Soon, all of Orem can enjoy an evening of thinking about warm breezes, palm trees, and sandy beaches if they attend the upcoming performance of Island Style Dance Studio & Performing Company’s Style Dance Hula show, entitled ‘Island Magic’.
The event will be free and open to the public. Preserving and demonstrating dancing of the Polynesian Islands from Tahiti, New Zealand, and Hawaii, this group has performed throughout Utah, Louisiana, California, and Illinois. Along with the hula, will be the Tahitian Rice Belt which includes many of Tahiti’s traditional dance steps. The keiki (clone offspring) show ‘Waikiki Kids’ will be the highlight of the evening, no doubt making good subjects for poster printing.
For more than 32 years, the studio has been educating youth in performing graceful Polynesian dances. The school is an outcropping of an intergenerational love of Polynesian dance, especially the hula. It all started with a wahine (Dorothy Matsumoto Thomas) on Waikiki Beach on O’ahu, Hawaii who passed her love of the dance down to her daughter Leilani. After a professional dancing career with her sister on the main land, Leilani passed the love of hula to her daughter Lani, who opened her present dance studio and performing company in 2003.
The performance is scheduled for March 20, at 7:00 pm at the Orem Public Library, 58 North State Street, Orem.
