A Real Life Game of Clue

Of all the bars I’ve visited in San Francisco, none left quite an impression on me as Bourbon and Branch. The Tenderloin neighborhood in San Francisco does not usually conjure up images of elegant bars and high-class society. However, Bourbon and Branch delivers just that. Without being overly pretentious, the bar offers a range of high quality cocktails, a classy atmosphere, and top service. Bourbon and Branch is located on a regular street in the Tenderloin, and can be hard to find considering that the entrance is an unmarked metal door on an inconspicuous wall. A Bourbon and Branch bouncer stands nonchalantly a few feet away from the door. Unless you had the inside scoop, you'd think he was just a regular person, waiting around with all the other interesting folk for which the Tendorloin is infamous.
What lays beyond the metal door, however, is nothing close to what one usually finds in the rundown Tendorloin. The decor in Bourbon and Branch is reminiscent of 1930s swank and glam, with a large chandelier hanging from the ceiling, blood red walls, and a bar made from soft, dark wood. Bourbon and Branch looks like something straight out of a mystery novel. Indeed, when I discovered that the large bookcase looming against the back wall actually revolved around to reveal a hidden library, containing another bar, I felt like I was in a real-life game of "Clue"- It was the man with the top hat, in the library, with the knife! Or was it the woman in the red dress in the study with the gun?
Luckily for the patrons, the only real danger at Bourbon and Branch would be drinking too many of the delicious drinks. While priced a little higher than average, one sip of any drink from Bourbon and Branch makes you forget about the few extra dollars. Mixed expertly well, and with only the finest ingredients, Bourbon and Branch can boast some of the best drinks in San Francisco. A scotch on the rocks? How about a Glenmorangie Margaux Finish scotch(one of 1,200 bottles in the U.S.), or the Balvenie 1971? Just a couple examples of the quality you can expect and why Bourbon and Branch is worth the visit.
Originally, the location of Bourbon and Branch served as a real speakeasy from 1921-1933, during the time of alcohol prohibition. The current bar seeks to recreate the setting of an era when serving alcohol became a mysterious business. There is even a set of "house rules" that patrons are expected to follow, which include no cell phone use, no standing at the bar, and "don't even of asking for a Cosmo!". Unfortunately, taking pictures is also prohibited, so if you want to relay your experience of Bourbon and Branch to your friends, you'll have to take them there so they can see for themselves.
www.bourbanandbranch.com

Throwing Flames

The bar scene in Berlin never ceases to surprise me. There is a strange juxtaposition going on: the streets are quiet, peaceful even, and then you enter a bar and stumble upon a whole other world. Take Café Zapata, for instance. From outside, it looks like a rundown building, a bit of an eyesore amongst the upscale restaurants that surround it. A few interesting metal sculptures entice you to go into the bar, and suddenly you find yourself in a cavernous room with a band playing full force onstage. Exiting through the back leads you to a large, sandy area with several food trailers, tables, and another stage with another band. Spooky metal sculptures of demons, devils, and various creatures lurk in corners and atop the trailers.
What struck me as more odd than the sculptures was a claw-foot bathtub filled with what I presumed was water. My partner, Wilson, and I paused at the tub for a moment before shrugging our shoulders and walking over to where the outdoor band was playing. We had come to Café Zapata specifically to see our friends, the Benka Boradovsky Bordello Band. Halfway through their set they pulled me up on stage and had me dance. My high heels, the level of alcohol in my blood, the crowded stage, and the fact that I was wearing blue jeans resulted in a terrible performance on my part. Or maybe I’m just my own worst critic, because everyone else enjoyed it and even asked for an encore. I was feeling a little too tipsy, though, so I declined.
Then I went inside to use the bathroom (which was far more frightening than the sculptures) and when I walked back outside, there was a man in fire gear waving around a flame thrower. The bathtub hadn’t been filled with water, but with gasoline. And this flame thrower guy, he was raving like a lunatic, throwing flames all over the place and shouting things in broken English.
After his performance, he went through the crowd, asking for tips. Lots of people put money in, because you should never argue with a guy who has a flame thrower.
After all the chaos, Wilson and I called it a night. As we returned to the streets of Berlin, the quiet and calm of the night almost made me think that Café Zapata had been a dream, or at the very least, a drunken hallucination.

Rock-a-Belly

Call it what you will (my favourite label is “rock-a-belly”), but rock ‘n roll and belly dance make a great combination. The first time I pushed the genre was in 2006 with Wilson Gil and the Willful Sinners. The band commissioned myself and three other dancers (Jazmin, Julz, and Alex) to belly dance with machetes at one of their shows. As a bonus, the band also hired a fire eater. You can’t get much sexier than that- belly dancers, machetes, fire, and rock ‘n roll!
Since then, some of my best shows and choreography have involved rock music. If you think about it, the genre really works. Both rock music and belly dance can be sexy, edgy, raw, and full of energy. Just swap the head banging, skinny rock guy for an undulating, sultry woman. Not a bad trade if you ask me! (Kidding. I love those skinny rock guys).
The first show I produced in San Francisco featured “a night of belly dance and rock ‘n roll” and was a huge success (we sold out). I didn’t have a fire eater for that show, but I did have eleven dancers and two killer bands (Castles in Spain and The Ferocious Few). I wish there were some funny stories to tell of that evening, but everything went off without a hitch. And I guess that’s a good thing, because there’s always a slight chance that something could go wrong when mixing drunk, rowdy bar goers with scantily clad women. Luckily, everyone knew how to rock out in an appropriate manner- you can look, but DO NOT TOUCH the belly dancers!
My current project came to me via the social networking wonders of Facebook. A Middle-Eastern rock band from Palestine called “Khalas” emailed me, a Canadian belly dancer living in Berlin, to ask if I would dance to one of their songs and film it for their website. I am truly in love with online social networking and how it’s creating this wonderful web of artists from all over the world. How many cultures can we combine here? Well, the guy who’s going to be filming the video is part Egyptian, part French, and part several-other-nationalities, so apparently as many as we damn well please. That’s the beauty of pushing boundaries and combining genres that at first don’t appear to go together- what you get in the end is something international, something that breaks down stereotypes and culminates in a new sense of “togetherness”.
To see videos: Avaishya/FerociousFew
Avaishya/Alodiah/FerociousFew