LeeAnn (Ziola) and KC had a beautiful baby girl on Friday!! Mama had 25 hours of labor, Luminessah was there to support her, and it was an amazing experience for everyone there. She is a sweet little thing, here’s the info:

Lukah Gracy Ilminen Myers, born 12-12-08 at 5:12pm (It was also a full blue moon! What a special baby!) She weighs 7 pounds, 9 ounces and is 20 inches long.

If you’d like to see more pics or read more stories, check out their baby blog.

I thought that when I sat down to write the December post we might know whether Ziola had a boy or a girl, but we’re still all on the edge of our seats, waiting for that phone call! All the Luminessah ladies will be at the birth dancing, and let me tell you we can’t wait!

In our dance lives we have some (as always) exciting things coming up! We’ve decided to offer two more classes before the holiday break. These will focus on really solidifying what we’ve learned and getting in-depth on questions anyone has. Come prepared to jam and have tons of fun really owning these moves we’ve been working on!

Two shows we’re looking forward to this weekend: This Friday the 5th we’re dancing at a benefit for Darby to send her to Mexico to learn traditional midwifery. We’ll be performing with Fearless Love and probably Gypsy Moon as well at the Tamarak Wellness Center. Other performers include Solala, DJ Jeremiah, and Ankush and Katja. There will also be a re-birthing ritual in the pool, and everyone is invited to swim as well!

On Saturday the 6th we’ll be celebrating Mazel Tov’s birthday at Cozmic Pizza. This show - The Wizard of Moz - is going to be really fun, featuring members of the Conjugal Visitors and Fearless Love, plus Walker T. Ryan and Ken Babbs of Merry Prankster fame! We’ll be dancing to the all-star jam towards the end of the evening.

On Christmas Eve we’re excited to join Americanistan in their tradition of closing out the Eugene Saturday Market’s Holiday Market for the season. Other dancers TBA, but we have heard rumors that the adorable little Dalia might be dancing too!

Check out our events page for more details about these events. Come join us for some revelry this holiday season and stay tuned for more info on our new class session starting in January! Joyeux to all!

With Ziola now in her last month of pregnancy, she has decided to take a break from dancing until after the baby is born (due December 1st!). While we miss her dancing with us, we are extremely excited about this beautiful new life and are glad she is taking good care of herself and her precious child.

Our classes are continuing at Upstart Crow Studios and we are having a great time with them! The beginning class will start learning to play zills this session, and our intermediate students are having fun leading movements themselves. Come join us for some fusion-style inspiration and creativity!

We are very excited about two shows this month, very different from each other, but both are going to be a blast! On the 14th we’ll be at Cozmic Pizza with local bands Fearless Love and Gypsy Moon. Fearless Love plays beautiful spiritual-based music and is led by singer/songwriter Eostar Kamala. They play a mix of devotional music ranging from kirtan to upbeat dance music to Celtic and other traditional genres.  Gypsy Moon is the amazing group led by Deva Priyo, a master of the Spanish guitar. Their Afro-Mediterranean sound is led by his intricate flamenco/gypsy melodies which have mesmerized audiences from Hawaii to Australia, Italy to Spain, and now here in the Pacific Northwest! We are really looking forward to this show and encourage fans of flamenco/gypsy sounds to check out this wonderful music.

On the 15th we’ll be performing with our favorite dance DJ - DJ Layla! This show is a benefit for Grrrlz Rock! which is an awesome concert series put on by Cindy Ingram celebrating women in music and art. It’s been a while since we’ve gotten to jam to DJ Layla’s fantastic beats, and if you like world electronica, this is not a show to miss! Later in the eveing DJ Moonvoid will be joined by local hula hoopers, and the party will go on till close at Davis’ Restaurant in downtown Eugene.

Looking to December, we will be back with Gypsy Jug Grass on the first Friday, the 5th. More details are coming soon about this, but mark your calendars!

For more info about all these shows and classes, please see the events page. With it getting dark earlier in the day now, we hope you’ll come enjoy some fun shows and we’ll see you soon!

We have some very exciting events planned for October - classes, a workshop, a radio appearance and  performances in some really fun shows!

We are having so much fun with our classes! So many beautiful women coming together to learn this amazing dance - we are honored to be sharing our knowledge in this way. This current session ends Oct. 22nd, but we’ll be starting back up with another six weeks on Oct. 29th! For more info on that please see our events page.

On Sunday October 12th Luminessah makes our third appearance on 88.1 KWVA’s Plantet Soup show for an interview and to talk about MEDGE’s Fall Festival. We’ll be playing some of our favorite world music and chatting with Tim, our fave radio DJ! We’ll be on around 7pm, so check it out!

Speaking of MEDGE’s Fall Festival, it’s going to be fantastic! The day starts out with Luminessah’s “Signature Combinations” workshop and Siobhan’s cane workshop. There’s dancing all day, wonderful vendors, a raffle, and to top it all off, an amazing evening show featuring Collette! Other performers include Luminessah, Siobhan, Janikea, Inanna, and other professional local belly dancers. This is a once a year event, and absolutely not to be missed if you like any kind of belly dance at all!

On Halloween night Luminessah is thrilled to be a part of a special “Old-Time Halloween Extravaganza” with the Conjugal Visitors and the Grey Matter Jugglers! If you like the Gypsy Jug Grass shows, you’re going to love this. We’ll be collaborating with the Conjugal Visitors for a couple of songs, plus doing our own vaudeville-inspired set. This show will be at the World Cafe, so it’s all ages! Dress up and get Halloweeny with us!

For details on all these shows and classes please see our Events page.

We hope you’re all feeling refreshed by the rain and ready to come enjoy some local entertainment! See you soon!

It’s halfway through September and I finally have time to write this update! September is another busy month for us. We performed with Americanistan at the Eugene Celebration last weekend - that was a great crowd and a really fun show! Also our Fall class session just started and we are so happy to meet some wonderful new people and are having a great time with that. We still have some room in those classes, so come on down and check it out!

Coming up this Friday we’ll be dancing in the MEDGE show at Cozmic Pizza, along with other wonderful dancers including Elena Villa, Razia, Dunyah, and many more. That’s always a great show and this month the featured dancer is Sakari of Roseburg!

The 27th is a full day for us. We’re teaching a workshop at Lost Valley at 1pm for their Free Motion event - this is going to be a great day down there with workshops on breakdancing, yoga, Nia, hooping, and acrobatics just to name a few. More info and registration here. That evening we’ll be back in Eugene for a fabulous all-tribal belly dance show hosted by Sabine. Other performers include Gypsy Fire from Bend, Tribalation, Samara of the Bijou Project and more! A definite do-not-miss for all Tribal enthusiasts!

Looking to next month there’s MEDGE’s 5th annual Fall Fest, where we’ll be teaching a “Signature Combinations” workshop. That’s October 18th with dancing and vending all day and a gala show that evening featuring Collette! Save the date! For more info on all these shows and classes please see our events page.

We hope you are all enjoying this beautiful beginning of Autumn and wish you much creativity in this fruitful time of year!

Luminessah has had many requests to teach full time here in Eugene, and after the success of our summer mini-series, we are very excited to announce our first full session of tribal fusion classes!  We will be covering material not yet taught in any of our workshops or classes, as well as brushing up on some basic Luminessah variations.

We will be teaching both a beginner and an intermediate class, starting Wednesday, September 17th and continuing through October 22nd. Classes will be held at Upstart Crow Dance Studio in Eugene. For details please see our events page, and if you have any questions or would like to pre-register please contact us.

Faerieworlds was an amazing experience and it was great to see so many familiar faces there! Our performance with Qntal was definitely one of the most magical we’ve gotten to be a part of so far, and the workshop we taught was a fun little adventure as well. Thanks again to everyone who makes that event possible! There will be pictures from that performance up soon, so check that out if you weren’t able to make it to Faerieworlds. There’s some beautiful pictures of the whole weekend by Byron Dazey here.

Thank you all again for your continued support and we hope to see you soon!

Thank you to everyone who signed up for our summer series, we had such a blast! We are hoping to schedule a similar class series in the future, so stay tuned!

This month we’re busy working on our Faerieworlds piece and costuming. We’re very excited to be performing with the amazing German band Qntal on Bad Faerie’s Night - this is going to be a fantastic show!!

Also in July we’re performing with Americanistan at Zumwalt, a campground for Oregon Country Fair attendees. That show will be after the Fair closes on Saturday night. Other dancers include Carol Flamez, Dunyah, and Salome!

We hope everyone is having a beautiful summer and we hope to see you at these wonderful local festivals!

This month’s Iraila show with Americanistan has been changed to this coming Saturday, June 28th. We apologize for any confusion and we hope to see you there!

For more information please see our events page.

We have so much planned for June! So if you want to take some summer classes or just want to check out some great shows, take a look at our events page.

For the first time ever, Luminessah is offering a four week mini series! This isn’t just one workshop, this is four weeks of adding on to your tribal fusion repertoire, having fun, and exploring new ideas. Please contact us to register.

We’re also back at the monthly Gypsy Jug Grass, which is outside again at the World Cafe because of the great summer weather! This is one of our favorite shows - with jugglers, bluegrass, and so much more.

We have an Iraila’s gig planned on June 21st with the amazing Americanistan. One of our favorite shows and you can’t beat the organic menu!!

We’ll also be performing in Portland for the second time, for a benefit with Hadia. Other performers include Janikea, Salome, Claudia, Kendra, and more!! If you live in the Portland area or just want to see an amazing show, and help out a great cause, check it out! Portion of the proceeds go to SEEDS (Self Esteem, Empowerment, Education Through Dance).

Hope to see you at some or all of these shows and classes! Have a great spring and blessings to you all!!