Wednesday I told you I was going to go dance my troubles away… and honestly, it was wonderful. I didn’t dance a lot because the troupe was rehearsing with another troupe from the Detroit area… but I took a bunch of great photos.

I also got some time with the non-rehearsing dancers I don’t get to chat with much. (We went across the hall so as not to disturb the rehearsal, of course.)

The photo shows our women dancing in thobes (this is a shortcut name, I don’t know the longer version well enough to spell it), a large extra-decorative dress used for a special type of Saudi dance which I believe is called/spelled Khaleeji. (It’s hard to get it right since Arabic doesn’t translate well to the English alphabet.)

The dance was traditionally done in groups of only women (as I remember it was sort of how they entertained themselves at private gatherings), and they would wear beautiful dresses and jewelry and dance to show off the beautiful things they wore. The dresses flow so nicely when you spin around, that I just had to catch them in motion here.

The music for this dance is just wonderful. I go home singing it and smiling.

I will be performing this piece in the April show which our troupe will be putting on in the Lansing area. I’ll post more about it when I have more information.