Festival De Danza

In Costa Rica, they don't celebrate Halloween (although we were invited to a small party of some local gringo families, which was lots of fun). So, instead, there was a large "Festival De Danza" last night at the church hall in town. There was something like 23 different entries with everything from cute little kids in face paint, to a troupe of senior ladies in traditional dress, and everything in between. It was quite interesting to see.

Rachel's grade 3 class participated by doing a traditional Costa Rican "Tampico" dance. (I'll try to set a link to the youtube video below). One of Rachel's classmates, Samantha is a Tica (born here) with a Tico father and a North American mother who runs the local dance studio. Because of that, there were lots of people we know in the various dances, and of course Samantha was in a few, and is quite talented. Rachel thought she was "awesome". Gabby and Trisha were also in a few of the dances, and they are also good and you can tell they both love to perform. Leah also was in one of the dances, but unfortunately it was at the later end of the night, and we snuck out early, so we missed it. Nathan's buddy Wyatt has a little sister Savanna, who is only 4 years old, and she was in 2 dances that were great. Trying to teach 4 year olds how to dance must be like herding cats, but they were a hit.

The church hall was absolutely jammed, with standing room only, and lots of people outside peering in through the bars. They were serving pop and typical Costa Rican food (rice and beans, tortillas, a sort of cheesy potatoe mixture, etc. etc.)

In the middle of Rachel's class performance, somebody in the crowd pulled out the plug and the music died, and they had to exit and start all over again... It was quite hilarious, but in typical Costa Rican style, nobody seemed to care, including the girls.

For any of you from the kids old school in Calgary, St. Benedicts, you will see a striking resemblance to one of Senora Moir's Spanish Fiesta Night dances. In fact, Rachel was only a last minute addition to the performance, and it was only because she had done similar dances with Senora Moir, was she able to get up to speed so quickly. Senior Moir, muchisimas gracias a usted!