Wednesday with Miguelito April 19, 2006
It's 8:29am on Thursday as I type these words. Yet another early day for me cuz I have a gig with dancer Sarah Hart that starts at 11:00am which requires me to arrive early and setup my sound system. I'm not so keen on the idea of lugging my system out to Alexandria so early in the day. But it pays well enough--I'm just being whiney. :-) So I'm going to quickly finish up this blog entry, take a shower, get dressed, get a doppio across the street to wake up and get on the metro by 9:30pm.
Yesterday (Wednesday) I started off my day doing a school show with Ginette at Las Tapas. Normally, we'd do the standard show with two dancers for 20 minutes like we do in the evening, but now they just do it with one dancer AND they want me to stretch out the show to 30 minutes!
Ginette Perea at Las Tapas. April 19, 2006 11:33am (taken with my camera phone)
I'm normally a very quiet person, but when it comes to giving presentations on flamenco I can easily fill-up the time and the half-hour time slot flew by quickly. I'm not claiming to be an expert on flamenco--just have a LOT of practical experience plus I'm just good at public speaking. Anyway, as usual I felt a connection with Ginette onstage so I was comfortable just winging it and Ginette went with the flow of my improvised presentation and overall it went surprisingly well. The kids actually were quiet (most of the time) and were paying attention. I taught them some flamenco vocabulary and quizzed them every now and then to see if they really were listening.
April 19, 2006 11:31am (taken with my camera phone)
Thanks to all those years of doing school shows with Ziva and also with the Spanish Dance Society, I've had tons of experience teaching children from elementary to high school levels and college too!
My ballroom dance class was cancelled at the last minute so I had the afternoon wide open. Said goodbye to Ginette (she had to go back home and study). As for myself, I decided to go visit Pentagon City mall to check out the construction progress of the new tapas bar Tapeo.
Tapeo. Archive photo from April 5, 2006 5:48pm
They're opening pretty soon and I've been hired to put a flamenco show together. I'm performing there with dancers Ginette Perea and Mariya on Wednesday May 3rd. We're working on the showtimes but tentatively they're scheduled at 7pm-ish and 9pm-ish. It's on the Joyce St side of the mall where all the restaurants are located.
After talking business with one of the owners, I went back to Las Tapas to pick up my sound system, dropped it off early at Cafe Bonaparte and enjoyed walking the streets on Georgetown on a sunny day.
View of the Potomac on the Georgetown side. April 19, 2006 5:06pm (taken with my camera phone)
C & O Canal in Georgetown. April 19, 2006 5:13pm (taken with my camera phone)
Self-portrait in Georgetown. April 19, 2006 6:58pm (taken with my camera phone)
After a few hours working on my tan :-), I headed indoors to my favorite bookstore in Georgetown and skimmed through a couple of books including one on the gypysies of Southern France...
Book on Camargue gypsies at Georgetown Barnes and Noble. April 19, 2006 5:35pm (taken with my camera phone)
...and a good book on photoblogging...
Book on photoblogging at Georgetown Barnes and Noble. April 19, 2006 5:48pm (taken with my camera phone)
I stopped by Bosiano, a clothing store on Wisconsin and jammed for awhile with the owner who's also a guitarist. Then I walked up a few blocks to Cafe Bonaparte in time to setup my sound system for the 8:00pm show. Behzad was pretty excited cuz he had just acquired a new cajon that he wanted to try out.
Behzad's new cajon by Dolce & Gabbana :-) April 19, 2006 10:03pm (taken with my camera phone)
Despite the gorgeous weather, it was a slow night (maybe everyone was down at the water front, who knows?) and we finished at 10:00pm instead of 11:00pm. Oh well.
OK it's now 8:56am. Time for me to get ready for my 11:00am gig. I'll also be at Andalucia tonight with dancer Sara Hart. See you there!!
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