Taiwanese Tap Dance

Went to watch a Taiwanese tap dancing group performing at Manukau tonight. Took us an hour and a half to get there, I was so frustrated. First of all it was rush hour and second I think an accident happened on the motorway, well at least thats what the sign said. The show was suppose to start at 7 but we got there at 7 and the theatre wasnt even half full so the show had to postpone half an hour to wait for more people to arrive.

The show started with important people saying a few words. That is the part which I hate, it's never a few words! Always a friggin speech. Afterwards the real show started and theres like 7 dancers dressed in old fasion American costumes came up and started tap dancing. I soon realised that this was broadway style instead of the usual Irish tap dancing which is more familiar in NZ. The first act was about the the style of Taiwanese, in terms of tap dancing. There was nothing Taiwanese about the way they danced lol, the only thing Taiwanese were the songs they used, it was like remix of very old Taiwanese songs.

The 2nd act was about another cultural group which also lives in Taiwan. This time they included ballet in the act. The 3rd act was about Aboriginals in Taiwan. Each act, depending on the theme, the 7-9 dancers had to switch their costumes and dance to a different style but in tap form. It was pretty cool how they could integrate tap dance into those traditional cultural dances. At the end of the 3rd act, the host for the show described the Aboriginals in Taiwan and how they're related to Maoris. Then she asked us what are Maoris good at since she didnt know. People then started laughing and gave answers like drinking! My sister said she heard someone yelled stealing! LOL

The last act was about Chinese culture. I liked this one the best cause they brought out one of those huge traditional chinese drums. At first one girl solo played it then later another girl and 2 more dudes came out and it was a 4 way combo beats + tap dancing. Like 2 ppl will drum then 2 ppl dance or 3 ppl drum and one person dance. Afterwards the drumming section, 3 dancers came on the stage and started teaching the crowd to do some beats like clapping hands and tapping with our feet. One of the combination was clap fast 3 times and tap 3 times with your feet and like 80% of the crowd could not get it. It was like they were all retarded or something. Even the 3 dancers on the stage could not believe that the crowd could not do it lol. They tried repeating it like 5 times and the crowd still fails lol.

The show ended with more tap dancing. Overall I reckon the show wasnt bad but not super great. I reckon they were trained well, they could get to their different positions and creating different formations, they executed that really well. But in terms of tap dancing skills, average compare to the rest of the world. I still prefer Irish tap dancing.