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!

It’s been a few years since Matthew Good played in Lethbridge, so it was a treat to finally have him back. I’m a little biased in my opinion of the show because he’s been my favorite musician for half my life, but I’m sure there were a few other people who agreed with me seeing as how it was sold out ;)

I was able to catch one of his shows at Jack Singer Hall in Calgary the week before and was excited to be able to photograph his bar gig here in Lethbridge after seeing that. Luckily the gorgeous light show they had set up translated pretty well to the smaller stage. The performance was amazing (one of his best I’ve seen), and we all cheered when he chastised a few guys who started a fight. Definitely one of my top shows of the year!

Daniel Wesley opened the show.

Though I’m sad While We Were Hunting Rabbits was omitted from this stop, the set list was great… and I saw that song played in Calgary the week before :)

Vegas shows usually have a no photography rule, but Absinthe encouraged it! This relatively new show in a circus-esque area outside of Caesar’s Palace is described as Cirque du Soleil’s younger punk brother, which was the perfect description of it. It takes the impressive acrobatic nature of Cirque and throws in raunchy humor (including making fun of Cirque) with a super intimate environment. The stage is only about 10 feet wide with seating for 200 in the theatre, so no matter where you are, you are up close and personal. If these performers were to mess up, you’d get a roller skate in the face. We didn’t splurge for the VIP tickets and still managed to get the second row, which was almost but not quite as terrifying as the first row.

The performers were all amazing and I think I watched half the show with my jaw hanging open. (The other half was spent wiping away tears of laughter.) If you’re easily offended, the humor in the show may not be appropriate for you, and if you don’t want to be picked on, sit a little further back :)

A parody of Cirque

The premise of the tight rope walkers were that they were the ring leader’s college buddies who used to get drunk and do stupid things.

Amazing! Amazing! It’s hard to write much else about this show. After a much too long hiatus, Big Sugar got back together and this is very dear to my heart since they were the second 18+ show I ever went to (my friend and I had to skip some classes in high school the next morning to do this). Gordie Johnson is also now a member of Wide Mouth Mason so they came along as well, and that’s exciting since they are one of my top bands. Shaun is one of my favorite singers – ever – and I never cease to be amazed at his guitar playing gush gush gush, etc. though that’s some tough competition when you are sharing the stage with Gordie.

This show went on for several epic hours and I’m so glad I got to be up front, showered by Gordie’s spit as he sang! :)

This was a show I had been looking forward to for a LONG time. I can’t remember when I was first shown Awolnation’s music (maybe a year ago already?), but his first full length CD is by far my favorite release this year. I have been obsessed with that album, and with him not being a big name yet, a Canadian tour wasn’t looking promising. I checked the Facebook page constantly for concert updates, and I finally I saw that he was coming to Alberta. However, it was in Edmonton… so what did I do? Buy tickets the moment they came out, and drive the 6+ hours to see him, of course!

The show ended up selling out a month before because he’s really blown up lately, so I’m very thankful I plan everything far in advance. He performed with his band at the Starlite Room, and holy crap, they were fantastic – he needs to keep them on as his regular band because they are so tight together. Not knowing the venue, I didn’t want to take any expensive gear so I went equipped with only my old Rebel XT and my 50mm lens. It was a challenge, especially since most of his lighting was that gross purple-red that destroys skin tones and any facial contrast, and we were packed in so tightly, but I managed to dodge all the arms flying up around me to get some shots. The only issue is that sometimes we were too close and I couldn’t fit him in the frame… but I’m not complaining, being in the front is the best :)

San Sebastian from Hamilton, Ontario opened the show with tons of energy.

And then Awol!

I’ve been at shows were I danced so hard I wanted to puke from the heat, but this one was even hotter. There was no dry face in the entire building. I love seeing his hair get progressively more wet through the photos.

TNT

On Canada Day, just after my dance performance with Ammena Dance Company at Henderson Lake, I had a chance to check out Orbital Flame, Lethbridge’s fire spinning group. I’ve only ever watched the fire spinners do free styling on their Saturday night get togethers, so it was so fun to watch them with a routine choreographed to music! It’s too bad that they weren’t scheduled when it was a little darker out, but the lighting was still nice for seeing their personalities a little better :)

I loved seeing the kids’ reactions.

The pitfalls of using my 70-200 lens… I couldn’t fit in all the flames!