Massive Mandatory Dress Rehearsal June 14th 6-9pm
Delilah needs 6 more masons, for June 14th 6-9PM
Parade, June 16th so reach her! 206 632-2353 delilahbellydancer@yahoo.com
THURS June 14th 6-9PM Massive Mandatory Dress Rehearsal, Magnuson Park, Hangar 27
(with a photo session before from 5-6:30 and after 9-10 if they want, project by Alison Ness with ancient Egyptian painted back drop).
After rehearsal:
- After Massive Rehearsal: Disassemble wood frame and float base for transport
- Transport blocks to store them securely until Saturday
SATURDAY June 16th 10AM
Fremont PARADE head by Prolab NW 36th St 3RD Ave W. EVERYONE, , Parade starts at NOON BUT are dressed and ready at 10AM
Delilah’s Pyramid Project —We need YOU!
To play a role in a very important performance piece!
We are going to build a pyramid in the center of the universe!
(Fremont being well known as the center of the universe)
We are going to do this in the midst of the "Fremont Summer Solstice Parade" accompanied by 150 of Delilah’s belly dancers, all garbed in Ancient Egyptian costumed attire on June 16th at approx. 12:30 PM. in Seattle, Washington. We will be first in the line up of the parade.
This will take place, in the time it takes approx.150 belly dancers to dance past the center of the universe. A matter of a few minutes. So each block is carried separately and in a special order. All 4 sides will come together at once!
Don’t worry the blocks are cardboard. They will be puzzle pieces that fit into a pyramid frame with a 5 foot tall foam cap stone. ( Each will be the size of a manageable large box.
It will take 80 Volunteers. That would be you!
This piece has magical esoteric and sacred geometric dimensions. This planet, this world, our home is frought with huge seemingly insurmountable challenges. This work we are attempting to create is the depository for our world consciousness and healing intentions. We must think outside of the box (and in this case inside the pyramid) and bring about fundamental change and herald in the yet-to-be-thought-of solutions for todays problems! The Ancient Egyptians knew something we have forgotten. Your job as stone masons is to build a foundation and bring back this wisdom!
The philosophy of this project is that it doesn’t physically exist anywhere until the moment we build it. Each volunteer stone mason will do his small share of building one block and housing it. Thus the stones exist through out our community. When it comes time to build the pyramid it will be his duty to carry his sacred stone in the parade. He/she will be a representative of what this project and it’s greater universal meaning truly is to all that see him pass by in the parade. (Don’t worry folks will know. We are doing PR to get that message out as well.)
What are your duties and obligations?
․1. BUILD BLOCK: To make your block out of cardboard, you will be given directions and guidance at a choice of workshop dates or if you can’t make it to the workshop you will have a team captain that will assist you in this task. paint glue fold and cut. Not hard. We have workshop space.
․2. BLOCK HOUSING: To house and protect your block and bring it back and forth to rehearsals and the parade.
․3. CHOREOGRAPHY: You will be given SIMPLE marching drill team street choreography and will need to rehearse and practice it.
․4. COSTUME: You will take responsibility for your costume. Details, resource options and assistance (even some materials) will be provided. But you will need to make decisions and we encourage creativity with in our perimeters. This can be very cheap or you may want to go very cool.
The MALE stone mason skirt/kilt, belt, a cloth head dress and serpent head band, a simple shirt or no shirt, sandals, Egyptian eye make up, optional body paint, jewelry armbands
FEMALE Stone mason Shift or triangle bra with lots of jewelry, black headdress, hair or wig with serpent head dress, sandals. You or a representative helping you are invited to a costume workshop at 3:00 Saturday, May 19th.
Our proposed Stone building workshop dates are as early as Sat March 31 and or April 1st but maybe delayed until April 7th or 8th depending on this weeks progress. If weekends do not work for you team captains will assist you or make it for you,not to worry!
․Volunteer CARPENTERS: We need any volunteer carpenters to help build the framed part of the Pyramid on Saturday and Sundays. ASAP.
Call Delilah 206 632-2353
․Volunteer FOAM MASONS: We need you to call ASAP! 206 632-2353
Then in April between dates 14-28 we will have a mechanical run through with at least 25-40 of the volunteers that are available. DATES TBA
You must absolutely be able to make the below dates:
․June 7th Thursday Rehearsal 6:45-9:00
․June 14th Thursday Grand Rehearsal 6:45- 9:00
․June 16th Saturday, 10 AM-1:30PM Day of Parade
Supplies: We are in need of 4 wheels, some lumber and construction supplies.
Any Ideas and help appreciated.
—Delilah 206 632-2353 delilahbellydancer@yahoo.com
To Build a Pyramid in 2007
Shortly after the Fremont Solstice Parade I always like to have a big party for everyone who participated with our project. Last June was a big year. At my Billion Belly March house party, I walked out on to the deck and made a little speech. I thanked and praised everyone’s cooperative efforts. We had a lot to be proud of. It was a huge achievement and a lot of fun!
The year before we were 100 dancers and musicians in the parade. Last year we were 185 participants and more people on the supportive sidelines. It is amazing how we grow each year. The enthusiasm and momentum it takes on is powerful. Not only did we do our 7 dances in the parade but also we postered the town with the awareness of how important belly dance is for women; how it is more than just a harem dance. It’s healing, empowering and rejuvenating and our soul activity! We wrote hundreds of letters and sent them to all sorts of organizations, politicians and media folk; letting them know what our mission was and inviting them to come watch us and cheer us in the parade. We invited dancers from all over the world to come and be in our lines. And they did!
Who were we?
Our support group had banner carriers, prop pushers, water bearers, flower girls and prop managers. We had stilt walkers and honored guest dancers from the Seattle area. We had Dahlia’s cane dance string and 2 Seattle main strings as well as the out of town dancers. These were lead by Laura Rose and myself. Each individual worked hard on dances, costume, make up and details. On the day of the parade everyone looked radiant! The drummers were so supportive and full of steam! Magi and committee worked hard on the 12-foot by 9-foot mural. Cory, Ken and the gang helped with the scaffolding and our pushers were champs. Finding a Zorna player and then asking them to play for over an hour is no easy task. They each came from out of town; Habib from Arizona, Claire from Enumclaw and Michael Beach of Brothers of the Baladi band in Oregon. The drummers played hard and even had to tape their hands. The entire thing was so awesome! How could we not do it again!?
So, I set the new plan for 2007 right then and there!
The 2007 theme inspiration is COSMIC ACHIEVEMENT
The costume stylization will be Ancient Egyptian
The color theme is White and Gold with black wigs
The accent color for Seattle is turquoise
The specialty dances will be Wings of Isis
The accent color for out of town dancers is carnelian (burnt orange�red)
Side Note: The color accent is a cool thing because we can see at a glance and in photos later on just who came from out of town.
Then I went on. I have had a reoccurring vision for years now. I see us building a pyramid in the center of Fremont. My mouth was forming the words as my brain watched in ah. I realized I was sealing myself into a gigantic commitment right then and there.
The year 2007 is the year...
LETS BUILD A PYRAMID!
(well actually the dancers are not going to build it. The stone masons will be a complementary ensemble marching up ahead of the dancers and they will build it)
The Vision:
I see the Billion Bellies all decked out in pharaonic costume theme and a legion of 80-100 stonemasons accompanying them. The stone masons lead the way. Each mason is dressed in pharaoh’s kilt and head dress with serpent ureaus across their forehead. Some use body paint and all have black Egyptian eyes and brass armbands. Each is carrying a big white stone block (made of lightweight material) down the parade route. They march like a formation of Ancient Egyptian ants with a mission. 80,000 people come out to see the parade and many are visiting from out of town. Somewhere a spectator will watch and curiously inquire,
"Where are they all off to?"
And a neighbor in the know will reply,
"They are off to build a pyramid in the center of Fremont which everyone knows has been proclaimed by the mayor to be in the center of the Universe!"
"Won’t that stall the parade?" they will query.
"Do you see all those dancers following them? The pyramid will be built in the time it takes for the Billion Belly Dance Ensemble to pass though the eye of a needle; that being the center of downtown Fremont. They will move through at dancing speed while the pyramid is being built. The pyramid will be danced in place in a methodical choreography in a matter of drumbeats. It will only be up for only hundreds of billions of nanoseconds. Long enough for the audience to cheer and marvel at it. The word has been passed through the community that each citizen is to fill the vault with the purest heartfelt intention for the healing of our world’s future. The point of this monument is to enact a paradigm shift of conscious intent. It is a demonstration of will, action and cosmic knowledge. Then it will be torn down again as fast as it goes up and the legion of stone masons will follow behind the dancers caring their stones on down to the .finish of the parade route."
The out of towner that is not as schooled in the principals of cosmic dynamics may ponder, "It will only be up for second? That seems a shame. What’s the point of all that work if this pyramid seems so temporary?"
"Whether it is a pyramid that exists for a 100 billion years or a 100 billion nanoseconds, what does it matter to time and space? Are we, the human race, any less important if our legacy is but a speck of light on yesterday’s horizon?"
That has been the vision.
Where did this inspiration come from?
It came from cosmic metaphysics. Dance and life both use up the medium of time and space. The dancing slipper stepped and having stepped moves on. It appears that we cannot go back and and or undo one wrong step, we can only move forward. Like a parade and like a river. It appears we have no choice but to move along.
We are the bystanders today. We bring our own parade up to the waters edge of the Solstice Parade. We stand at the riverbanks and see and share only a passing moment with those carried in its flow in front of us. The river of time is a parade and those who ride the currents in their ships of fancy share another space and time we cannot see. The dancers are doing 7 dances but we only see one part as they pass before us. We see nothing of their real dance.
Now we know what the masons and the dancers are doing and what they are representing. Our consciousness is carried forward and backward and outside the flow of the parade yet connected in a grand scheme that proves there is more than meets the eye. Humans seem to love and need these demonstrations.
Within those folds of time and space is that pyramid. It is a seemingly impossible dream that should defy rational acceptance. There it be! A testament. Visionaries who hear the call and step up to the task are building it in the center of Fremont in the middle of a parade!
Our world’s problems seem so daunting, do they not? The obstacle of the flow of time and space seems set. We feel at times so powerless to correct and heal the world situation. We are perplexed about the way of how. How do we to do the right thing or to change the course of a raging river? We feel as mere spectators. This pyramid calls on every citizen to play a part. To think outside the perception of the box we think we are in!
Next...
As I made my speech that night I put out a plea to the forces that be to send me a cosmic architect! A few days later I was walking in Marketime grocery and a young man (Justin Rodda) approached me and said,
"Hello I am your architect! I have built pyramids I can build yours."
He gave me his email, and his email name was Horus. Oh my stars, the Goddess has sent me her son!
So the days passed on, the New Year was approaching and the MacKay Grant for parade projects was being offered. I knew I had to submit the proposal, but as the year was drawing to an end, the festivities, work, Solstice Feast project, taxes, setting up the new class schedule, birthday and Christmas mottled my time. The deadline was my birthday, December 31st. I was sick with a cold to boot, and raced to submit my proposal before the clock struck 12 and the New Year was here. I did it, and went on about my business.
Then the jury committee called and said they had questions but were considering my project. They asked if I could have a prototype done by the end of the week. EEK! No! I am in the midst of 3 other projects. Then I took a few deep breaths and realized, this project is bigger than me. It is destined to be done. Even though I can’t see how it will work this week. The advice in my head was "work with what you have and stay true to your cause". Ok, so I did nothing. Nothing? Yes, I stayed still and let the universe move towards me and by the close of the week people came into place, my taxes got done early and I presented answers, drawings and we built a few blocks. Divine providence moved in.
I got the Grant!
Oh my Goddess, now we gotta build it!
