Paradetown Naga: Bugles Blare & the Girls Sashay

Listen to the call of the street. Open your eyes. Feel the movement. Watch the sun and sky. Touch the air. Hear the steps. Smell the scents. Close your cellphone. Listen!

The cacophony of bugles and the blare of a giant microphone, the tinkle of a lyre and the harmony of a native song—there they are passing. In high boots and gaudy costumes, pretty girls with wands on their hands and feathers on their hair, sashaying to the beat of the drums. Shiny stardust on their eyes, they smile. So pleasing and amusing, the awesome spectacle has just begun.—Totie Mesia (Photo Credits: Dan Daz; JerryLimLee)============Penafrancia Parade 2008=============

Like swans cruising in a lake, the majorettes enthrall crowds in a Naga parade

The parades in Naga City can’t be more spectacular without the stunning baton twirlers (aka majorettes) who strut with the blare of loud horns and the cadence of the drums. In their colorful costumes, they look like hybrids of the most exciting girls that roam the earth. They remind us of vivacious cheerers in a basketball game, the ballet dancers in a theatre, the contestants of a beauty contest and the gentle swans cruising in a lake.

Looking at their gaudy dresses and long spotless legs seems like watching the fantasia in a ballet production of Swan Lake. The girls pictured here remind me of Anna Pavlova, the legendary Russian dancer in the early 1900’s best known for her ballet interpretations of Camille Saint Saen’s “Dying Swan.” Pavlova enthralled crowds of her movements that was artistic and well-received in her time. The dance specially choreographed for her by Michel Fokine was such a part of her persona so that at her deathbed, Pavlova requested to be buried in her feathered gossamer swan costume.

In pictures sent by UP Ibalon’s Fatima Edna Balaquiao of the 2008 Penafrancia Fiesta Parade (plus old ones by Colnago & Molibok) the same swans of the ballet stage are somehow recreated by the pretty majorettes on the street. With their batons and the Chinese-inspired umbrellas, a similar soft feeling of elegance and grace must have beheld the on-lookers. The dazzling girls surely made Naga as captivating as ever. Photo Credits: Fatima Edna Balaquiao/Colnago/Moliboks=0=