What's in S.J.'s Dance Bag?

Our next dance bag comes from one of my favorite Irish Dance bloggers... S.J. from RincePop! S.J. is a professional multimedia journalist by day, Irish dancer by night. 

Isn't she lovely?

She currently works at The Buffalo News as multimedia content coordinator for Buffalo.com and regularly blogs for IrishCentral.com. She also maintains RincePop.com. Her Irish dance-themed news articles, videos and blogs have appeared in Hornpipe Magazine, Feis America Magazine, The Irish Times, The Buffalo Irish Times, I Heart That Dance blog, MichaelFlatley.com and Diddlyi.com -- and RincePop.com and  IrishCentral.com, of course!

S.J. dances with the Clann Na Cara School of Irish Dance in Buffalo and is a newbie flamenco dancer. 

And without further ado, let's see what's in S.J's Dance bag...

I've tried so many time to clean out my bag, a hardy medium-sized L.L. Bean Tote, but I always end up stuffing it full of dance necessities and other goofy junk. 

Here's what I found in my dance bag today, in no particular order: hard shoes, ghillies, flamenco shoes (I just took up the Spanish dance form this year), shoe horn, headband, sock glue, baby powder, stray socks, deodorant, shoe polish, lotion, anti-bac, sewing kit, lip balm, pen, permanent marker, Ar Rince Foirne and Back to Back booklets (gotta have all the ceili steps on hand to know if the top gent turns clockwise), mini makeup kit from Sephora, digital camera (to record my teacher's steps when I know I won't remember them), hair pins, duct and electrical tape, iPod and little hamburger speaker (IT REALLY COMES IN HANDY),blinged shoe buckles, water bottle and two notebooks -- a Moleskine and an Ursula Celano, which I won from IrishFireside.com.

Now, to explain myself. The hamburger speaker seems extravagant, I know. But I've actually used it a few times at competitions when I need to go through steps and don't want earbuds dangling from my head. It's nice -- like having a tiny boombox that fits in a pocket. And as for the two notebooks, I'm a journalist by trade, so I'm always interviewing people or writing down potential story ideas. So one of the notebooks acts as a reporter's notebook, and the other is more of a dancer journal.


Love S.J. and this dance bag? [I do!] Here's more from S.J. on the web:
RincePop [blog]
RincePop [facebook]
@RincePop [twitter]
Irish Dance and Pop Culture [blog on Irish Central]
SJVelasquez.com [tumblr]


Keep Dancing,
Moira