Learning New Tricks

Fire in the Belly Dance Company

When you watch Charlottesville Inside-Out, it’s pretty clear how much I enjoy my job. It’s hard not to have a good time when you’re meeting new people and catching up with old friends. Plus, I get to learn a lot of new tricks. Like belly dancing! For season 5 of the show, I had my first-ever belly dancing lesson with Joy Rayman and the Fire in the Belly dance company. I didn’t do too badly. Of course, you’ll have to tune in this fall to see for yourself. As a treat -- and a teaser -- I am including a video of the guys in the CVIO crew doing their version of belly dancing.

I also had a great time visiting Annie Vanderwarker of Fearless Flowers and learning how to put together innovatively beautiful arrangements using not only flowers and greenery, but fruits and vegetables as well -- like watermelon and asparagus. Very cool! I’m excited for our viewers to see what Annie can help them design in a surprisingly short amount of time.

Obviously, we like to get into the thick of it when we film an interview. During one shoot, I used power tools to help the Building Goodness Foundation volunteers put together a handicapped ramp; for the CLAW (Charlottesville Lady Arm Wrestlers) segment, I donned a costume and a new persona and arm wrestled for charity. When we visited VABA (Virginia Basketball Academy), lead coach Ben D’Alessandro taught me the secret to making a perfect foul shot. While the hoop still seemed pretty far away -- I’m 5’ 1” so not much is going to change about that -- I learned that it’s all in the wrist and the follow through. If you get it right -- swoosh!

Did I make the perfect shot? (I can’t tell you.) Did I wrestle to the bitter end? (Not gonna tell you.) Do I still have all of my fingers after using power tools? (I am typing this, but you don’t need all of your fingers to type.) We’ll just have to see…Season 5 of CVIO starts Thursday, November 10!

As you can imagine, we meet a lot of C’ville “celebrities” while filming the shows. I particularly enjoyed catching up with songwriter superstar Ellis Paul, and singing along with him on his new tune about Johnny Cash. I also had fun hanging out with Oliver Kuttner and driving one of his “Very Light” and very fast cars. I had a chance to ride shotgun with him, too, but I’ll never do that again! He handles the vehicle like a race car driver. Problem was – we were in a parking lot. Yikes! I think I screamed the whole time. It’s all on film…coming soon to your favorite local PBS station.

I even interviewed my Dad, renowned National Geographic photographer and writer William Albert Allard. We talked about his work, his life on the road and his love for music. He was pretty well-behaved and didn’t swear – not even once! If you know my father, you are thinking, “Incredible!” (Prior to his slideshow presentations, my siblings and I often place bets as to how many “colorful” words we think he will use during the evening.)

Dad says he wants to be a musician in his next life. Seriously, I think he’s done pretty well in this one, don’t you? He already has a start on Chapter 2, anyway -- he’s been sitting in with my band for years.  He has also been known to phone me at all hours of the night from God knows where asking, “Terri, what key do I sing “Call Me the Breeze” in? There’s a great band here…”

We ended the CVIO interview with a song together…Teeeease…

Catch Charlottesville Inside-Out Thursdays evenings at 8:30 p.m. starting November 10, 20121 on WHTJ PBS and WCVE PBS.