Aloha Dancers,
The MAGIC of Dance Magic 808 1st Anniversary Ball was so successful that the spell has not yet gone up in smoke. It is with great pleasure that I post some of the photos of the showcase dancers, singers, and Belle of the Ball Contestants before reading a comprehensive description of the Dance Magic 808 Appreciation Dance written by Lynn Nakamura, Dance Magic 808 President. (All photos courtesy of Calvin Ota; a terrific photographer, an excellent Blog writer, a good friend, and an excellent dancer). Thank you, Calvin!
(Left click on photo to zoom in)
Mahalo Everyone!!!
Our 1st dance at the palladium was a huge success thanks to all of our members that help set up and took care of just about everything. With a crew like ours, we didn't have to worry about anything and we were extremely grateful because I (Lynn) was out sick for the whole week and was not feeling totally well that night.
We want to thank John & Ann Manuel who picked me (Lynn) up and helped with just about everything from setting up to serving to clean up. There was also Creighton & Beverly Goo, Stan Akamine, Dorinda & Dale White, Ed Ho & Veronica Munez, Lynn Duong, Millie Chun, Gayle Kawahakui, Connie Laderta, Roxanne Kaino, Diane & Bob Nishimura, Audrey Fu - Emcee, Larry Arinaga, Candace Yap, Lester & Henrietta Muramoto, DJ - Paul Lee, Joyce Sakamoto & Wayne Fuchigami who all helped with putting up the banners, chairs, snack tables and reception desk tables, wishing well, music equipment, and bringing all the cords, ladder, lights, decorations, bedding, table cloths, etc. Besides setting up, everyone helped with serving the snacks and the clean up went very smoothly, with everyone doing their part. We couldn't ask for better volunteers than our club members. We are very sorry if we missed mentioning your name. We tried to list everyone's name but may have inadvertently forgotten to list your name but we do appreciate your help. We are just so fortunate to have members that are so willing to give from their heart their precious time to help us. We consider all of them our friends.
Special thanks to Millie Chun who made a delicious dessert. If you were one of the first ones in line, you were able to taste her delicious dessert. Unfortunately, we were one of the last people to get our refreshments and her dessert was gone by the time we got our spam musubi but we heard how good it was.
We could not have done all of this without the expertise help from our club member, Gayle Kawahakui. She was so awesome providing all the necessary things we needed for our refreshments. She advised our members on what they needed to do and made our refreshment tables look so inviting. She is a long time board member with the Hawaii Gardenia Circle and we were very fortunate that she was able to help us with our first dance at the palladium. She was our overall person in charge of the refreshments and reception desk. Thank you Gayle for your hardwork and for bringing just about everything to make our dance successful.
Dance Magic 808 recognizes and appreciates all the things our members do to help the club. It can be a simple thing like bringing a plug or a pair of scissors to something major like decorating the whole ballroom or teaching. What matters is that we have members that are willing to share what they have and that it comes from their heart.
A organization is only as good as their members and we feel very fortunate and blessed to have kind, friendly, caring, unselfish, honest and giving people that we call our friends.
We decided to call our 1st dance at the palladium, an "Appreciation Dance" because we wanted to thank everyone that made Dance Magic 808's 1st Anniversary Ball on July 6, 2012 so successful and fun. It'll be an evening we will remember and cherish. Everyone who attended, helped decorate, participated in routines, etc. at the ball, played a major role in the success of our 1st Anniversary Ball. We just wanted to acknowledge everyone and say thank you.
Ms. Audrey Fu, a board member of Dance Magic 808 and former owner of Villa Roma was our emcee for the evening at our Appreciation Dance. She was also the emcee with Paul Tamaribuchi at the 1st Anniversary Ball on July 6, 2012. Friday night she introduced and thanked the Presidents/Vice-President of the various dance organizations that attended Dance Magic 808's 1st Anniversary Ball. There was an applause for each President/Vice-President when there names were called. She also thanked Marsha Ninomiya for the beautiful invocation and the DJs, Henry & Joann Rimas.
After all the thank yous, she called on Candace Yap, our "Belle of the Ball" to come to the dance floor and as Candace walked on the dance floor with her pageant hand waving, Audrey explained that we had a "Belle of the Ball" contest at the anniversary ball. The woman that best represented the enchanting evening theme from head to toe would win the title of "Belle of the Ball" and the cost of 2 dinner tickets for that evening.
It was so much fun and it was cute watching Candace parade on the dance floor waving her hand like the pageant queens. She looked beautiful just like she did at the anniversary ball.
Next, Audrey introduced the instructors that had taught for Dance Magic 808 for this session. While she introduced the instructors, Roxanne Kaino, Ed Ho & Veronica Munez, Lester & Henrietta Muramoto and Joshua Manzano, Richard & Lynn gave the instructors a token of their appreciation from the club.
After the introductions, we had some general dancing so that the props could be set up for a performance. Once the bed was set up, we were set to continue with the program. Audrey introduced Tiffany Au, 2012 Narcissus Queen and a candidate for the House of Representative, District 26, which comprises of Downtown, McCully, Kakaako and Ward communities. Every year we (Richard & Lynn) help the Narcissus Queen and her court by teaching them the waltz to be performed at the Narcissus Coronation Ball. When we saw Tiffany do the hip hop at the Narcissus Pageant, we asked her if she would perform at our anniversary ball. She would have loved to have performed except that she had just gotten back from China and had to hit the campaign trail right away so she could not attend the ball. Luckily, she was able to squeeze some time in her busy schedule to perform for us this past Friday night. She did a great hip hop number. We wished we were younger so we could do some of her moves. At the end of the performance, there were claps and Audrey thank her and told everyone to visit her website - VoteForAu.com
Next Leilani Soon, 2011 Miss Hawaii International was introduced. At Dance Magic 808's 1st Anniversary Ball, Leilani performed a beautiful hula to the song,"The Prayer". Last night, she danced the the hula to the song "Just the Way You Are" by Bruno Mars, and added in some sign language. Her hula was again, beautiful to watch. Thank you Leilani.
Now the fun part, Audrey told everyone to get up on the dance floor and that Richard would be teaching everyone to do the Wild, Wild West. Men on the inside looking out and women on the outside looking in, forming 2 circles. It was a circle line dance where everyone changes partner and while dancing moves to the right to a new partner. It was a lot of fun. The steps were simple so everyone could catch on. The funny thing is that everyone had their own style of doing this very simple dance so when you change partners you can expect the unexpected. This ended our program for the evening. We had a very short program to convey our appreciation.
The DJ, Paul Lee, continued to play his music which everyone enjoyed. There were some exciting and beautiful music that made you want to dance. As Paul played his music, everyone was invited to have a snack outside.
My (Lynn's) youngest daughter, Rachelle "Shelly" Young, made a lot of spam musubi for everyone to enjoy plus we had red velvet cupcakes, Millie's delicious dessert,chocolate covered macadamian nut, and water, juice, and coffee to go with the musubi. This was a real bargain for just $3.00 which was the cost of the admission for members and non-members.
At 8:30pm we had the partitions opened so that everyone could enjoy dancing the whole ballroom. Thanks to Pan Pacific we could share the entire ballroom with all of our members and guests.
When the partitions were opened, our members got busy trying to clean up and take down the banners, etc. We hope our members were able to enjoy some dancing because we didn't have much time to do a lot of dancing. We might have danced maybe about 5 dances the whole evening and wished that we could have danced more.
Well, all good things must come to an end so at about 9:30pm we started to put away the chairs and make sure the room was clean. It was a very enjoyable evening thanks to everyone that came and participated. You never know what to expect at Dance Magic 808's dances.
Mark your calendar for Friday, July 12, 2013 for Dance Magic 808's 2nd Anniversary Ball at the Pacific Beach Hotel.
We hope you'll join us again when we have another dance event either at the palladium or at the hotel.
Thank you for making Friday night such an enjoyable evening.
Richard & Lynn
cell 372-2256 (Lynn)
check our website
www.dancemagic808.com
