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And here are some behind the scene pics.
Top row from left to right: me, Lucy, Orit, Nadia, Stephania
Bottom row: Tania, Yulia

In the dressing room with Tania and Nadia

and with Orit.

The mirrors are 5′3”x7′3” total. I bought them as one piece, and then asked to cut them so they fit into the trunk of my car. There are 3 pieces in total, two pieces of 3′1”x5′3” and one piece of 1′x5′3”. The mirror starts 13” from the floor. It works well for dancing, however if you do floorwork or workout on the floor  and you need to see yourself in the mirror then you might want to hang them lower.

Home studio

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Yet another set of zills, right? Wrong! This is not just another set of zills. Yael Moav, one of Eilat Festival’s organizers ( who also happens to be my first teacher back in 2001), borrowed me these zills, after I passed the auditions to festival’s contest. She got them as a present from the late Serena Wilson. Serena was Yael’s teacher and a good friend for 17 years. I haven’t had a chance to meet Serena, but during my beginner year in Arabesque Yael taught us her drum solo choreography and made sure all of us knew who Serena was. Later on, already in the States I read Serena’s book which contained lots of easy explanations on the moves, the music, the props, in short anything about our dance form. Serena trained hundreds of dancers and is really a great icon of the belly dance community.

Serena's present to Yael

Yael offered me to borrow these zills for the competition, claiming that mine were barely heard during the auditions. She complimented on my playing saying that being so precise I could pull this set off. The set seemed to be Zildjian’s (judging from the pics from their website). They were quite  heavy, at least twice as much as my Afghani Saroyans,  extremely loud and they only had a single slot! This meant several problems. First of all, no snug fit, thus less precision and danger of loosing them during performance. Second and most importantly, the elastic knobs on the inside made it really hard to do the essential to my solo clicks. The clicks are done by securing the thumb cymbal and hitting the middle of the other cymbal at a 90 degree angle. Because of the knob many clicks came out mute! Rings and clacks also appeared to sound less crisp.

Elastic knots vs flat elastic on double-slotted Saroyan

My goal was to come up with a safe way to secure the elastic and getting rid of the giant protrusion. On the first try I used s small ring to prevent the elastic from slipping away.  The result didn’t satisfy me. It was better than tying  the elastic from the inside, but the ring would not stay flat against the zill dome.  I then came up with an idea of using 2 rings, but soon dropped it for being too cumbersome. Finally I decided to get some help. My mother-in-law is perfect for this kind of mission, because she’s a artsy–craftsy type and as such she never throws anything away. Often times I come up to her with whimsical requests and more often than not she delivers. This time I asked her for a “tiny flat button with two prolonged slots”.

My father-in-law looked at me as if I lost my mind. My mother-in-law went upstairs and 30 seconds later I had about 5 buttons with two prolonged slots, all in different sizes. All of them fit inside the zill, but none was flat enough for me. Fine, said my mother-in-law and disappeared again. Thirty seconds later she couldn’t hide her content watching me all happy and giddy staring at her find! It was plain perfect and I was beating myself over not thinking about it myself. Can you guess where it came from?

The mysterious button

Back home I took apart a couple of old bras, sewed the elastic and tried the upgraded zills on. The fit was snug, the clicks came out perfectly fine, but to my utter disappointment the zills weren’t tuned! Each zill had a different pitch and this resulted in garbled overtones! It might have been fine for simple 1-2-3 1-2-3 to a loud track of music, but it wouldn’t have passed unnoticeable in my sagat solo. So I made an executive decision and ordered another pair of Saroyan’s Afghani’s, this time in silver, so I can have a higher-pitched  heavier pair. It worked as a charm, however I will always be grateful to Yael for this special touch of belly dance history.

Cutouts are ready!

Here is a tutorial on how to attach a circular trim with cutouts onto a circular skirt. All of the thumbnails are clickable, and if you click on the bigger picture it will open up the original file, big enough to see the details.

Fitted hip-length yoke with a zipper

I modified my double veil pattern for the circle skirt.

Traced adornments lines with hubby's help!

Started decorating with ribbons

Added a row of silver mesh, it took me one hour to finish!

To be continued…

I can’t wait for the adventure to begin! Stay tuned for updates!