Daughters of the Desert was an aspiration and dedication to our late mentor Joyce Daniels (a.k.a. Badia of AliBaba).

Her philosophy in dance and life was based on training horses. She had this $200 pony who'd run off every chance he could get. So one day she let him run. With her riding him across this freshly plowed field. The weight of an adult person plus all that thick wet dirt wore him down rather quickly. Soon after this little jaunt her $200 pony stopped running away. I hated dancing slow. Slow music and movement were not attractive to me, it was the bane of my weekly lessons. Badia had me practicing to so much fast tempo music that I just had to slow down. She was no nonsense, determined, so generous of spirit she'd break your heart. Also, very funny with a hilarious sense of humor.

She had lots of practicalities and "Joyce-isms". The two most associated with her were "there is a dancer for every occassion and an occassion for every dancer" and "give'em enough rope and they'll hang themselves with it!". She loved her pet dogs, chickens and lambs but during her last few years she went back to her first love, horses. When she was 16 years old Joyce was rodeo queen of her hometown in PA. In 2001 she donated her welding services to the Scottsdale Parks department by assisting with the construction of a horse park across the street from her home.

Joyce (a.k.a. Badia) remains unforgettable.