On Saturday, Heather's flight from KL arrived at about 2.30 pm (scheduled: 12.30 Air Asia!) together with Frank (aka lcchan) and his wife, Iris. As the wedding invitation was for 1 pm, we headed straight from the airport to the party. We arrived at Martin's residence at 3.30 pm and the wedding celebration was already in full swing.
Imelda and Robert's big day
Heather and Kesh with Bernadette (Imelda's mum) and the happy couple
The contingent headed for the buffet section to check out the food. Expecting Hinava (raw fish salad), pinasakan (pickled fish)and all the delicious kadazan cuisine...Alas it wasn't to be so... the food was chinese restaurant-catered.
The Sumazau, a traditional dance of the Kadazan, looks easy but is very hard on the heels and calves for the novice. The dancers are practically tip-toeing for the entire dance. Ceremonial sashes are worn by both male and female dancers.The movement and rhythm of this dance is elegantly soft and slow. The dancers face each other, move their feet in small movements and move their heels up and down to the beat of the music. While dancing, the dancers will spread their hands and move it up and down just like a bird spreading their wings to fly. The Sumazau is usually performed during festive occasions like this.
The man in blue checked shirt going around the male dancers getting them to drink wine (lihing or tapai, traditional home-brewed).
Carol, the bride's sister dancing with spouse
Martin, the very happy father of the bride
The family members dancing around the newly weds
The Sumazau dance is accompanied entirely by a symphony of handcrafted bronze or brass gongs that are individually called 'tagung', a unique musical instrument. The Kadazan have a musical heritage consisting of various types of tagung ensembles - ensembles composed of large hanging knobbed gongs like those above.
And these, the kulintangan ensemble - a horizontal-type ensemble 
A durian tree
The guests from across the South China Sea sat happily surrounded by durian trees in the big backyard of the house.
3 comments:
Happy birthday to Mrs. Sario :) How was your birthday? i guess you guys must have had a lot of delicious meals :p
Star: thank you for the lovely card and book. Yeah, ate too much but couldn't blog fast enough. Just had some durians...
Jo
this is very enlightening. i only remember this dance on telly when i was kid. i doubt these days rtm highlight them anymore
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