Belly Dancers in Little Penang!

There was no need to go to Egypt to watch belly dancing.

Today, SP had in mind Little Penang, after attending to the oil palm harvest in Selama. Every last Sunday of the month, Little Penang is transformed into a Sunday flea market with musical and other performances. We have been a few times and each time we were pleasantly surprised by some nice entertainment.

We arrived at 2 pm and I was under the impression the jazz session was over. While SP visited the stalls, I walked straight to the centre where there was a makeshift stage for performances. Some expatriates and locals, members of a choir, were getting ready to sing Christmas carols, which included classics like Silent Night, and surprisingly, a French and a Polish carol as well (sung in English, of course).

At the end of the carol singing, I chanced upon Ronald De Leon, a familiar face in Little Penang. I have posted in my blog on March 31, about his two sons, Vince and Lucas, aged 10 and 8, who played keyboard and drums like professionals. I introduced myself as someone who had seen them performed before and blogged about it under Kosongcafe. To my surprise, he said he has read it, and even mentioned that I wrote about the British jazz singer, Andrea Mann!

He was getting ready to perform with Vince and Lucas again, so I decided to sit through the whole jazz performance. Each time I watch, I would be picking up tips on how to play jazz drumming. The only familiar piece I could remember by name was Route 66. I must say, Ronald is passionate about music and seems to be able to play all kinds of instruments – bass guitar, keyboard, saxophone, flute –you name it, he can play it! Even Vince can play a number of instruments, as he was one of the Northern Jazz Ensemble, playing saxophone! It was funny because he was sitting in front of two musicians playing trombones and when one of them stood up to play solo, for certain notes the trombone actually hit his head! I could recognise the keyboardist and trumpet player as part of the resident band in G-Spot.

Somehow, though Vince and Lucas are good at their instruments, I cannot help sensing they do not have the same passion about it like the father. Maybe they are too young and they would rather be playing some computer games or something and be with kids of their age. The reason I mention this is that I made a mistake of pushing my children to play music and my enthusiasm actually put them off! All three would not touch the piano nor learn any of the instruments I have in my studio!

While the jazz music was being played, we had the opportunity of having a white woman letting her hair down, dancing to it, all by herself. We were in for some real surprise when two professional belly dancers came on, dancing to music from their own cd! It was a real treat because we had never watched a belly dance before. The shorter lady was full of expression when dancing but the taller younger one tried to put on a straight face. The latter’s slim face belie her plump waist and I wonder why all that exercise did not seem to reduce it. At the end of their show, they were generous in inviting some ladies and two sporting gentlemen from the audience to join them – free lesson!

Anyway, according to Ronald, in view of the forthcoming Jazz festival (Dec 4 to 7), next Sunday will be business as usual at Little Penang. It seems their countdown to the festival started 3 months ago! He advised us to bring people who are not interested in jazz music so that they can be influenced to like jazz! Tickets at Rm53 each for the Jazz Festival, featuring international musicians, is for the whole day.