Last weekend I wore this outfit to a gig as part of an Art Crawl. This involved an exhibition at an art gallery, listening to interviews with artists, following a conga line of ukulele players from the art gallery into a pub and then jamming Ray Charles with said ukulele players. It was a brilliant day.
After I finished my short set, I got to enjoy some of the other performers. One band in particular was instrumental and really percussive.
I recognised one of their rhythms as being perfect for a bit of samba. After a while of giving myself and internal motivational talk, I decided that I was going to get up and dance on my own. When I got up to the dance floor, I spontaneously decided to turn and ask the room if anyone there knew how to samba.
I figured that at worst, no one would know, and at best, I would have several people stepping out a samba next me or even just taking my queue to dance. To my surprise an entire corner of the room turned and pointed to a very surpised looking man (Adrian, I was later to learn his name), who sheepishly raised his hand.
He joined me on the dancefloor and I was overwhelmed to discover that he didn’t just know how to samba he knew how to samba. He lead really clearly and we spent the rest of the song properly dancing. I haven’t done that in a long time.
We later became friends on Facebook, turns out I’ve known his partner for a really, really long time, and he’s some sort of competition level dancer. To think I would have never known any of this, or had such a good time, or made a new friend, if I hadn’t convinced myself to get out of my shell and dance alone.
This is the outfit I wore on the day and I love it so much I’ve worn it twice since. The skirt is the Streak of Success skirt from Modcloth. I am a little obsessed with midi/tea length skirts at the minute. I love the weight of this material. It falls well and doesn’t crease easily. It’s heavy so doesn’t blow up in the wind. The jumper I bought in store at C Wonder in New York. I wish they had stores in Australia.
Here a couple of shots of the samba moment from the Art Crawl. Credits to Sam John Gooday for the photos.
Make sure to check out Ballarat Arts Alive if you are from the Ballarat area and you want to get involved in more events like the Art Crawl.
