Current music:	thievery corporation, 'facing east'
Entry tags:	apate, classic rock, coatlicue, ekho, folk music, hippie subculture, hymenaios, kali, terpsichore, the minotaur

Who: DJ Kala [Kala], NPC Uma, Echo, Asterion, Hymenaios, Folk Music, Hippie Subculture, Classic Rock, Coatlicue, Terpischore, and Open to All
When: Shortly after the Haiti earthquake, then Saturday, January 30, 2009. 9 pm - Dawn.
Where: Club Shanti, Greenwich Village
What: Shanti's 'Dance, Sweat, Give' Haiti Benefit Party. 1 donation per writer/mun. Donations are made according to the first tag by each of you. IM noontime dreams for any questions. There's no tagging order -- If you want it to be open to a certain person, just put the name of said character in the header. I'll be replying to people as I'm able on Saturday. Thank you all who contribute!
Warnings/Disclaimers: None/TBA Write your heart out.
Donations to be made as of 7:00 PM 02/01/10 P.S.T.: 7



Kali had looked up before Uma sneaked through the back door. A newspaper lay strewn before her, speaking of the devastation abroad and the growing injury and death tolls. "Uma," she said loudly, the sound strange and almost echoing in the emptiness of Shanti during the day. She leaned back from the red-padded stool, one of many that lined the circular bar, and craned her neck to see around to the dark hallway across the way. It was the only 'hallway' in Shanti - a small, narrow thing that lead to dimly lit restrooms and, beyond that, to the kitchen, where light appetizers, warm drinks, and sweets were often prepared. Never full meals. Light bites only. "Uma!" She called again, her eyes narrowing.

Uma emerged from the darkness beyond, brushing her hands across her faded jeans as a way to dry them. "We're out of paper towels." Her voice rarely shook in Kala's presence, but today, looking at her friend, her teacher's aide and her employer, she suddenly wished she were a mile away. She suddenly was kicking herself for saying something so trivial, so meaningless, in light of what had happened across the world. In light of what was always happening across different parts of the world.

Kali blinked. "We're. Out. Of. Paper. Towels?" She paused, slid off her seat. "We're out of fucking paper towels? Twenty minutes late to work and we're out of paper towels?!" She threw up her hands, letting them fall to rest on her narrow hips, her gaze flickering from Uma to the high ceilings above. "Where is your mind, Uma?"

"I, well. I meant to tell you something else, Kala, but..." But the look in your eyes told me not to say a word about the destruction across the Pacific. "But I forgot."

"No, you didn't." Kala was standing in front of her then -- when had this happened? "Tell me."

"Well. Haiti... should we do something? I don't know, something nice?"

The corner of Kali's mouth twitched. "Something nice. Something nice. There aren't any words to describe the destruction, Uma. Something nice, chicadee. Not going to cut it."

"For the children? For the people? Something. Don't you think so?" Wouldn't you do something? Create, destroy, re-create. Did you do something?

There were a few minutes where Kali said nothing, only stood in place and looked somewhere to the left of Uma's shoulder, beyond it. Contemplation. Kali had been thinking of 'what to do' for days. She knew she had to open up the doors of Shanti, to plant seeds of renewal by letting people sacrifice their energy and time and spirit for a night in which to give it all to a part of the world that needed it more. But she had let Uma's uncertainty, confused and frustrated by not being able to do more as she was, wash over her. She could taste it. The desire to do something, to build upon what had been destroyed, to save those that Kali knew were already buried. Kali understood. She always understood. And now, she knew what must be done. It had been in her mind for some time; it was only a matter of making it manifest, now. An event. A benefit. An offering. Sacrifice the energy within you to something beyond the petty worries of your everyday, surrender, surrender...

"Kala?" Uma's voice was uncertain, the look in her eyes both respectful and wary, although there was something else there, something that bordered on accusatory. Uma had an idea as to who Kala truly was. No woman had such energy surrounding her, so thick and electric it was like standing on the edge of a forest engulfed by wildfire. Except this wildfire somehow beckoned you closer just by being. The way DJ Kala spun her music and her loyal followers, youths who flocked across the city to lose themselves in the safety of Shanti's walls. And if Kala was who Uma believed she was, if she was Kali-ji... she could not help but wonder. How could the girl know this incarnation of the Dark Mother could not step foot outside of the country? And since she did not know, she imagined. The sway, the dance of feet across the earth, across the cremation grounds of a shaken earth. She shook herself from these accusatory thoughts, momentarily feeling guilty for them. The woman standing before her had not left the city in months. This she knew. She worked every day here, after all. "Kala, what do you think?"

"We'll do something, chiclet. Don't worry," Kala offered with a sassy smile, spinning on her heel to walk back to the bar where the newspaper lay abandoned, as well as several files she had been perusing earlier. She grabbed the paper, the files, and folded them under her arm, turning her head to glance over her shoulders at the partially dumbstruck Uma, who was struggling to comprehend this was the same woman that had cursed her out for being late. She knew Kala's attitude could change at the blink of an eye. It just was jarring. Every time. "It'll be fierce. You'll see."

~


A week and a half later, the crimson and violet lights were dim, warmed by the streams of yellow light filtering from the pieces of saffron fabric draped along the high ceilings. Uma was dancing and bobbing behind the bar while serving cocktails and taking orders. She had let Kala decorate her; kajal eyeliner lined her eyes and a deep red sari wrapped across her tall frame, stark against her Norwegian complexion. Kala herself was swaying and nodding her head to the set she was spinning up at the DJ stand; behind her, the atypical remixed footage from various Bollywood movies and Indian dances was edited to match the beat and rhythm of the DJ's music, projected on the screen that went from floor to where the wall met the ceiling above. She could feel them approaching, immortal and mortal alike, and she smiled in the shadow that the hood of her sweater-dress offered, her eyes obscured. One hand was pressed to the large earphone pressed against her head, the other danced across her equipment. People had already started to gather at the low-laying tables that flanked the walls of the ground floor, the circular bar was already two-deep, and small groups had begun to found their way to the second level crescent-balcony that overlooked the spacious club; the third and smaller terrace-balcony above was reserved for V.I.P.s this evening and for Kali herself to rest in later on.

After some time, Kali would slide from her perch, wipe the sweat from her brow, only to throw her body into the music that others performed and the music that was set to simply play when she was away from the stand. Her dance partners were all and any. She would glide through the mass of people and those who weren't quite people but something more, offering her thanks for their presence with a gracious, loving, motherly smile. The play of colored lights across her dark skin would make it look a dark blue, nearly violet. In her nearness, mortal dancers would find the heat within them rise, the passion of their dance increase, and momentarily, all worries beyond the present moment did not matter, did not exist. As if this part of them, this Ego, had been completely incinerated by her presence.

At some point, she would find herself working the bar when Uma was let off on her break. The bar had many specialties, unique cocktails with international flair, with more varieties of mango that one would think possible. If the alcoholic options were out of this world, the non-alcoholic options were in a different universe altogether; smoothies, virgin versions of the specialty cocktails, and more. Light bites were on the food menu, heavily to lightly spiced, most of which were Indian inspired. She kept her attention everywhere at once, and people would marvel at how fast DJ Kala prepared drinks for multiple people at once, quickly cutting through the now three-deep crowd around the bar. It was almost as if she had six arms.

There was a big man at the entrance - the double red doors - named Jim. Jim wasn't so much a bouncer and more of a wall of a man, to give the implication of safety in a place that did not need such big beefy men guarding the doors. He would check ID's, take cover charges, and firmly suggest any who had a lit cigarette in their hand to wait, fifteen feet away from the door. If any difficulty would arise, he was told to take the offender aside for DJ Kala to deal with herself, who would likely know the moment trouble was about to stir, and as if she had multiple arms and multiple bodies, she would appear to deal with it efficiently and quickly.

Small brushed copper boxes with slots lined every table and along the bar, as well as in the narrow hallway that lead to the restrooms, on small tables there. A larger, silver box sat directly below where DJ Kala and the later musicians would be working. Shanti was a haven, a temple that was alive and testament to Kali's strength, and it opened its doors like it always had for all of the city; tonight, it was all about sweating, giving, and dancing. Dance until the morning comes. Surrender, supplicate, sacrifice.