KAHAPON at NGAYON

"Yesterday and Today"

The title of my blog post means "yesterday and today," which was also the theme of the annual culture night held by the Filipino American Student Association (FASA) at Old Dominion University. The show was on April 18th inside the North Cafeteria of Webb Center. The students started their day at 11am and ended it around 2 or 3am on Sunday morning. The show was put together at the very last minute, but somehow they pulled it together and had a successful night.

Each spring semester for the past 18 years FASA has celebrated their Filipino culture by putting on a show for the students, faculty and Hampton Roads/Virginia Beach community.

The students started putting the show together in the beginning of this semester with practices at least 4 times a week for the traditional dances, writing the script, making/decorating props, etc.

Instead of writing a re-cap of the show, I've decided to write about what went into making the show a success and what we could've done differently because many people don't know how much stress goes into putting a show together.

To be completely honest, I don't think a lot of people cared about this show compared to last year's. We didn't have many committed or dedicated people and the practices were unproductive until the very last week and a half before the show. I was actually really surprised to see how well we pulled everything together at the very last minute, I guess people DO work better under pressure. I feel that we should've had complete run-throughs of the show a week before the show or at least a few days, but we didn't until the day OF, and it wasn't a good one either. And of course, what's a show without DRAMA? That was one thing that we DID have and A LOT of it. I tried to stay away from the drama, but when you're working with a group of people it's a little hard to. There were conflicts over unproductive practices, not having enough (committed & reliable) people, and time management. We had a lot of frustrated people who wanted to give up and quit at the last minute because they felt others didn't care about the show as much as they did.
The main thing we need to work on for next year is our transitions and communicating with the tech crew. I would also advise that we have the show a bit earlier because towards the end of the semester is when our workload is upped and it just stresses people out even more. Also, the practices need to be made MANDATORY and not highly advised to come to. On a positive note though, when it was time, everyone came together and worked as a team. Now we know what we need to do to make the show even better next year.

Below is a slide show of pictures from the show. Enjoy =)

Can you say Tininkling?

Honored as the Philippine national dance, Tinikling is a favorite in the Visayan islands, especially on the island of Leyte. The dance imitates the movement of the tinikling birds as they walk between grass stems, run over tree branches, or dodge bamboo traps set by rice farmers. Dancers imitate the tinikling bird's legendary grace and speed by skillfully maneuvering between large bamboo poles.

This picture to the right shows what the dancers would wear when they perform for an audience. The pictures below are of the Filipino American Student Association (FASA) practicing for the culture show coming up in April.

The students in FASA started practicing a few weeks ago; the exact date of their culture show is April 18th--please feel free to come out and enjoy phenomenal performances put together by the students themselves!
The FASA group practices at least 3 days a week; and right now they're just working on cultural dances, they haven't even gotten to the scripts yet. As you can tell, this show takes a lot of time, dedication, and man power to put it all together.

To the left, JD (President of FASA) and Emmy (active member) are standing and listening to the music in order to know when to jump over the bamboo sticks. JD is a Senior and has been actively involved with FASA since his Freshman year. Emmy is a Freshman and recently got involved with FASA last semester. They both joined FASA because their culture is very important to them, they also thought it would be a great way to meet new people and get involved at ODU.

Now, this may look easy to you....but I can guarantee that it's NOT! Some people might say, "how hard can jumping in and out of bamboo sticks be?" The dancers just make it look easy, when in reality it's a bit scary. Since the dance is performed barefoot, it is likely to be "clacked" throughout all the practicing. "Clacked" means that your foot gets slammed on with the 2 sticks if you don't watch where your feet are going. Not only can the dancers get but the clackers are prone to being injured also. Usually, if the dancers accidentally step on the bamboo stick while the clackers are clacking, it will somehow slam their hand to ground. So imagine the bamboo stick pinning your hand to ground and pinching the skin of your hand...OUCH!!



Not only is Tinikling a great traditional cultural dance, it's also a great work out for your legs! By the end of each practice everyone's legs-mainly calves-are sore. The dancers must stay on their toes at all times due to the speed of the steps, which really works your calve muscles. As you can see in the picture to the left JD has been working his out.

I know this might seem very hard to imagine in your head, so I recorded the students practicing so you could see for yourself.


The video shows JD and I practicing the dance; towards the end you can see that I mess up and almost get clacked with the bamboo sticks. EEEEK! I hope you all enjoy watching the video!