Merry Merry Month of May to the Third Power

Hello Everyone! Remember me? Yes, I know I haven't posted in a while but hopefully you'll be seeing more action from me. I have a bunch of half finished posts that need to be completed and this happens to be one of them!

Last month I performed with some of my Filipino co-workers for Asian Pacific Heritage Month. I still can't believe that I've been with at my current job for five years (longer than college! ;) and this is my third time performing with this group!

With less than two weeks of practice we somehow ended up doing one of the most difficult Filipino folk dances of all--the tinikling. For those of you not familiar with this dance, it involves dancing between fast moving bamboo poles. Definitely not a dance for the faint of heart, or those with weak ankles, LOL.
 

Anyway, this is a dance that I am somewhat familiar as I did it when I was younger. But even back then it was still hard dance to do!

Below is a video of our performance, sorry it's a little fuzzy but hopefully you can tell which one I am!

Okay. Did you watch it?

Yup. We messed up, but it's okay! :) In case you couldn't tell this is a pretty difficult dance all dictated on rhythm so once you're "off" it's hard to get back "on." I'm still proud of us and happy that we got the opportunity to show our company our culture! I look forward to redemption next year...possibly with a performance of an even harder dance--singkil! Of course we'll have to practice more than two weeks ;)

You can see my group's past performances here and here!

Merry Month of May: Filipino Edition 2.0

Last year, I did a Filipino dance with my co-workers for Asian Pacific Heritage Month.  This year, I volunteered to organize the dance which involved finding a choreographer, dancers and scheduling practices. This was not an easy feat. Our choreographer from last year graciously volunteered to teach us a dance again. As far as dancers, I really had to beg people to participate. I was starting to think that the dance wouldn't happen after I solicited all the Filipinos at my workplace. Luckily we were able to find six people of all different ethnicities to learn the dance which was pretty cool!


The name of the dance we did is called "Aray," which translated in Tagalog means, "Ouch!" It is a Maria Clara (Spanish-influenced/feminine) dance which makes me wonder why the dance was called that.


Anyway, here is our performance in all its glory. Excuse the vertical view, this was the only copy of the performance that I have. If you can't spot me, I'm the one in the green :)







On another note, this is my 100th blog post! Can you believe that after nearly two years I was able to speak on 100 different things? Crazy, huh? Thank you all for your support in reading my blog (and giving me things to blog about ;). I appreciate the opportunity to share some of my life with you and I hope that I'll have 100+ more things to say in the years to come!

The Merry Month of May: Filipino Edition

It appears that through the month of May I had a bit of a blog draught. I guess I was just that busy? Excuses are usual from me. Anyway, one of the highlights of May was the Cultural Showcase that I participated in at my work as a part of Asian Pacific Heritgage Month. I have done a LOT of Filipino dances in the past, but me and a group of Filipinas at my work did one that I have never done before. It's called "Kuratsa" which is a Filipino courtship dance originating from Visayas (a province in the Philippines). You can find out more about it here. You might be wondering, "How in the world does a group of women do a courtship dance?" Beats me, but we did it. Here are some pictures before our performance:

Deb and I waiting for our group to be called

Gotta love the filipinana sleeves!

 And no without further ado, here is our performance. Enjoy!