band.

While we were kicking around this idea we figured it would probably be a “Batman” themed party (our friend REALY likes Batman). So then we called the person who sent the invitation and to inform her that we would be attending. We also asked if she had any hired performers to entertain the party guests. It turns out that since it was short notice, that she had not hired performers. And yes it is a “Batman” themed party (This is the part that I remind you that it is indeed, a 50th birthday party). Since your now tired of hearing about what we asked her, I’ll just tell you that we are performing at the party.

So now we have to figure out how to incorporate our very Middle Eastern performance in with the Batman theme. This is what we came up with: The band will play the original Batman theme song as the introductory/Entrance song. While they do this, I will enter the room as a (hopefully not to chincey) Cat Girl belly dancer. I will be wearing a Cat Girl mask and gloves as accessories with a normal, black bedlah. Oh, and I have to mention the fact that I will be using small bat shaped black Isis wings as, well, bat wings.

So that will be my entrance. However, we are planning on a 20-25 minute performance so I was thinking about doing zills after the theme song ends and I “gracefully” mind you, whip off the mask and gloves. After a few minutes of zills I could do a sensual sword act (I know, not my style. But it’s just a great crowed pleaser!), followed by a full length veil performance. After that I’m going to take advantage of my stage presence and all the attention I will (hopefully) have and wreak some havoc with the audience, and of course, the birthday boy. ..g.:

I will instruct birthday boy in some moves (along with a few others) and as a joke, one person from the band will make an announcement along the lines of “-and since belly dancing is traditionally done by women, we bestow on you some breasts.” Breasts meaning we are going to give him a size D coin bra that we will force him to wear for the duration of the mini dance lesson.

Then I could wrap up the show with my GORGEOUS full sized gold Isis wings.

Sound like a plan? If you see something that you don’t think would work out so well, please alert me. And if you have any advice or some ideas please share. This is my first birthday party performance after all. Advice for the band is cool too. :bat:

Hi there! Welcome to the Bhuz community!

I think the idea sounds terribly fun, you'll definitely get a great audience reaction and a lot of laughs, which is always great fun.

I don't speak from a lot of personal experience, only having performed at a select few birthday party-type bellygram events my own self, but I've been with a troupe that is heavy on these types of gigs for *mumbling into hand, cough cough* almost a decade. god i feel old right now.

anyways!
I'm sure other more experienced dancers on bhuz will agree with me when I suggest that a 20-25 minute estimation for your performance time is REALLY high for the typical party event.
Honestly, other bellygrams usually involve 3-4 songs, total, from what I've gathered on here and from other dancers I've known.

A) As fun as 30 minute gigs are, really a great time for a big audience event like a festival, any audience will tire of just one dancer, no matter how awesome she is, after several routines. Just as their attention spans usually top out after a five minute solo, most audiences have a maximum time limit in their head for live shows as a whole.

B) I swear you'll be exhausted. So will the band. It's a long time.


A couple of ways to get around this if you still wanna go that long? TAKE BREAKS yourself, turn it into 2 15min shows, or at least give the band opportunities to feature themselves, sans dancer.
It's my thought that the empty stage will be more of an enticement to the partygoers to get up and boogie - they can get intimidated about *joining* the pro on stage, for sure.


--
on a personal side note, I think the idea of the coined bra is cute as heck for the birthday guy, but *I* personally wouldn't say "breasts." I might edit it to "some of the essentials" - no diss to the awesome male dancers out there like Zobra, of course!
And don't be hurt if he doesn't elect to wear it. Course you know the dude, so you've got a better guess on his reaction :)


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I'll now leave this up to more experienced answers! Let us know all the details because it really sounds like a fun gig :D

You know every party planner or person who hires you says they want a 30 minute show or an hour show or whatever but that just means that they have no idea what they are talking about. At a party your only job to make everybody have a good time and not to really do any kind of dramatic introspective performance. JMO from all the parties I have done it is best to do 3-4 songs max - all high energy. You will be lucky to keep their attention for that long - seriously! They are all talking, laughing having fun. Best to do zills, maybe some veil and cruise around in a casual style. If you want to do 2 7-10 min routines with a costume change. Make lots of time for photo ops and have something else in mind in case the birthday boy isn't into it. I did a surprise party for a lady - it was her husband's 50th. Nice house, lots of people, really well paying gig, her husband was mortified and ran away! And I was left cruising around her kitchen for the longest 5 minutes of my life while she was trying to get people interested in the entertainment. Parties are weird. They can go so well but can easily go very badly....You should leave yourself lots of options for costuming and music, be flexible and be prepared to leave and/or lay down the law if it gets weird. Also get paid before. I have had cancellations at the door, weird porches with florescent light where they expected me to dance, outdoor areas with unsafe floors, people who ignored me, people who tried to renegotiate the price...etc. It can be a real pain in the butt! But I have also had some wonderful parties with great tips, fun ladies who got up to dance and some beautiful party settings at gorgeous estates so you never know! But it sounds like these people are your friends so it will probably be great. I would personally plan less. Either do sword or veil - not both and IMO no coin bra. Trust me parties are harder than you think =)

Thank you for your reply!

Don't think of yourself as old for being in a troupe for twelve years, think of it as " A decade of experience".,r:;

I am also concerned about the length of the show. But believe it or not, I talked the band down from a 30 min to a 20 min show. It would be impossible to convince them to make it even shorter.
I really would have liked to keep each act around 2-3 minutes and cut out one or two..cr.:.
That’s pretty much the only thing I’m really worried about. Americans have really short attention spans!

Thank you for the idea of letting the audience dance. I'll discuss it with the band.

And I'm really not worried about exhaustion at all. I'm used to going hours on end with only a few select breaks. The band could play forever if you let them..w.: All those open dance hafla's can really boost stamina.

"Essentials" is far better than "breasts". Breasts just seem a tad bit crude...l;, But then again, the point of the bra is to be a tad bit crude. Alas another thing to discuss with the band.

Eshta I think we were writing at the same time!
I agree with you that getting paid before hand is a must. Actually that's already taken care of...g.:
Birthday boy will definatley be into it. He enjoys the dancers at the renfairs so it will most likely work out. I really hope that it doesn't become akward. But whatever happens, it will be good experiance.

Could you explain why I can't do both sword and veil? Their nothing alike!

And aslo I'm thinking that since the music is live and not recorded that it might help keep interest.

Methinks I'll keep the bra thing anyway. It's just fun and friends.

I actually disagree with a lot of what the pp's have said -

I don't think 30 minutes is too long, as long as you are a good "performer" (notice I didn't say "dancer" -holding an audience's attention is ALL about performing!), AND you incorporte a lot of audience participation.

And I ALWAYS do sword and veil in a show - that's the way it's done in an AmCab routine, there's nothing wrong with doing both. I do, however, think two wings songs would be over kill. Just give each prop one song.

When I do 30 minute shows for a birthday party, here's how I structure it:

~Entrance with wings, then ditch the wings and use zills only
~Veil dance
~Audience participation - start off with birthday person, then get friends and family up to dance
~Taxim - this is where I'll go up to each table individually and dazzle them with my vibrating hips... :-)
~Sword dance
~Drum solo
~Exit - usually by getting everyone up and dancing before I go

The only time I do not recommend this show is when the venue is small and I can't "kill time" by going table to table in my taxim. Out of all my shows, I would say the 20 minute version (which misses the taxim and has a shorter audience partipcation and exit) is the most popular, followed by the 30 minute. I hardly ever do my 10 minute "bellygram"

Right you have a live band! I forgot you mentioned that! That will hold the audience's attention and change the structure of the space to a more formal performance. You should be really aware of where you are dancing - make sure you have enough room to do all this stuff. I guess what I mean is that you always go to a party with a set idea of how you want it to go and then it turns out totally different. Unfortunately you can't always rely on people getting up to dance and you can't even rely on people sitting down to watch you. This is just the reality of parties. But since you have the live band you will command more attention. If it were me...I'd do an entrance with veil, then zills with the batman theme worked in, maybe a short taxim and a fast little exit. Then let the band play for like 8 minutes or so and everyone can dance or relax and listen, and/or interact with the band - you can arrange this with the hostess - and you change into a folkloric costume/saidi dress and come out again doing cane or something really fun and then get everyone up to dance with you. It heightens the excitement and gives you a break (it isn't the dancing that's exhausting at parties) and makes a smoother performance. But this is just my opinion! =) I just know that every time I have tried to throw in tons of props and styles back to back at a party it always seemed awkward. Golden rule: always leave them wanting more and be the most glamourous thing they have ever seen! Good luck!

oh! why don't you a do a mini persian style number?!