Thread: Troupe Costume question

So, my student troupe, Jewels of the North, is dancing at Rakkasah West and we have a really great tabla solo number that they have worked extremely hard on, but it is only 3 1/2 mins. So, have another number we have been working on that would add another 3 minutes to the performance. It is a Bollywood piece though. The troupe members really like it and would like to perform it first, then go straight into the tabla piece.

My question is about the costuming. We have nice l.rose u-tops, gauntlets, and skirts all in black that we wear with turkish bedlahs. The Bedlahs are all different colors and styles so that each dancer would also have a solo costume they like. I have tried hard to keep things on a tight budget because we do this for fun only.

Will it look strange or out-of-place if we perform a Bollywood number in bedlahs?

Should we just scrap doing the Bollywood number and perform only the short Tabla piece since we are dressed in bedlahs?

I hope this makes sense. Maybe I am just analyzing this too much and I should take my own advice - "this is just for fun, so don't stress!"

Thankx!
Vahana

Do you have enough dancers to split the set? Two small groups, one for each dance?

Latifa

No. There are only 5 of them. I know they all really want to perform the Tabla piece too, so I doubt if I could get any to withdraw from that and only dance the Bollywood.

Should we scrap the Bollywood and go a short veil piece instead?
Thanx for your help!

Originally Posted by Vahana

Should we scrap the Bollywood and go a short veil piece instead?
Thanx for your help!

If it were me, I wouldn't do Bollywood in bedlah, I'd work something else up.

Even though it is Rakkassah and there will be far far far far worse cultural atrocities and mislabeled dances going on....

Could you stick something in the middle -- like one of your girls doing a short solo in bedlah -- and do a costume change in the wings?

Any chance you could wrap fabric sari style over the bedlahs for the bollywood number & then remove them for the tabla piece?

That is a GREAT idea!!!!
I am going to pursue that. Thank you so much!!

Glad to be of help ..g.: Let me know how it works out!

No Veil!

The use of a dupatte is a great idea. If you can chuck the belts at the same time you go get the dupattes, it might even be better.

{{{{HUGS}}}

Originally Posted by Zara_dancer

Any chance you could wrap fabric sari style over the bedlahs for the bollywood number & then remove them for the tabla piece?

I like that idea!

Tonight in rehearsal we tried the sari fabric wrap and it worked great! 3 yards of fabric for most of us, and 2 1/2 yards for the smaller dancers seemed to work great. We can cover the bedlahs, perform the Bollywood number, then remove the sari covers for the tabla piece.

It looks like it is going to really work out well.
Thankx to all for your help!

Originally Posted by Vahana

Tonight in rehearsal we tried the sari fabric wrap and it worked great! 3 yards of fabric for most of us, and 2 1/2 yards for the smaller dancers seemed to work great. We can cover the bedlahs, perform the Bollywood number, then remove the sari covers for the tabla piece.

It looks like it is going to really work out well.
Thankx to all for your help!

I bet this will look adorable! When are you performing?

Yay! I'm glad you found something that works.

Will there be video for those of us who can't afford to go to Rakkassah? ;)

*hugs*

We are performing Friday night, March 14th, at 10:32 p.m.
Hopefully, we'll be able to convert the dvd to upload to youtube, but last year I paid the $35 for the dvd of my performance at Rakkasah West and wasn't able to do anything with it at all. I have tried formatting programs and dvd shrink, but to no avail. <sigh> It seemed like a waste to not be able to share it with my family who don't live near me.

When it comes to stuff like that, I am not really savvy. So, I'll get the dvd this year anyway so the troupe can see themselves perform and then hope someone will know how to convert it for uploading to youtube. <fingers crossed>

My hubby (also know as my support staff!) used a video editing program (Vegas) to clean up my last Rakkasah West video and convert the format to WMV. I was then able to upload it to youtube. Here's how it came out. I was pleased that there wasn't any distortion of the video. I've seen some other Rakkasah clips where the dancers looked kind smushed. I don't need to be any shorter. ..l;,

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9QOLjkQAd0]YouTube - Latifa -- Rakkasah West 2007[/ame]