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Hello and welcome to Costumer's Notes!Whoosh, 2001 is going by faster than I could have ever imagined! It's August already, and I've just returned home from an entire month of travel! I want to thank everyone who has visited my booth at events, taken workshops, performed and just plain old hung out with me in the past two months. There is no way I could have imagined the break-neck pace that my life has taken since the release of my third book, Bedlah, Baubles and Beads. In July, I came to the realization that to do Costumer's Notes well develop full issues, well-written and informative articles and lots of useful links to other pages around the net, I needed 6 weeks to pull it together. Six weeks? With that kind of required lead in and prep work, a monthly newsletter was simply not possible. After pow-wowing with my co-editor Barry, we decided that rather than having hastily done once-a-month issues, that a single beefy bimonthly issue, focussed on one central theme would be a better time value for our readers. From now on, watch out for bimonthly issues beginning with Aug/Sep 2001. I was really happy to be invited by Yasmina's Joy of Dancing to be featured as one of her dancers of the month for July. She has one of the top five Middle Eastern dance sites on the internet and I was thrilled to be invited to be on her site! So what has kept me so busy the last few months? In the beginning of June I went down to vend at MECDA's yearly event, Cairo Carnivale. I shared table with two designers from Reno; Mary June of Aunty Magpie's Shining Hoard and Janie Midgley of Design's By Janie. We had a lovely time, although it was a bit damp on Saturday, the sun was shining and there were lots of folks around on Sunday. In July, I did a pair of back to back events in Reno. First, I had the pleasure of vending, judging and having a rip-roaring good time at Wiggles of the West, the dance tournament sponsored by the Two Old Bags. Each year this event gets bigger and better, and this year, they were in the Flamingo Hotel, which allowed everyone to tumble out of bed, and down the elevator to attend workshops and shop at the vendors. I bought some YUMMIE fabric from Gaylene who had a superb collection of high-glam fabrics and I met the owner of Babylon Breeze, a company from Florida that makes exquisitely made, but affordable Bedlah sets. The competition was fierce making for an extremely high quality show! I was back in Reno the following weekend with TigerTribe! for ArTown's A Night at the Casbah sponsored by Asha. There were many excellent performances but the highlights of the show for me were the outstanding performance by Invaders of the Heart who truly took tribal to new heights with their virtuoso execution of complex choreography and their stunningly beautiful costumes. Asha, the sponsors of the event, danced up a storm and performed several times throughout the evening's show. Their fusion style of dance is at once earthy and moving, poetic and beautifully composed. Minya, their choreographer does a splendid job and the dancers are all professional caliber making them a delight to see. The following two weeks I took a working vacation and went to San Diego to visit family and to work for Comic Con International. For the past 15 years, I've had the pleasure of participating in this event, and this year I was back. I was so thrilled to see Alexandria perform briefly in the Masquerade and my friend and co-vendor the stellar massage therapist Nancy Klauschie of A Friend in Knead carried my book on her table and some even sold! August is a break from vending for me! Now I can get caught up on some outstanding projects in sewing, writing and research. But I hope to see some bright shining faces at Desert Dance Festival in September and Festival Fantasia in October! Until Next Issue, Happy Costuming! Dawn "Davina" Devine Brown |
