Pi‘i Lani

Nā Kumu Hula Pi‘i Lani - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 62

Piʻi Lani teaches hula, Hawaiian culture, language and history to senior citizens. She is credited for being the coordinator of the original Waimea Falls Park Hula Competition.


My mother Kuʻualoha Terry was my hula teacher. She started teaching me when I was three-years-old. My mother never had a hālau. It was just us. She had her own studio on Aulike Street in Kailua and she taught at Camp Kokokahi in Kāne‘ohe. She learned from Mother Davis.

The first few dances that we learned from my mother were the hula dances of ‘ōlapa that introduced basic hula steps. These dances were used as drills for these steps. “Kawika” would be for the kāholo, “Lili‘u E” would be for the ‘uwehe, '"Kalākaua” would he for the Kalākaua step. She drilled us in those basic steps. When we got to the intermediate level, the dances consisted of many different steps in one dance. The form of hula that she taught us was hula ‘āla‘apapa, and we were taught not to kāhea the verses. It was important that you knew exactly what verse came next so there was no kāhea being given. When we got to the advanced stages, some of the dances would be very long. The hand and foot movements of these dances were given to her and had not been changed for over a hundred years since the 1860s. So we were very careful to teach these dances exactly the same in word, melody, timing, hand gestures, and feet as they were in 1860.

We come from a hula line. My grandmother on the maternal side was a hula dancer in the days when they danced without their tops. Grandma was from Hāna. Her name was Elizabeth Kawahineke‘oke‘ookala Ka‘anana. There are some pictures in the Bishop Museum of Grandma and her sisters sitting on the palm drum wearing no tops, just skirts. Grandma never told us that she was a dancer. She became very Christian and although she was pure Hawaiian, she frowned upon too much hula. She wanted us to be Christian but she did make sure that my mother learned from family to continue the hula line.

My ʻūniki was held at my home in Hauʻula. I did ʻūniki along with my two sisters. We had completed the ancient hula course taught by my mother. The ʻūniki was finalized by a lūʻau where we each did solo performances as well as some dances together.

When I married, my husband didn’t approve of me dancing so I decided to teach because the hula was such a force in me that I could not stop doing it. It had been with me practically my entire life and it is very much a part of me. I’ve been teaching for over twenty years now.

I kept my mother’s dancing style but I also allowed myself to grow as a kumu hula. I have composed many chants and have put my dancing styles and melodies to them based on the foundation I was given by my mother. This is the 1990s; the hula is evolving; it is still growing. Although I keep the dances I learned as they were, I don’t like to be stagnant.

I teach my students everything that I can: the hula steps, how these hula steps got named, the mana‘o, and background so that they become better at what they’re doing because they understand the hula. I give them chanters’ training so that they can become ho‘opa‘a. I teach them oli so that they learn the difference between mele hula and olioli and kepakepa. I teach them about the ancient Hawaiian games and the reason the Hawaiians played them. We make our own hula implements and I teach them as many crafts as I know of. When something is new or very old, we research or learn from someone who knows. We’ve had formal language classes so there is a lot of Hawaiian spoken in my hālau.

My understanding of a hula teacher is like a spring that shoots forth; someone that’s going to help expand, preserve, and protect. If they don’t have background skills, then they go nowhere. They’re just going to teach the same ten dances they know from somebody else. They have no way of going forward.