Alexa Vaught

Nā Kumu Hula Alexa Vaught - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 1 Page 139

Alexa Vaught studied hula from the age of eight till when she married at twenty-one. She currently makes her home in Kihei, Maui.

When I was in the third grade, Aunty Emma Sharpe was one of the third grade teachers. I was raised by my grandparents so one day I went home and I told my grandfather that I wanted to take hula. Being from a big family, my grandfather told me there wasn’t any money for hula lessons. I told him don’t worry, if I have to work I’ll work for it. I later discovered that Aunty Emma’s husband was a relative of my grandmother. Aunty Emma told me that because I was family she would not charge me. Instead I would pay her a dollar a year and I would help her load her car for class and dust the room. In this way I would pay for my lessons.

When I got to high school, I assisted her in training men, boys, tūtūs, and whoever needed help in her classes. This was my way of trying to repay her. She would have classes in Wailuku. I would take one room and hold class while she would take another. I think Aunty Emma taught mainly ‘auwana because nobody in the Forties and Fifties wanted to learn kahiko. If she planned any kahiko classes, students would just cut the class.

Aunty Emma was strict but yet she had a lot of patience and that’s what I admire her for. If she found someone that wanted to dance but couldn’t afford to pay for the lessons, she would give them the opportunity to dance. She has been the greatest influence in my life. She was a positive person and she constantly tried to encourage the good points in a person to bring out the positive side.