Jan Kahōkū Yoneda

Jan Kahoku Yoneda
In 1975 Jan Yoneda, a Hawaiian resource teacher for the DOE Central O'ahu District, along with her hula sister Marilyn Leimomi Ho co-founded their hālau Pōhai Nā Pua O Laka.


My first kumu hula was Mrs. Anna Like who was like “family” to me. We lived in Kalihi at the time and her daughter Edna had a small group of performing dancers. The hula I learned back then was primarily ‘auwana, and most of what I learned was performed in hula shows and family parties. Anna taught me from age three to about age twelve but as a teenager I lost interest in hula. I went on to college but it wasn’t until I turned twenty-one that I renewed my interest in the hula. I signed up for hula lessons with Mrs. Danie Hanohano who was teaching at a satellite session for Aunty Hoakalei Kamauʻu in Pearl City. I was with Danie for about six months and it was from this session that I got my first introduction to the foundations of hula kahiko.

I was referred to Aunty Hoakalei by Mrs. Hanohano and I began to study and learn various hula styles and mele under her direction. She shared with me her knowledge of the chants, the hula movements, and most importantly the discipline that was required in hula. She was forever challenging me to be better than I thought I could ever be.

I continued under Aunty Hoakalei for six years until she decided that I should become a kumu hula for the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. I never wanted to be a kumu. All I wanted to do was dance. I enjoy dancing and learning about the chants. The body motions and mental requirements of hula excite me and that was enough for me at the time. So I talked with Aunty Hoakalei and told her of my reluctance to become a kumu hula, and she looked at me and said it’s not my decision to make and we left it at that. I believe that there are forces in my life influencing me to go in a certain direction or take a certain path.

In 1975 Aunty Hoakalei was in charge of the State Foundation’s hula conferences and she decided that I would be a kumu for the conference at Leeward Community College. She had assembled all the hula teachers, and at that particular conference there were Henry Pa, and George Holokai, real hula masters; and there I was among all these “greats” with no teaching background. Her first words to the audience were, ‘Kumu hula, Jan Yoneda.’ She had more confidence in me than I had in myself but when I heard those words I knew a new path had opened up for me.

After the conference she gave me a certificate that acknowledged I was a kumu hula and with her permission I began to teach the students of Radford and Moanalua High School. It was at this point that I began to work closely with Mrs. Marilyn Leimomi Ho who was an assistant to Aunty Hoakalei, and I credit Leimomi with teaching me the human side of the hula. She taught me the courtesies and the protocol within the hula, and she not only preached them but she modeled them for me in her life. It was from all this sharing that we formed our hālau Pōhai Nā Pua O Laka and began to teach together.

I don’t have a style that is unique to Jan Yoneda because my dancing is pretty much what has been taught to me. I make a very strong and conscientious effort to duplicate what has been handed down to me. However, I do take unchoreographed chants and address simple, stylistic movements to the words based on my past training.

Through Leimomi I’ve met Aunty Edith McKinzie and she’s shown me that to be a kumu, your education in the hula cannot be sporadic or final. You have to work constantly to improve yourself and expand your knowledge. You have to be totally submerged in hula because when you take the title of kumu you must take all of it’s responsibilities as well.

To me the history and legends of our heritage live on in the hula. People, places, events are all perpetuated in the mele and the key to it all is the language. If our haumāna can internalize what we teach them so that it becomes a part of their lives today then that’s all that matters to me. By developing a healthy respect for our heritage, the haumāna develops a higher degree of self- respect as well. The applause of an audience is wonderful to the haumāna and the kumu hula but at some point both must remember why they are dancing.