Garbo sa Lapu-Lapu (Pride of Lapu-Lapu) a.k.a More is more!

We are lucky enough to be here ( ok that sentence can just end there) but on top of just that truth we are extra lucky that our visit has coincided with the 500th anniversary of Chief Lapu-Lapu repelling Magellan (and thus delaying colonization for 30 years). And this means 500 year celebration!! As a quick reminder if I haven’t explained before, we are living on Lapu-Lapu Island also called Mactan Island or Opon Island and is a bridge or ferry ride across from Cebu City on Cebu Island proper. They have had a week plus of differing festivities to celebrate this anniversary (obviously a great point of pride) and today was the Parade and dance competition. Fabulous!

Before the fabulousness, I will admit is was a bit of a wait. We’re unsure if some of our snags are primarily language based, ignorance based or culturally based. We think possibly all of the above. To start, we are always asking around about information on when and where exactly things are happening. Sometimes people seem to know, sometimes they may just be politely guessing or vaguely gesturing. But we thought we had, on good authority, the start time of the parade as 1pm. So when we and a fair amount of other official worker types are still milling about at 1:20 we ask one of them some questions…yes, yes this is where the parade is…and it starts at 1…he clocks his watch…or so. Hmmm, ok. But soon enough here comes the parade (And by soon I mean maybe 1:45?). But alas the beginning of the parade is casual military formations with way too big of guns for my liking and police officers in shiny boots. With long breaks between. Ah well, at least are able to grab some seats (and somewhere in this time frame we had chosen seats and then had to abandon them to a fierce downpour). At least now as we wait and dutifully clap as every. single. school. district. marches. past….with nothing but signs and matching polos. maybe a hat with flare. Maybe a couple kids. But mostly just the teachers. And they seemed to just be announced, waved and then move along. Slowly. ANYWAY…We do get to observe and sample the array of food vendors: deep fried peanuts (my fave), a tostada like crunchy carb that the girls thought was decorated with chocolate sauce but turned out to be sweet soy sauce (they still liked it), chicarron (chad’s fave…definitely high on my list).

Then FINALLY (we think) the bands start. Bands here primarily meant flag spinners, drums, xylophones and bugles. That’s right, bugles. And xylophones. So interesting how different my concept of a marching band is to what we saw. I don’t know that I’ve ever actually seen bugles played in a band setting before. Like a whole group of them. Maybe as a specific solo piece for a military march? So it was quite the new experience. And the polish was a bit different to what I’m used to, but then I’ve been spoiled. AND I got to relive my cherished memories of the PVMS band marching around neighborhoods and the Hazel Dell Parade in our orthopedic dinkles. Ah the good old days of white jeans and trumpets blaring Louis, Louis. And of course the Prairie High School band is always evoked when I hear a band.

But why am I talking about the bands when I have DANCERS to talk about?! These dance troops were definitely the main event. You can see where the time and energy goes: DANCE and COSTUME! One after another of these confections of cuteness paraded in front of us and jived for their lives. We were dazzled by their costumes to start: the sheer shiny, poppy, tutued, bedazzled glitz and glamor of it all was hard for the eyes to take in. There numbers were long and choreographed to the gills. And a bit mature for the fact that the ones we saw all seemed to be ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS?? Their costumes were extravagant and this year they had been asked to do some type of reused/recycled portion so many had headdresses made of plastic spoons, some had broken CDs bedazzling corsets and vests and others used banana leaves and rice sacks.

They also had some pretty rad floats, all seeming to be religious but also often themed with a sea motif. Enjoyed that most of their Virgin Mary’s and Baby Jesus’ were brown faced.

As stunning as the dancers were they did have a pretty similar repitoire and again the music was nearly wholly provided by drums and xylophone. I think maybe there are limited options on sheet music for this combination of instruments because we heard at least 5 renditions of “Senorita” by Shawn Mendez and Camilla Caballo. And I think that was out of about 7 performances. My guess is we were hearing a lot of other repeat songs, but we just didn’t know them. Oh! And talking about repeat. While we were waiting for things to start they had a “sa Lapu-lapu” dance pump up music song that was maybe 30-45 seconds and I think they played it on loop for about an hour. An hour! maybe it was only 45 minutes (only!) maybe it was two hours. It felt insane. Or maybe I just felt I was going insane. Even though it was catchy. It felt punishing.

We did sadly have to leave before we saw all the performances, but as you may have gotten from my desriptions (ok, whinings) it was a long day, with a lot of waiting and despite the brief downpour it was very hot. So we decided we couldn’t make it for the whole go. But luckily we could got down to the waiting performers and see their costumes, take pictures, and ask questions. Everyone seemed happy to envelop the girls and I was pulling for the one group of dancers that had actually taken to heart the ‘DIY/recycle’ costume thing rather than as their leaders said, just using their usual costumes and adding some little hat of straws. I’ll admit that I did enjoy the fanciful extremes though.