It happened to me in Moscow, in the winter of 2011, where I was on a business trip. I worked all day in the office, but I had some free time in the evenings. I went on performances in different theaters with my Russian business partner Peter. Once, Peter and I booked tickets for the belly-dance performance of a beautiful dancer Elena. On the performance poster, we saw a picture of her. A woman danced on the stage in front of the eastern decorations, in the middle-eastern dance costume, with a narrow bra, long skirt, and barefooted. The performance was to happen in a small dance studio, which Elena rented on the outskirts of Moscow.
We arrived there on the subway (which locals called Metro) and walked to the address where the performance was to take place. The dance performance was to begin at 5 pm. We came about 15 minutes earlier and saw a small crowd of spectators waiting near the doors to the studio. The dancer Elena was among them. She was a beautiful woman with dark hair and a charming smile. She was explaining something apologetically to spectators that gathered around her.
Peter came close and listened intently for their conversation. Then he translated for me the meaning of it. It turned out that the dance studio manager, from whom Elena rented the studio for the evening, forgot to leave the key for her. So the studio was locked, and we had no way to get in. Elena took her cellphone and tried to call the studio manager frantically, but without any success. The studio manager was unavailable or, maybe, he was out of town for the weekend.
Soon all spectators arrived. A small crowd of about 50 people waited near the door outside the dance studio. We waited 15 minutes. But the problem was not resolved. The spectators started to get agitated, and some wanted to leave, and perhaps some of them asked Elena for the refund of the money paid for the tickets. The tickets for the performance cost $70 each, so it was a lot of money that the poor woman would have to refund to all spectators.
But Elena said to them, “Don’t worry, please do not leave. The performance will take place as scheduled. I promise.”
Elena asked the spectators to follow after her. She went to the empty parking lot and stopped on the edge of it, in front of the bushes and trees that surrounded it.
“That’s a good spot,” she said to the people.
Elena held a portable boombox, which she used to play dance music that accompanied her performances. She put the music box down on the snow and turned the music on. The crowd of spectators waited in anticipation, unknowing what to expect next. Then Elena went around the corner of a building, evidently to change her clothes.
She came back a few minutes later, and the crowd gasped in surprise. Elena dressed in a typical belly-dancing costume, which consisted of a bra and semi-translucent long skirt with a long cut almost to her waist. And she was barefoot in the snow. Elena smiled at the spectators and came in front of them.
She said, “Our dance studio is locked tonight, unfortunately. So I will dance here instead.”
The crowd of spectators exploded with cheers and applause. Some viewers whistled in excitement.
I asked Peter, “Is she going to dance like that? Really? It’s freaking cold!”
“Yes,” Peter confirmed. “She announced that she will do the entire belly dance performance here, outside in the snow.”
I could not believe my eyes. It was a pretty cold winter day. The temperature was below -10° C below zero (approximately 14° Fahrenheit) in the daytime. Then in the evening, the temperature plummeted to -12° C below zero ( 10° Fahrenheit). And it was lightly snowing.
But that did not bother beautiful Elena. She danced one dance after another, almost nonstop. Arabic music changed to modern western, then to classical music, and then to Arabic music again. I did not know how to describe her dance in plain words. It was so beautiful. Sometimes she moved her hips or chest in a smooth circular motion. Sometimes she shimmered just a single leg, arm, even her hair! Sometimes she lifted her skirt and shimmered her leg. The snow from under her feet flew to the spectators who stood in front of her.
I shivered involuntarily and stepped from one foot to another for a warm-up. I stood dressed in a winter coat, boots, and hat. So did all other spectators that watched her unusual performance that evening. But Elena was undressed and barefooted in the snow. Strange was to see a practically naked beautiful woman dancing in a cold and snow, in front of a crowd of spectators, dressed in winter coats, boots, and hats.
Somebody took a short video during her performance on a cellphone and then uploaded the clip on YouTube.
Because the performance happened in the parking lot outside, some passersby men and women stopped and joined the crowd of spectators. Those additional spectators did not pay for the tickets. So, Elena put a cardboard box in front of the performance area, where new spectators dropped money, as was common during street performances. At the end of the performance, the box collected a substantial pile of money which certainly made a good bonus for her performance.
Elena had a large experience of doing street performances, since she danced in many paces before that, sometimes in the open markets and street dance contests. But never before did she do performances like that in winter in the snow.
Sometimes she did a short break between dances. The crowd of spectators applauded excitedly after her every dance. When she took a break, she put on her coat and boots, and stood for a few minutes, catching her breath and drinking gulps of hot tee that she had in a thermos. Her cheeks were pink from the cold air; her lips were blue from the cold. But she was not concerned by that. Elena smiled charmingly to the spectators and replied cheerfully on the exited remarks. After the short break, she took off her coat and boots and started the next dance.
She performed every dance barefoot. Her feet got red from the cold and snow. After every dance, Elena stopped for a moment. She stood up with her feet on a small rug. One spectator from the crowd came forward between the dances and massaged her poor feet to warm up and help blood circulation.
When the performance ended, the crowd applauded her wildly. She put on her coat, sweater, pants, and shoes. Then she just stood among the crowd of people, smiling happily and accepting compliments. Some spectator produced a big bouquet of roses and presented it to her. She took the bouquet happily and kissed him on the cheek.
“I love your performance. That was awesome!” I said to her when I had a chance to get close, among the crowd of men that surrounded her.
“Thank you, I am glad that you liked it,” Elena replied, smiling at me.
“How did you do that, in such cold?” I asked her.
“Oh, it was freezing in the beginning,” Elena replied honestly. “But, when dancing, I warmed up. I just focused on the dance and the music. I saw the eyes of the spectators on me. I was so excited. I even felt so hot that I forgot about the cold and snow when dancing.”
“Will you dance in the snow again? ” I asked, teasing her.
“I don’t know,” she replied, smiling. “It was awfully cold. But it was worth that. Since it was such a success, I would do that again, maybe, some other time.”
And then Elena laughed and kissed me on the cheek too.
Her belly dance performance continued for 45 minutes, not counting breaks. All that time, Elena danced in the snow, practically naked and barefoot, at -12° C below zero. What a brave and determined woman she was!
* * *
*This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, business, events, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination.
But the belly-dance in snow video clip on YouTube is real.