The faire has come and gone! The pic is me (and my ostentatious gown) with my tribe sisters. (obviously no pic here)
Oh but the partlet and the ruff are not mine but were kindly lent to me by Warder Moira, a lovely lady within our Barony (and the Kingdom Rapier Marshal), who took pity on my sunburn. I had foolishly forgotten to apply sunscreen regularly on Saturday so my neckline was (and kind of still is) the same color as my dress! So I was blessed with having the period sunscreen: a partlet! And, boy, I don't know how she made that ruff but it was soooooooooo comfortable! A lot of people asked me if it was uncomfortable and, each time, I had completely forgotten that I had it on. I have to find out how it was made!
We were a mixed bag of dancers for the SCA portion of the dances and, because some of them were new to these dances, I had to call the dances... but the audience didn't know any better and, actually, they seemed to like it. Most importantly, they loooooved the audience participation dances. At first, I had planned on only one audience participation dance but, after the first set, it became very clear that this audience wanted to take part into the activities... so I changed it to 2 audience participation dances.
The faire goers were a different sort than what you see at most faires. This was the first faire in Indiana so very few people were familiar with the era and they were sooooooooo eager to learn! We were all supposed to be in "first person", meaning that we were supposed to pretend that we were sometime during the Renaissance and keep the persona and basically not explain all that much. However, this was NOT what the faire goers wanted: they wanted to learn. They had a lot of questions. It was beautiful! So, a lot of the SCA folks dropped the first person quite a bit and answered people's questions. We are expecting that a good number of people will be interested in joining the Barony now.
The faire was a huge success for all involved. I believe that the secret to that success was 1) that it was something utterly new to Hoosiers and 2) the price was REALLY good (5$ for adults, 2$ for childre 7-12, and free for children 6 and under). The faire comittee said that they would consider the faire a success if they had 5000 people for weekend. Well, by like 3pm on Saturday, they had reached that 5000 number! The last number that I heard was 13 000 people who went through the gate! Wow! They ran out of turkey legs on Saturday because they had so many people!
Oh and dancing with Dragon Scale Consort (www.dragonscaleconsort.com/) is such a bliss! It is a true partnership between musicians and dancers. I can tell them how many repeats I want and which dances I want to do. They suggested an alternative to a certain audience participation dances and it was a blast. And here's the kicker: my hotmail account is really unreliable at the moment so I tried to e-mail Geoffrey, the contact person for DSC and was unsuccessful so we really touched based AT THE FAIRE! Geoffrey didn't seem phased by it; he was prepared for anything. I mean, seriously, this was the most amazing partnership ever!
Doing this SCA dancing and hanging with the SCA folks and all brought me definitely closer to the members of our Barony (I said "our"... that's a first). I have not been really involved before... I don't know what I was waiting for. I kind of lost my fire somewhere. Well, and it was kind of a very big shift for me to move to a new Barony and, heck, a new kingdom (I am originally from the East). I used to be one of the "old guards" in my group (SCA lingo; nm) and I became the newbie. It was a "Cheers" thing for the longest time: I was longing to be somewhere "where everybody knows your name." Anyway, people are soooooooo willing to help me and teach me things and chat with me... it's fun.
My tribe sisters were oh so pretty! They were amazing! It was almost an out of body experience watching them dance, though. It was interesting. I had tears in my eyes, tears of joy, at watching them dance. As I had thought, this experience made them grow as dancers. They now are entertainers!
And something else happened that was very interesting. In an "Eureka" moment, I got something that Jaleela has been saying to me a few times already... After the second show on Saturday, I told the girls how great they were and how pretty they were and some of them shrugged and said that it could have been better because there was this this and that and guess what I said? I said, "Don't be so hard on yourself! I knew the dances and I didn't see any glitches." Ding! This is what Jaleela tells me all the time! After a performance, I'm always saying something like, "It looked good but I made a mistake here and there and..." At this point, Jaleela interrupts me and says... the same thing that I said to my tribe sisters... Don't be so hard on yourself. lol
So, now, it's mellow again and it's kind of weird... no more craziness... well, except that we have to prepare for a show on November 5th where we will dance 3 dances! So, yesterday, at practice, the sisters were talking about the show and thoughts and all and I felt sooooooooooooo out of the loop and disconnected and almost not there really. I am normally one of the chirpy ones and I was sooooooooooo quiet. Have no fear, though: as I was driving back home, I was thinking of things to do. I just need to pop that music in the cd player and just let it flow! (remember my mantra!)
Oh and I'm a masochist: last night, after practice, I was watching CSI and, of course, I had to do something, so I was cutting a pattern for a jacket for work. I guess that I can never get enough of sewing! My husband thinks that I'm crazy! I may be a little, actually! ;op
Talk about ramblings! lol
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