Pan-Pacific Festival Parade - lots of pictures/video

June 10, 2012

The Pan-Pacific Festival is a festival celebrating the delights of the pacific region. The Japanese, Hawaiian, and other Pacific Island cultures are showcased through competitions and performances. I watched the parade this evening, which was the culmination of the 3 day festival. It was lovely to watch. I have included a bunch of photos and short video clips so you could enjoy some of it also.

Earlier I caught this Japanese drumming performance at Ala Moana Center. It was long so I only caught a part of it on video. (This video is 5 minutes long.)

This was a really neat group of older women doing this. I was delighted to see them dancing and drumming along. It is hard to see their faces, but they are not young.

This was a group of local cheerleaders. I tried to catch them on video but didn't get it. It was unique hearing them cheering in Hawaiian.

This were two unique dance type movement group. They obviously has some cultural basis but I don't know what it is. I wish the parade came with a program or some sort of instructions to understand it better.The second is part movement and part music.

These are several groups of ladies in beautiful traditional garments for their cultures.

I have two videos of different styles of hula dancers. Most of them are done by older women - not the image you get in movies and TV shows. It is wonderful to see so many older women participating in these dances. They are graceful and beautiful. There was one group who were young and lovely and in the coconut bra and scantily clad hula style, I made sure to get a longer video of them for all the folks who want to drool over mostly bare nubile bodies.

This was the third to last group. I don't really know what this is but there were a bunch of people carrying it and screaming and jumping up and down while they carried it. It is beautiful.Perhaps this is a small shrine or Kiriko (see below)?

 These drummers were nest to last. The tall thing is a Kiriko carried by a bunch of people. It isn't pulled by a motorized vehicle but is carried by actually people lifting and carrying. There is a section about this on the festival webpage: "Don't miss the highlight: the return of the Noto Kiriko! In Japan, huge Shinto-style lantern floats called Kiriko are carried around at local festivals during the summer and autumn seasons. The word Kiriko comes from ‘Kiriko Toro’ or ‘hanging lantern.’ These lanterns are used to guard the front and back of the parade at night. Kiriko originally are from Noto Island in Ishikawa and are unique to this region; there are more than 700 Kiriko on Noto Island! Normally a Kiriko is about 4-5 meters high, but some are 15 meters tall and require more than a 100 people to carry them. At larger festivals sometimes more than 50 Kiriko show up, making for a truly magnificent sight"

As usual, pictures and even the video don't capture the vibrancy and sound of being there in person. Hopefully you can get some idea of what it was like.

Aloha,
~Melissa