Ammena Dance Company’s “An Explosion of World Dance and Music” 2012 will be taking place on Saturday March 3rd at the Yates Memorial Centre in Lethbridge. This year’s show is just as diverse as the last, featuring bellydance, samba, Bollywood, burlesque, and an awesome tango piece. For once I am doing a proper bellydance as my solo this year… but that’s just too boring, so I picked some Lady Gaga to do it to!

Tickets will be on sale soon and they always sell out before the night of the show, so make sure you pick yours up early!

Since the tango piece is our big number this year, we went with that as the theme for the poster. Lise-Anne was a fabulous model as always, and like last year, couldn’t blink the whole time because of the extravagant eyelashes Jen gave her :)

Model, Wardrobe: Ammena Talhami
Makeup Artist and Hair: Jennifer Murray
Concept: Tanya Plonka

Please note: As usual, due to my heavy involvement in this show, I will be taking very limited sessions between now and mid-March. If you would like to book a session in that time, please contact me at info@tanyaplonka.com for availability, or I can schedule you in for April and beyond. I am still able to meet up for any wedding consults during this time, so don’t hesitate to ask if you would like to find out more about wedding collections for 2012!

The time is once again upon us where dance is all I can think about and all my weekends are spent doing it! Ammena Dance Company’s “An Explosion of World Dance and Music” 2011 will be taking place on Saturday March 5th at the Yates Memorial Centre in Lethbridge. As usual we will have a very diverse show, this year throwing in a few new genres… I might be doing a robot-inspired bellydance, but you’ll have to come to the show to find out ;)

Tickets aren’t on sale yet, but will be available at the Yates Box Office soon.

The poster was so much fun to do! We have some cabaret influences this year, as well as fabulous masks for our big bellydance number, so I wanted to work that in. Jen did an amazing job on Ammena (she definitely had a Lady Gaga thing going on), though with those big eyelashes and bedazzled lips it was hard for her to do many facial expressions :)

Model, Wardrobe: Ammena Talhami
Makeup Artist and Hair: Jen Murray
Concept: Tanya

Please note: Due to my heavy involvement in this show as well as other obligations, I will be taking very limited sessions between now and April. If you would like to book a session in that time, please contact me at info @ tanyaplonka.com for availability, or I can schedule you in for April. I am still able to meet up for any wedding consults during this time, so don’t hesitate to ask if you would like to find out more about wedding packages for 2011! (Dates for weddings are going fast, by the way!)

There are more photos after the jump.

Jess McMullin

Josh Schroeder introducing Owen

Jeddy from Lethbridge Web Design gives away the door prize, an iPad

Owen Brierley, opening keynote

Jeddy & Windy brought Crazy Cakes cupcakes for everyone :)

Steve Fisher

Gord Christmas, NorthStudio

Brian Cairns and January Kohli, discussing the creation of VisitCalgary.com

Marc Wrubleski, University of Calgary

Risto Treksler, University of Calgary

Trevor Flexhaug, Redwall – using my pogo photo of him in the presentation :)

Anne Stefanyk, NorthStudio

Of course, if the hotel is great, I need to blog about that too! This was my first time at U of C’s Hotel Alma, the new hotel right on campus. I was thoroughly impressed and will definitely return – the rooms were classy and modern, it included complimentary wi-fi and long distance calls, and even the continental breakfast was fantastic. Plus it’s a great value compared to other hotels in Calgary!

With a great morning view

WA Environmental Services was in terrible need of a new website; their old one hadn’t been updated since 2002, and they were too embarrassed to provide their web address to clients or use it in advertising! Timothy and Beverly Waters entrusted me to give their website a new feel. We included a blog section, Ask the Soil Doctor (Tim’s moniker), so if you have any questions about environmental site assessments or cleanups, drop him a line!

One weekend I accompanied them on a drilling job in Picture Butte to provide them with some up to date photography for the website (photos after the cut)

Here is the poster I made for our upcoming bellydance dance show, A Night at the Harem! The two photos I used are by the lovely Jan Tajcnar.

If you’re in the Lethbridge area, check it out next Saturday!