Competition

The daily life of a Polynesian dancer is the competition life. Competition life is sometimes very stressful, tiring, and long. For us the biggest competition is San Jose Tahiti Fete on July 2-5th weekend. This competition is actually the biggest it is held at San Jose State University. A lot of groups compete in this competition. This competition has many division like solos, amateur, senior division. But getting into the competition life for the years I've been dancing. Tahitian takes up mostly your summer vacation. So this summer I spent my whole summer with my girls from Tahitian and practice everyday from 11 am - 10 pm. We usually train for solos and the group competition. This year we just did an Auhora a slow type of Tahitian like hula but more modernized. Even though it was much slower an Auhora take a lot of work, you have to be all together and so much cleaning to do and touch ups. But other then that you have solo competitions, and a solo competition is where you compete on your on doing a free style you do on stage. Your up against 4 to 5 girls at a time. But for this you have age categories like 5-8, 9-12, 13-15, 16 - 18, 19 - 23, 25+ The hardest divisions are usually 13 - 15 and 16 -18. Well back to solos there are 2 rounds, first round is eliminations second round is finals, then after all of it is done its award ceremonies.
Here's videos of the solo competition:
1. Solo eliminations: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=277AW_1gFeg&feature=related
2. Solo finals: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8mT38f6uls&feature=related

 

The Legend

In every sport you do or every activity there will always be someone that is at the top, or can be called the legned. Well in this blog today I will be talking about the most placed overall dancer, Miss Cherisse Ligot. She is currently 27, she is Flipino with Hawaiian ancestry. She has placed in every competition that she has been in, over 20 awards. She currently dances for a group in Anaheim called Nonosina. There are many videos of her and her dancing, and I will like to show you one of two of them

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wf9j9yI1MS8&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dc__zQgG9Mg

Girl from Ipanema

As you can see my title is Girl from Ipanema, I have a story behind that. So here's a story about the title of my blog. It was a Thursday night at practice, doing the daily warmups for practice, time went by and we went into our Auhora dance. An Auhora is a type of dance like a Tahitian hula but with some Tahitian moves, and more modern. But back to the story we had to go up two at a time. So we watched girls go up and watch them perform. It was my turn to go and the song I had to dance was Girl from Ipanema, so while I dancing that started talking about me and how I am the girl in the song. This is what they said about me, "Marisa will be the Girl from Ipanema like the girl in the song is loved by a guy and she's kinda "UNTOUCHABLE" and she 's not giving the guy what he wants, just saying that your the girl in the song  cause your so pretty and boys always think your pretty (: and that you just make sure you don't get caught up up with boys or listen to advice from the older girls about boys" That's why I use the song Girl From Ipanema my title because I am known as that. I wish I could add a song, but I really don't know how. Sorrry. Oh here's an original picture of the Girl from Ipanema

Practice

Why do we always have eveyday practice for Tahitian? To answer this question we always have practice everyday because it makes us become a better dancer and we always learn new things everyday in class. I love going to practice also, love seeing my hula sisters, and catching up with them everytime I see them. Sometimes at practice we just have talks the whole practice, like venting to each other seeing wsup with school and our lives. But practice also takes most of our time reviewing basics and going right into routines. For elite girl practices, the division I'm in we work our thigh muscles alot, doing levels to duck walks around the whole studio. When I practice, I try my hardest in the beginning then end up dying in the end, but it's alright. In practice I love the way I feel after, busting a sweat and feeling all sore I love that feeling because it makes me proud and actually trying my hardest. But overall practice, should be everyday and it's a gift we go there our instructor cares for us and how we dance.

Passion

The term Tahitian dancing means it's a cultural representation of the islands of French Polynesia, from the otea, aparima, hula, and auhora dancing. When I was 7 years old I started dancing with a group called Tamali'i in Hayward, CA. This kind of dancing I signed up for was Tahitian dancing. As a new dancer you learn the basic moves of dancing, the main move is called a fa'arapu, it is a circle you move with your hips and pushing your knees back and fourth. The break moves are called tamu, afeata, varu, pipei, and tae. I learned all these basic moves as a beginner. This type of dancing takes a lot of practice getting better or even becoming an elite dancer. You have to master all the moves before moving a level up.

Introduction

Over these couple of weeks I would be talking about Tahitian dancing and how it affects my life. I am very passionate and Tahitian affects me in many ways. It is a heart and soul type of thing for me. I hope you will enjoy my blog of my passion Tahitian.