Friday night after an interesting 2 day training on ‘emotional arousal’ techniques to use in work with clients - we shifted into a very fun late afternoon of activities at my site – I had a chance to again be a judge for a contest - - this one was a dance contest- the guys had teams of 7 or 8 of them and they choreographed dance to two different popular (American) songs – wow. They apparently practiced their routines for 4 or 5 five weeks perfecting the moves and coordination and pulled it off to cheers and hooting and hollering from the audience. After a small dance piece we did the day before for a dance therapy activity as part of our training I had a new appreciation for how challenging it is to choreograph a short routine with even 4 people – so I gave the guys all of 40 for their efforts at getting their routines down, The other criteria of coordination and impact on audience varied – but clearly everyone had great fun – the music was load and lively and the dance routines were energetic and creative.
We then moved into a birthday celebration for Dr Tess – with food and Karaoke a big part of the evening activity. Apparently I found out it is an understatement to say that Filipinos love karaoke. Almost every Philippine home has a karaoke machine and it’s almost always a feature at birthday and holiday parties. It was announced her husband was bringing a 'band' – which turned out to be these 3 friends who sang karaoke style and did it wonderfully – they knew how to work the audience and get folks engaged – so lots of people including the residents went up to sing and partake in line dances. The festivities went on till about 9:30 pm when finally all of us started to crash realizing they still had a long way to get home and the residents needed to head to lights off. It was lively and fun and for me such a sense of the connection and good times so common in the Philippines.
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