Friends model armor during Sat. night performance
We had a lovely time at TribOriginal, a four day tribal belly dance retreat in the mountain town of Hendersonville, NC. The participants were friendly and excited to see our wares. The organizer, Onca O’Leary, made us feel very welcome and gave us a prime booth spot.
It was our first belly dance focused show. We learned a lot about the culture of tribal belly dance. It’s a sister tribe to the Burning Man family and the Fairie folk. We felt right at home.
I love how costuming genres cross over, mix and influence each other. Organic Armor has a great view of this in our travels because we appeal to people that belong to many different creative communities. One of these days I’m going to put together a photo essay about this.
TribO brought together many excellent performers and teachers. A few that we connected with:
Poisoned Spoon, AKA Julia R. Zay multidisciplinary artist, author, dancer and trance musician (VA)
Mavi who is putting on Belly Horror in DC next weekend (DC)
Kimberly of Hip Expressions fire fusion dancer (FL)
Some of the new ideas we came away with include bras that criss-cross in the back for better, sturdier fit; and belts with the design emphasis in the back. You’ll be seeing some of these roll off the line over the winter.
Kimberly, fire dancer, poses with Paul in the booth