Hula

Rapid drum music played in the background as six girls listened intently to the music and their dance teacher. "Pineapple . . . coconut . . . pineapple . . . coconut. " Stacey Bundens' voice was like a metronome at Casa Dance Studio's Keiki (child) hula class: pineapple, bump to the left; coconut, bump to the right. Staring at her figure in the mirror, the girls followed their teacher, their hula skirts ruffling back and forth with their swaying hips. The 2,000-year-old dance form, which originated in what is now Hawaii, is alive in New Jersey and across the mainland.

I HAVE ALWAYS admired hula, the traditional dance of the Polynesian people of Hawaii, for its beauty and smooth, fluid movements. It also looks like a lot of fun and a great way to get in a dance-style workout. To satisfy my curiosity about hula dancing, I turned to 25-year-old San Francisco native Janine Paat, a cultural anthropologist who lives in Philadelphia. She teaches hula and other dance-based exercise modems at studios around the area. The former Miss Philadelphia contestant studied dance anthropology at Bard College.

There are bobble heads, caps and T-shirts. There are backpacks, balls and bats. Every team in baseball has a handful of giveaways during the season, and most of them are routine. But today's is a little unusual. It's not every day a team has a giveaway with a player wearing a grass skirt. But this afternoon at Citizens Bank Park, the Phillies are handing out a Shane Victorino hula figurine to children 14 and under. Victorino is from Wailuku, Hawaii. Not many people from Hawaii come to find employment in Philadelphia, so we thought we'd ask Victorino a few questions about his home state.

Men in Love, like the similarly themed Longtime Companion, is a frequently touching chronicle about the shell shock, grief and panic greeting survivors of casualties in the AIDS wars. Comparing the two films is a lesson in cultural anthropology. The Manhattan-based Longtime Companion has as its characters a community of fast- track lawyers, scriptwriters and stockbrokers who summer on Fire Island and winter in Workaholia. Everyone is exceptionally gorgeous and defined by bank accounts.

Students dressed in sarongs with flowers behind one ear moved in unison across a dance floor while Polynesian music played in the background. Hips swiveled. Feet shifted, and eyes followed the sinuous motion of arms and hands. "Aloha," a girlish voice said. Could this be Hawaii? No, it was Narberth, the Little Honolulu of the suburbs. Connie Majka and Suzanne Aumack, devotees of Hawaiian dance and culture, opened the studio last fall to share their passion with the public.

Alfred Hobschaidt was certain his luck would change after a visit to the fortune teller. He held out his palm to Manoj the Fortuneteller, who scrutinized it and told him that if he played the slots, Hobschaidt would win enough chips to claim the prize he coveted - a red plastic hula hoop. "Now I'm on a lucky roll," Hobschaidt said as he swung his wheelchair around and headed toward the slot machine set up last weekend in the cafeteria of Cinnaminson High School for Casino Night.

Against a backdrop of colorful leis, table orchids and hula dancers, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society kicked off the 2012 flower show this morning: "Hawaii: Islands of Aloha" opens to the public March 4 and runs till March 11 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, 12th and Market Streets. "This is a show like you've never seen before," said PHS President Drew Becher, who outlined new features of the 183-year-old event, officially known as the Philadelphia International Flower Show, before an enthusiastic crowd on the 33d floor of the Loews Philadelphia Hotel in Center City.

Against a backdrop of colorful leis, table orchids, and hula dancers, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society launched the 2012 flower show Thursday morning: "Hawaii: Islands of Aloha" opens to the public March 4 and runs till March 11 at the Convention Center, 12th and Market Streets. "This is a show like you've never seen before," said horticultural society president Drew Becher, who outlined new features of the 183-year-old event, officially known as the Philadelphia International Flower Show, before an enthusiastic crowd on the 33d floor of the Loews Philadelphia Hotel in Center City.

When I walked into the restaurant, the first thing I saw was a 5-year-old doing the hula. She was followed by an Hawaiian fire eater. He was followed by three male patrons who rolled up their pants and proceeded to look absolutely absurd while they took hula lessons. Welcome to the Middle East. Middle East? Don't try to put logic into it. I stopped trying to figure out Jimmy Tayoun, councilman, co-owner and human dynamo, a long time ago. This week the Middle East restaurant celebrates its 30th birthday (Address: 126 Chestnut St., Phone: 922-1003)

Raymond Alvarez and Lizette Ortiz knew something was wrong when they arrived at Hunting Park yesterday and didn't see many people. The hill where a wide stage should have been set up was empty. In the dunk tanks, there was no water. They could have dwelled on the organizational setbacks, but they had the children to think about. The Festival del Nino Boricua, the Puerto Rican Children's Festival, had to go on, one way or another. "We've been let down by everyone today. The children shouldn't lose, too," said Ortiz, the vice president of National Congress for Puerto Rican Rights, which sponsors the festival.

Back in 1981, when Connie Majka went on a Hawaiian vacation with her mother, she packed some predictable baggage. "I expected a Wildwood with palm trees. I'd seen the Elvis Presley movies," she recalls. "It looked fun. " Fun it was, and also life-changing. For it was on that trip that Majka saw her first native Hawaiian hula dancer, a large woman who performed with such grace, "she seemed to be floating on air. I knew instantly: I want to do that. " In the years since, Majka has studied hula and the Hawaiian culture both there and here.

Visitors lined up well before Saturday's private preview of the Philadelphia International Flower Show, clogging two lobbies of the Convention Center and snaking out the doors and down Arch Street. Like so many plant groupies, they surged through the doors at noon, into Hawaii: Islands of Aloha , which opens to the public Sunday and runs through next Sunday. "Looks like Vegas," one man remarked as he stood under the "orchid wave" that greets visitors at the show. It is a stylized, wavelike structure that is covered with hundreds of white orchids.

Against a backdrop of colorful leis, table orchids, and hula dancers, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society launched the 2012 flower show Thursday morning: "Hawaii: Islands of Aloha" opens to the public March 4 and runs till March 11 at the Convention Center, 12th and Market Streets. "This is a show like you've never seen before," said horticultural society president Drew Becher, who outlined new features of the 183-year-old event, officially known as the Philadelphia International Flower Show, before an enthusiastic crowd on the 33d floor of the Loews Philadelphia Hotel in Center City.

Against a backdrop of colorful leis, table orchids and hula dancers, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society kicked off the 2012 flower show this morning: "Hawaii: Islands of Aloha" opens to the public March 4 and runs till March 11 at the Pennsylvania Convention Center, 12th and Market Streets. "This is a show like you've never seen before," said PHS President Drew Becher, who outlined new features of the 183-year-old event, officially known as the Philadelphia International Flower Show, before an enthusiastic crowd on the 33d floor of the Loews Philadelphia Hotel in Center City.

I HAVE ALWAYS admired hula, the traditional dance of the Polynesian people of Hawaii, for its beauty and smooth, fluid movements. It also looks like a lot of fun and a great way to get in a dance-style workout. To satisfy my curiosity about hula dancing, I turned to 25-year-old San Francisco native Janine Paat, a cultural anthropologist who lives in Philadelphia. She teaches hula and other dance-based exercise modems at studios around the area. The former Miss Philadelphia contestant studied dance anthropology at Bard College.

Ashley Ambirge, in a notice-me flame-red coat, is swiveling her hips wildly and laughing deliriously as she tries, with varying degrees of success, to hula-hoop. Passersby stare at the 25-year-old acting silly beyond her age - and in front of the stately Courthouse of West Chester, no less. "People think I'm an airhead," said Ambirge (AM-bur-zhay), well aware of the first impression she often makes, an image underlined by her stylish bob that sweeps across one eye, her bubbly laugh, and, of course, her antics.

Marisa Grasso is a hooper. The walls of her Northern Liberties home have scuff marks. Her art students have seen her do it between classes. Once in a while, she'll have a bruise on her legs or on her face after her hoop goes astray. "I used to think it was silly. Now I'm sold," said Grasso, 30. "It is such an incredible workout. " In the 1950s, the U.S. went through a hula-hooping craze that had everyone with hips - from kids in backyards to adults grooving at concerts - spinning plastic tubes around their waists.

The Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology will host its 28th annual Chinese New Year Celebration from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday. The celebration will pay tribute to the Year of the Ox, which represents the Chinese zodiac symbol of prosperity through fortitude and hard work. During the celebration, families can participate in calligraphy classes, workshops, an acupuncture facial-rejuvenation lecture, and both tai chi and Falun Gong demonstrations. Featured entertainment will include performances by the Penn Chinese Dance Club, the Mei Mei Dancers and PanAsian Dance Troupe, and the Jade River Dance Company, along with an Eastern vs. Western musical instrument comparison.

Six young women sway in unison with smooth, piscine grace, their long, slender fingers flickering just over their heads. They let their hands do the talking, telling timeless stories. Their feet are planted, their knees bent, keeping their bodies low to the ground so they may draw energy from the earth. They wear knee-length skirts and long-sleeved blouses. "Let us take you back to our kings, our queens, our gods, our goddesses," intones a woman kneeling behind the dancers. She begins playing a drum and singing in a voice softer than cobwebs.

Everyone needs a hobby. Mine is Fun Name Change Cases. I got hooked when I read about Michael Dengler, who wanted to change his name to 1069. "The only way [my] identity can be expressed is 1069," he told the court. Then came the news about Talula Does the Hula From Hawaii, a 9-year-old New Zealand girl. A judge apparently saw the name as a form of child abuse - the girl had complained that "she fears being mocked and teased" about it - and took legal custody of her "to ensure that a proper name was found.