Santa Cruz Weekend

This past weekend my dance group went to Santa Cruz for a workshop and performance. It was quite a big deal----at least from what I could tell. We were taking a masters class by a world-renowned choreography named Yousry Sharif.

Our class started first thing Saturday morning around 10:30 a.m. and we didn’t finished until 4:00 p.m. It was an awesome workshop, and one I’m glad I was invited to participate in. If I’m being really honest, I felt like a little fish in a big pond with all these phenomenal dancers. Just taking our workshop in a professional ballroom was impressive. :-P

Immediately after the workshop we rushed back to our hotel, took showers and quickly prepared to go to a show to see two performing musical groups, accented with dancers. The opening group was called AZA. They were incredible. They were a young, hip group that actually did Arabic music infused with reggae and other twists of music. The lead band members were Moroccan and they were soooooooo much fun.

(AZA - AZA, local favorite and rising star on the international world musicscene, will open the show with their delightful music and spontaneoustraditional dancing. Recently returned from their second concert tourto Morocco and France, AZA combines traditional Tamazight (Berber)music indigenous to the Atlas mountains of Morocco with the globalinfluences of its diverse members, featuring deep danceable grooveswith infectious vocals and melodic style.)

Here’s a small sample of their music.



The main performance was The Georges Lammam Ensemble. Oh my goodness these people were absolutely incredible. Georges is a marvelous violinist. His brother Elias played the accordion unbelievably well, and the other brother, Tony, was a fabulous drummer. They also had a Pakistani woman that sang who was out of this world.

(The Georges Lammam Ensemble, noted for its awe-inspiring presentations of a panoramic range of the Arab musical repertoire, with the Santa Cruz premiere of its latest CD, Dreaming the Diaspora. Blending artful Eastern improvisation with Western harmonic and melodic styling, this original music will sing to people of all cultures - songs for love, songs for dance, and songs to heal. As artistic director of the Georges Lammam Ensemble, Georges is devoted to bringing the rich diversity and passion of Arabic music to listeners everywhere. He performs throughout the United States as a featured artist and with global fusion groups.)

Here’s a sample of their music as well as one of the dancers that performed.



On Sunday we had a free day to leisurely walk about the town. We found a little coffee shop called Bad Ass Coffee – Coffee with an attitude. :-) Meandered through a little flea market as well as some cute little shops.

Later that evening we performed at a cultural center with dancers from all around the world. Again feeling like a little fish in a big pond, myself and the two girls I roomed with, were really nervous. However, once we finished our performance we were all thrilled we survived. ;-) After the show, we went to a quaint restaurant and celebrated our teacher’s birthday and ended our time together with a wonderful meal and wonderful conversation.

Truly it was a memorable weekend filled with fun and laughter, alhamdullilah.

Weekend fun

Here it is midweek and I’m just getting around to our weekend of fun!

Saturday afternoon Amira and I spent some time with Grandma and Grandpa. Later in the evening met some friends (V, Michael, Mixed Up Me and Charming Child) at a pizza restaurant where one of my friend’s, Najwa, (dancer name) and her group put on a Burlesque and Belly Dance show. We had just a great time.

Sunday afternoon V, Michael, Amira and I went to Ikea’s and meandered around the store for about 3 hours. Then decided since the kids were probably bored from shopping that we’d take them to the park to burn off their excess energy.

It was a great day to be at the park with the exception of the two obnoxious little hoodlums (age 5 or 6) that were literally terrorizing the guests of the park with their huge water guns. Our first observation of these two little hoodlums was of them squirting this teenage boy and who appeared to be the parents. It was cute at first because I thought it was a family having fun.

Amira and Michael wanted to swing on the swings, so V and I were pushing them all the while still watching the other people visiting the park. We see the two little hoodlums filling their guns and rush over to the sandbox area where they start squirting the children that are playing there. I looked over to the initial family as I thought these little no-goods belonged to them. In the meantime the parents of the kids in the sandbox came running up and grabbing their children and taking off, but not saying anything too the terrors. A grandmother pushing her grandchild on the swing said she’d like to do something to those two boys because she’s been watching them unsupervised terrorizing everyone.

Now a cute little girl (named Anya) around 7 years old is riding her little pink bike with training wheels and her matching pink kitty helmet….just looking as adorable as ever. Minding her own business and concentrating on riding her bike these two little monsters appear out of no where (well really out from a rock by the sandbox) and start blasting her. I can’t take it any longer, so I start yelling "HEY! HEY!" They continue shooting Anya, so I approach them since obviously the parents previously mentioned haven’t done anything, but laugh at this scene, which of course fuels me even more that they think this is funny. I got right in the boys' face and said, "hey, I don’t know who you think you two are, but you are being very rude and disrespectful. I suggest you stop this right now or I’ll be taking your guns and throwing them in the trash." They run off…..Anya rides her bike back to her parents, and I continue pushing Amira on the swing. Amira says, "they aren’t very nice boys are they Momma?" "No sweetie, they are rude and don’t have any kind of manners. Moreover, there parents are rude too because they are allowing this behavior when in fact they should be teaching their children manners." In the meantime one of these little good-for-nothings pulls down his pants and urinates on a plaque that is mounted on the outside of this building structure which just so happens to be the restroom.

These two continue now attacking another family who was innocently taking pictures of their own children playing on the slide. I looked at the original family ready to go beat them up because assuming they are these kids parents and doing nothing is really, for a lack of better words, starting to piss me off. I look at them and say, "does anyone know where their parents are?" And these people point behind them to a couple of ladies that are just sitting there talking. Someone finally goes and gets the moms of these two little no-gooders and all but drags them to the crime scene where their two are causing so much trouble. They literally just stand there and continue their conversation, but not really addressing their children. Now, I want to beat them up.

Michael and Amira now want to play on the teeter-tauter, so we walk over there still eyeballing these little terrors reeking havoc all over the place. V is standing next to Amira and Michael on the teeter-tauter and I’m sitting on the little sidewalk area monitoring the whereabouts of the hooligans, and there’s a family sitting over my right shoulder. The husband is on his cell phone, wife is sitting there and their daughter is playing on the toys. All of a sudden husband ‘breaks wind’, and I’m nearly at the point of losing my mind with the lack of manners people have these days. Now I must get up and go over to V before the toxins kill me. I tell V about the toxic bomb that just went off as well as how much I’m want these two boys to try to squirt me because I’ll yank their guns out of their hands, stomp on it and throw them in trash. I know, I know, I’m getting to the point of lowering myself to their level but remember they are pissing me off. In the meantime little Anya has gained her courage to now confront these boys for their ill behavior. She’s riding her little pink bike a safe distant from them and loudly saying, "I don’t like that. You shouldn’t do that – that’s not nice." She made me smile.

Now these two are on the top of the slide and squirting their guns down the slide, thus making it wet and messy for any other kid to use. I’ve had enough. I stomp over there, "HEY! I already told you once to knock this off. Apparently your parents don’t care what you do, but you are disturbing everyone’s peace. STOP DOING THIS!!!!!!" (so much for peace, huh?) One little boy looks right in my eyes – expressionless actually – pumps his gun and squirts water down the slide one last time. Well you know the game is on now because I have to take him down. I jump up on the equipment and for a split second saw panic in their eyes because I was going to get those guns and destroy them. They start running across the little bridge of the equipment yelling "mommy, mommy, mommy----eeeeeeeck". Although they ran to the safe haven of their mom’s (who said in a soft voice – "don’t do that" to her charming little jewel), I said "your children are out of control—you best do something about it." To which they gathered their kids, parted ways and eventually the scene at the park was calm.

Now that’s the meaning of "terrorism". Neither age, creed, race, nor religion define terrorism—just the mere infliction of terror onto others defines it.

Monday, Amira and I took Grandma shopping (by the way Amira got Princess sunglasses) back to her house to get Grandpa so we could all walk over to the neighbors for a BBQ. Perfect way to end the nice long weekend, alhamdullilah.