Some hula for the soul

This is by far my best weekend in a long time. Yesterday I had a great opportunity to hear/watch a traditional Hawaiian concert at the Whittier College, Beverly hills. The performers were Cazimero brothers. Honestly I have no idea how popular they were. But most of the people who were present there seemed to recognize them.

This was my first ever time that had anything to do with Hawaii. I never even had a Hawaiian shirt before, believe me. As if to make things worse for me, most of the audience, including those who were with me, were in Hawaiian costumes, like those colorful shirts, garland around neck, the single big prominent flower etc. Well, I wasn't very far, actually. I was wearing one of my Filipino T-shirts. Hehe.. That probably was the closest I have every gotten to Hawaii. And interestingly, couple of people even asked me about my T-shirt I and the place that it had on its front (Tagaytay)

Anyways, the show started with few promises/points.
1. The costumes that the performers were wearing were indeed traditional Hawaiian ones, and not touched by Hollywood.
2. The Hula dance is not really for movements, but for expressions. So, one might find the movements a little boring and repetitive if you do not understand the words being spoken/sung. *Sigh*

The show started and I didn't realize that it was more than an hour since until they broke for the interval. I thoroughly enjoyed the music as well as dance. There are few things that I must mention. In one of the dances, the men who were performing (yes, there were male dancers too! But the good thing is there equal number of girls) were wearing a very interesting piece of outfit. It was like a kind of a basket attached to their waist and gave a feeling that the dancers indeed were suspended on them. Mostly, the men were just wearing a hawiian shirt and a regular trouser. And of course a garland around the neck to remind us that we were in a Hawaiian show.

But the best thing I liked was how the dancers made me feel that their smile/grin was natural. It certainly wasn't like those Air-hostess' smile. I hate it when those on-flight-stewards show their teeth, without bothering their cheeks or eyes. It is so unnatural and kind of puts me off. But these girls and boys, to my liking, really appeared to be enjoying what they were doing. I could see those smiles on their eyes and cheeks. Very nice!

Now about music - honestly I understood nothing, for most of the songs were in Hawaiian. There were a couple of them in English as well. Someone said that people in Hawaii don't really speak Hawaiian there. The language is only for music. May be, Aloha is the only word they use in conversations and rest is English. I don't really know. The music was nicely paced and was pleasant.

Someone tells me that Hawaii is only about 200$ away from LA. Now, isn't that a good news? Alright... I gotta go now. I have some work at google now.

Aloha!