The New Spectator Division

By Harold Nakamoto, Ewa Beach:

We are getting some good write ups on the competitions in the Mainland and even Blackpool. And with good reason our Oahu blogs are getting some good hits. We have not had many competition dancers on Oahu but in the last ten, fifteen years, we certainly have been developing a large group of viewers,  the new spectator division. And let's face it, we have some very good exhibition dancers on this Island.

Poetry is to prose as dancing is to walking. ~ John Wain

Thousands out there will see the football games but a very large group of these will never even touch a football after they are eighteen. They become viewers and football becomes a spectator sport and a good beer drinking occasion.

"Alive And Kicking" by Simple Minds

The dance shows on television have been responsible for the big increase in viewer interest in dancing. It is becoming less a dance and more a show. And many are willing to pay, - $100 tickets are going to be common, and us dancers will be having a ball and dancing up a storm at the $50 ones too.

 

OK, Kauai, Tune in and check in.

Not only that but each of the fans, for whatever the sport, has their own opinion. They become judges and "I know what I like." Many can discuss many fine points and may have excessive disagreements. The real judges are the ones that are well versed in the discipline of their choice. International may be different than American or Country and they go by different rules. Not necessarily right but also not necessarily wrong. It is their cup of tea.

So twenty years ago we use to say I am not a exhibition or competition dancer, I am a social dancer. We only had two categories. Not now, and the third category contains many people that do not really care to dance. But they do want to see and they do judge.

In many of the big dinner/dance shows in Waikiki, you can see the tables becoming empty soon after the show ends and the dancing thins out. Why? The people that left early were simply not that interested in dancing. They were there for the show and for the "see" and "be seen" social kine stuff. This analysis should continue at a later date.

New Dance Club with high cover charge and an elevated
sit down bar running all the way around the dance floor and
to the rear for the spectators.