Fogbow

Tiredretiredlawyer wrote: ↑Sat Jan 21, 2023 10:29 am From Hubby:

Rhapsody Stiggers has been dancing since she was two, but the 20-year-old college junior has never taken a dance class quite as challenging as the one she’s in now.

She is one of 38 students at the Boston Conservatory at Berklee enrolled in the first for-credit college dance class taught by the Radio City Rockettes, the precision dance team famous for its annual high-kicking Christmas Spectacular show in New York, seen by more than 69 million people since 1933.

The class, taught by a current Rockette, focuses on their meticulously precise technique, based on tap, ballet and jazz, in which the dancers move and kick in perfect synchronicity. The course also teaches strength training, choreography and lessons that can be applied to pretty much any dance genre.

“What’s unique about this class is the level of technicality,” said Stiggers, originally from St Paul, Minnesota. She said she’s skilled in ballet, modern, jazz, salsa, west African and improvisation, but “no other style of dance really emphasizes the precision of every single body part”.

“Like the Rockettes, we have to know exactly where our eye is, or where they’re pointing, or where the fingers are pointing, or how extended they are. So in that sense it is more difficult than other styles that I have done in the past,” she said.

It’s one of the most popular dance classes this semester at the performing arts school founded in 1867. Slots filled up fast and though enrollment was originally capped at 30, there were 38 students ultimately allowed in, said Mila Thigpen, chair of dance at the conservatory.

This Hawaiian Event Is the Olympics of Hula

Hula is celebrated for its cultural significance and captivating beauty. But in addition to being an important cultural practice as well as a source of storytelling, education, and entertainment, it’s also an activity that requires a great deal of athleticism.

And in the spring of each year, hundreds of dancers travel to Hilo, Hawai‘i, to compete in the Merrie Monarch Festival, the most prestigious hula competition in the world, sometimes referred to as the “Olympics of Hula.”

“In the same way that the Olympics hosts the world’s greatest athletes, Merrie Monarch hosts the world’s best hula dancers,” Kumu hula (hula teacher) Kamaka Kūkona says.

While the hula competition is televised, the preparation for it has always happened behind closed doors—until recently when one hula hālau (hula school) on Maui began inviting visitors to observe a practice session and witness what it takes to prepare for Merrie Monarch.

What Is the Merrie Monarch Festival?

What began in 1963 as an initiative intended to provide an economic boost through tourism—following the decline of the sugar cane industry and the destruction caused by a tsunami—has evolved into an impactful cultural event. The Merrie Monarch Festival is much more than a hula competition; it’s a week-long celebration that has contributed to the renaissance and perpetuation of the Hawaiian language and culture.

The joyful name is a nod to King David La‘amea Kalākaua, a fun-loving former king (a “Merrie Monarch”) of the Hawaiian Nation from 1874 to 1891 and an avid supporter of the arts. In 1886, Kalākaua marked his 50th birthday with a “Silver Jubilee,” a two-week-long event that included a parade and Hawaiian dancers and chanters. The celebration made a powerful statement; it was the first time these cultural practitioners had performed in public in many years.

Christian missionaries had previously attempted to suppress hula and other forms of Hawaiian cultural expression, and in 1830, Queen Ka‘ahumanu, a Christian convert, banned hula in public places. While some hula practitioners continued to practice and pass on their cultural knowledge (many in secret), missionaries and Christian converts continued to push for a legal ban on hula, which was eventually enacted in 1859. Hula—a cultural practice requiring a great deal of strength, skill, and discipline and carrying with it an oral history, ancestral knowledge, and language—was instead described in legal documentation as “a very great public evil” and “a common nuisance.” Sounds awfully familiar.

Today, the Merrie Monarch Festival sustains the resilient and celebratory spirit of Kalākaua’s Silver Jubilee, showcasing the best hula dancers and sharing Hawaiian culture, language, and traditions with the world. The popularity and increased global interest are evidence that “our culture and our hula are strong and thriving,” Kumu Kamaka says.

[Archbishop Francis] Beckman began a campaign against swing music in 1938. He made headlines when he spoke before the National Council of Catholic Women in October and openly denounced it as "a degenerated musical system... turned loose to gnaw away the moral fiber of young people" which would lead one down a "primrose path to Hell."[4]