Puluelo Park

Puluelo Park
Puluelo Park was born in Hoea, Kohala and moved to Watertown, O‘ahu at the age of nine. She established the Puamana Hula Studio in 1952 and currently resides in Kailua, O‘ahu.


I remember when I was nine- years-old I went shopping with my mother down on Fort Street. I heard a man’s voice chanting and I followed it to the old Princess Theatre. I sat inside that dark theatre for hours listening to a man who turned out to be Tom Hiona while my mother was going crazy outside looking for me.

As a youngster growing up in Kohala I was trained informally by my aunties, but my first formal teacher in the hula was Caroline Tuck of Honolulu. I was trained in hula ‘auwana and I was fascinated by her classes and her teaching techniques. Caroline would have her students flat on their backs with only their arms and hands extended upward, and in this position they would go through the motions of a dance. When I turned eleven I learned kahiko from a teacher that was so strict that I lost all interest in the hula for a period of years.

After I married and began my family, I started to realize that the Hawaiian side of my children would be neglected if I didn’t bring our hula culture to them at a very tender age. So at the age of thirty I began to train under Lokalia Montgomery who lived in Kapahulu on Charles Street. I loved Lokalia’s way of teaching because what she taught me was free from the kapus and so there was never any fear of the hula when I studied with her.

A usual class with Lokalia would begin with a talk session. She would tell me the story background and meaning of the particular mele we were going to learn that day. There was no sense of rush like today where we want the children to learn as much as possible in a certain amount of time. Not those days. She would chant the first three lines of the mele and I would repeat the lines back to her. After every three lines she would stop and give deeper explanations of each line and we would not go on to a new portion of the mele until I was comfortable with the first. My training with Lokalia was mostly kahiko and she said that her line was from Tūtū Keaka Kanahele and Mary Kawena Pūku‘i.

At the same time I was being trained by Lokalia I was also being instructed by Aunty Katie Nākaula. I was trained in the kuahu style of chanting and dancing for a year and a half and I found her to be much different than Lokalia. She had been brought into the hula from childhood and she was always emphasizing the correct placement of the feet and hands. Lokalia was always worried about your posture and how you presented yourself. Aunty Kathy was more interested in how you put your dance across so I learned the motions and gestures of the dances almost immediately in her classes. I went through an ‘ūniki with Aunty Kathy but my mother prevented her from taking me through the rituals.

Lokalia had a tremendous influence on me. She made me keep my head up and I danced proudly. She was always so calm and collected and she taught me to respect who I was. It was she who encouraged me to open my hālau. After my training with her a private recital was held at her hālau which was followed with a graduation pa‘ina. After the pa‘ina she told me, ‘My dear, you are to open your halau now, starting in your home.’ I opened Puamana Hula Studio on July 25, 1952 in Pālolo Valley and I began with five students who were mostly family. Because of family obligations I had to close the hālau in 1953 but in 1960 I re-opened the hālau in Hau‘ula and eventually moved it to Kailua.

Today’s training emphasizes more physical expression of the ideas in the mele. Some of the hula kahiko today even resembles martial arts. The hula audience of old was made up of people who knew the hula and knew the language so the gestures of the dancers could be more subtle. Today’s kahiko is what the modern audience wants it to be but it’s not necessarily the hula of old. Each kumu in the past had their own style and you didn’t see it mixed with other cultures like it is today. Lokalia taught me that the old way is not the only way and that as a teacher, you must be creative but I feel this creativity has gotten out of hand. The older kumu have to step forward and draw the line of what is traditional. There is so much doubt today because the majority of us aren’t directly linked to the old days.