Thanks to our good friend, Julie Wauchope, David and I attended the 3rd Annual On Your Feet International Music & Dance Fundraiser benefiting Casa Marianella which offers shelter to international refugees (www.onyourfeetworld.org).

Wow! How much fun! Made me want to learn how to dance all kinds of different ways. I even (finally) got to see some Bollywood song and dance which I definitely want to ask some of my Indian friends if I interpreted some of the scenes correctly. One of my friends was asking if the characters ever kissed, and I told her no, that would definitely be a disgrace to kiss on film (I think I have that right)…but the sensuousness of the almost kiss-ness is very hot if you ask me! There was one song/dance number that was performed on a moving train that I loved. The last clip we saw was a guy and a girl and a war torn country. I was imagining that perhaps she was a Christian or Muslim from Pakistan and he was Hindi from India? I don’t know because of course I don’t know the language they sang. Curious though.

We saw the Capoeira Evolucao and the Fuerza Latina Dance Company and Blue Lapis Light. We also saw Olivia Chacon with Baile Flamenco. I think it was the Capoeira Evolulcao who had a fleet of dancer doing a dance that combined martial art ballet (Jujitsu?) which was very impressive moves combining lots of legs flying up and over heads and handstands and back bends. The Fuerza Latina Dance Company looked like a combination of Spanish and Indian dancing–would love to move my hands like that. And of course, Blue Lapis Light is very impressive (http://www.bluelapislight.org). One of the friends who was with us had taken a dance class with Blue Lapis and said that it is much harder than it looks. Well, climbing up hanging pieces of material from the ceiling and wrapping it around your feet and hands and various body parts to make graceful and elegant movements look effortless, did not look very easy to me!

There was a silent auction also taking place during the event, but we did not participate in that (though I hope our $25 tickets will help somewhat). On the inside cover of the program it says that, “Casa Marianella, the shelter, opened it’s doors on January 6, 1986. The Austin Interfaith Task Force for Central America initiated the project in response to the arrival of refugees fleeing from Central America. Marianella Garcia Villas, for who the house is named was a human rights lawyer in El Salvador who was slain by death squads in 1983. Casa Marianella has served guests from Mexico, Somalia, Honduras, Nicaragua, Ethiopia, Peru, Guatemala, Sudan, Eritrea, Tunisia, Cuba, Albania, El Salvador, Ghana, The Ivory Coast, Colombia, Nepal, Romania, Costa Rica, Brazil, Cameroon and Bosnia.

Wow!

What a great way to bring our attention to the needs of the refugees from other countries that we could be ignorant of our whole lifetime. I was very inspired by the dance and music and am contemplating taking one of the many dance lessons offered…..we’ll see, we’ll see.

In the meantime, if you live in Austin, please do check into this event (and upcoming events) for next year as well as look into Casa Marianella. If you don’t live in Austin, nose around in your communities and see what similar kinds of events may be going on in your neck of the woods and if you can’t find any….hmmmm…maybe you can create one!