Dance Magic 808 Sweetheart Ball/Mock Competition

Bento, Social Dancing, and a Showcase of Mock Competition all for 10 bucks! Modest but certainly a good drawing for weekend dancers. I gotta say that Richard and Lynn Nakamura (Founders and President and Vice President of Dance Magic 808) planned the event with a whole bunch of members to please everyone in attendance. Okay, let's start with what 10 bucks bought us.......

A onolicious bento with almond cookies

  As it goes, Lani and I don't usually whack down our bentos at the dance since we always have an early supper before going out. It's become a tradition since we senior (teenagers) can survive on two meal a day.

As we entered the ballroom, the music was going great guns, and even so were the dancers. That's what great selection of danceable "music that moves the body"  does. Gotta hand it to the music DeeJays Mike and Dianne Chinen for spinning those contemporary music.

Social dancing continued on till about 7:45 when DM808 President Lynn Nakamura took to the microphone to welcome everyone with a short message and then introduced the EmCee for the evening.

The EmCee for the evening was Paul Tamaribuchi, a retired United States Army colonel. Paul is only one of two EmCees that I've come across that is fully animated and generates excitement in his message of welcome, recognition of the people who without their help this event would not have had a great turnout (there were more than 325 attendees), and the introduction of representatives of the various dance organizations as well as the owners/teachers of professional dance studios. He kept the program running smoothly while introducing the dances and the dancers. This is the picture of the moment as Paul uttered his message: "Tonight we have an exciting program for you. We would like to introduce the dancers participating in the mock competition. Since this is a mock competition, the dancers will not be judged. They are members of Dance Magic 808. Some of these dancers actually do compete in dance competitions here in the islands and on the mainland. For the serious competitors, this competition is practice for the real thing. For the non-competitors, this is for fun but they do want to do their best for you".

Then the Mock Competition began with the introduction of the dancers: Richard & Lynn Nakamura, Alan Kim & Hana Yin, Gordon Wong & Lisa Hankins; the Dance Appeal Dancers: Owners Sergio & Renna Villanueva with students David Matsumoto, David Carvalho,Ikaika Villanueva & Brandee Nakamura, Elyne Fia, Susan Hiwa, Barbara Kaneshiro, and Coralee Harai. Then came the introduction of the serious dance competitors who have dopne well in competitions here and on the mainland: Calvin & Debra Ota, Ravi Narayan & wife Synthia Sumukti, and daugther Prita Narayan; and Edwin & Charlotte Bugarin.

The first competition was Latin dances: Samba, Cha Cha, Rumba, Mambo, Paso Doble, and Jive.
There was a break after the Jive for social dancing and change of costumes for some of the competitors.
The second competition was Standard dances: Waltz, Tango, Viennese Waltz, Foxtrot and Quickstep.

With the loud round of applause, it appears that all the dancers did very well with no one couple singled out as the best competitors. Ravi danced with wife Synthia, and then with daughter Prita. Renna danced with David Matsumoto and then with David Carvalho, and Sergio danced with partners Elyne Fia, Susan Hiwa, Barbara Kaneshiro, and Coralee Harai.

There was a "curtain call" for all the dancers in the Mock Competition to receive gifts of appreciation from Richard and Lynn Nakamura. Thus ended a well organized and exciting showcase of Mock Competition.

Photos of the dancers participating in the Latin, and Standard Divisions were:

Here's a few snips that I was able to shoot when the dancers were within my camera range: