When things don't go as planned

The third hula dancer from the left was getting lost. Somewhere in the middle of the number she’d gotten out of sync and was now trying to find her connection to the other dancers in the ever-shifting pattern. She would find her puka, or space, but then had trouble keeping track of the choreography — you could almost see her brain working behind her dancer’s smile: “Ack! do I go left or right here? Okay, now, forward — Oops! no, back!”

I am in the audience at a performance of the Kehulili O Kailani halau, or Polynesian dance school, at the St. John’s Fiesta in my town of Encinitas, waiting for my daughter’s next number. Most of the women on stage in front of me are not professional dancers, but ladies from the community — many are moms or grandmas of other dancers — who take classes at the halau and perform at community events. And as is not uncommon when ordinary people take the step to put themselves out in front of others, things are not going as planned.

I can feel for this woman. My experience playing in an orchestra and string quartet makes me well familiar with the flustered feeling when people are watching and you can’t find your place as everything else is moving around you. Normally the empathy would make me squirm a little in my seat. But this time I'm able to relax a little and just observe what’s going on.

It’s interesting to watch the dancers and see how the fallout ripples out when things start to go wrong — the subtle interplay of glances, an eye rolled in frustration or humor, a quickly whispered direction in passing or a too-big smile out to the audience are some of the ways they handle the unexpected. And things go on, as they always do. The collective absorbs the missteps and keeps moving forward.

I watch the shifting movements of the dancers, their bare feet shushing across the floor, ti leaf skirts dipping and swaying, feathered 'uli 'uli shaking like colorful birds in their hands, and I unexpectedly feel a catch in my throat. What a privilege to be here in this moment, to be a witness to unfiltered human endeavor. Things are not going as planned, but the very imperfection is, in this moment ... perfect.

Thanks to Susie Linquist Photography for the fabulous photo of the hula dancer with 'uli 'uli.