John Pi‘ilani Watkins The late John Piilani Watkins, born in ‘Ewa, O‘ahu in the area which today is Honolulu Airport, became interested in the hula at the age of ten and was trained by his grandmother Lokalia Kaahumanu Ho‘oulu. He was the star of the Germaine Polynesian Luau Show until his death in 1983. When I was starting out in the hula and for a long time after, it was not considered right for a man to be teaching the hula. People would talk and there was a time early in my career when I wanted to leave the hula. But I always felt that this was a gift from my ‘ohana and as long as I was unmarried I would carry this talent. This is the reason I’ve remained single till today. I think it was the music that brought me into the dance. When I heard the chants I immediately felt it was something that I should learn because it was so beautiful. Grandma knew she was getting old and the tradition in our family was to pass the knowledge on before you die. My grandmother was the keeper of the keys for Luka the Queen, and she interpreted dreams and signs for the Queen. She had a book filled with history and chants and traditions that was supposed to go to me at her death. She had tried passing it on to the whole family but nobody wanted it so I was her last chance. I lived with my grandmother for awhile and I remember very vividly another lady coming to visit my grandmother and together the two of them would chant. Everyday they would wear their hair up but when they chanted they would let their hair down and it would fall all over their bodies. My grandmother wanted me to learn kahiko because I was the next in line to be the caretaker of Kamehameha’s body. I was supposed to learn the chant that would allow me to cross the waters and then I would have to rub his body with oils. I was very young at the time and I really didn’t understand the kahiko but my grandmother told me not to worry because it would all come to me when it was time. She said that when she was living she couldn’t do anything for me but when she left that’s when I would know. But my mother was a very strong Christian and after awhile she grew afraid for me and forced my grandmother to stop the lessons. From 1951-53 I joined the Army and served in Korea and during that time my grandmother passed away and the book was lost with her. After her death I began to have dreams. Everything came to me in dreams. I would be standing on a hill looking down at a great pond of water, tossing tl leaves into it. I would see dances, I would see costumes, and I would see symbols. Even till today I still have these dreams. At the age of sixteen, I was connected with the Salvation Army and we would travel and deliver coffee. After awhile people started asking for entertainment so I started training dancers at a family home in Damon Tract and at my grandmother’s home in Nānākuli. I got together a few people and we would put together a show of hula ‘auwana. When I graduated from Farrington High School I went on a vacation to Hana. Hana had been the birthplace of my father who died when I was seven and that was the start of my composing and my popularity as a songwriter. I got a job, training the dancers at the Hotel Hana and I ended up staying there for seven years. As the kumu hula of the John Pi‘ilani Watkins Polynesian Dance Studio, I think the best thing I’ve ever done is that I’ve taken kids off the street who were into drugs and trained them in the hula and other Polynesian dances. Many of them are all over the world working now and doing well. When I saw the kahiko being danced at the Merrie Monarch Festival I felt like I had missed something in my life and I wanted to learn more. I think what the young people of today are doing is terrific but the kumu should go back and do research on the history of each dance so they can stay within the guidelines of the dance. I believe we have to find a common ground between teaching the children for purely the sake of education, and training the student to be a professional Polynesian dancer who can make a living when he goes off into the world. The children have to be sent off with something more than just memories of a competition or a class.
John Keolamaka‘ainānakalāhuiokalani Lake
John Keolamaka‘ainanakalāhuiokalani Lake Born on Maui, John Lake moved to Oahu in 1954 to attend the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and is currently a member of the faculty of St. Louis High School. There is a tremendous clash today between the old values and modern values of Hawai‘i. With the creativity of the new styles and interpretations, the question today has become what is considered traditional hula? Today you have a lot of creative dances that exist for the sake of rhythm rather than the sake of language. Rhythm gives way to movement, movement gives way to theatrics, and theatrics give way to confusion. My first kumu in the formal training sense was Aunty Mā‘iki Aiu Lake. I had studied informally at the age of six under my great-grandaunt but my real training in the kahiko began under Mā‘iki. She taught me that the beauty of the hula is to come to terms with the essence of one’s self. She said that the Hawaiians call your inner light the manaʻo and it is the real source of your dancing. Your body is simply an expression of your manaʻo. When I joined the hālau in 1964 there were only two other male dancers enrolled in the school. The emphasis and public attention was on ‘auwana but my interest was on the traditional hula and I found Mā‘iki to be both gracious and steeped in knowledge. The central theme of the hālau was humility. Through humility everything is given to you. She defined the hula kahiko as the basic steps and styles passed down through the generations and we were expected to humble our own personalities to the dances. We were taught that hula expressed every sense: sight, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling. My affiliation and work with Aunty Edith Kanaka‘ole through many years, brought me to understand the value of Hawaiian traditions, the respect of self and others, and the dignity of our Hawaiian values and heritage. She taught me much in chanting as to the projection of voice, control over the language and breathing, and essentially the necessity of having feeling in your chant in what one has to convey. I began to teach in 1962 at St. Louis High School and in 1965 I was asked by some of my students to teach Hawaiian music. That turned into a Hawaiian glee club and eventually I began to train the students to dance in the hula style that I was taught. The greatest sacrifice I’ve made is family time. A hālau demands a tremendous amount of time. I try to balance this by making my family as much a part of the operation as possible. I give my time because to see a student really grasp the knowledge and tradition I am passing down is something special. It’s alright for the young kumu to take the traditional styles to their full zenith but they can’t forget the basic questions of hula which are: who am I dancing for, and what am I dancing about? The changes that have come about are exciting but are we sacrificing the discipline and definitions of kahiko with these changes? Creative discipline by the kumu of each generation was the keystone to all of the masses of unwritten literature that has been passed down through the chants. There has been creativity in every generation but the original thought and theme of the chant remained the same and this discipline and order that was taken for granted in the past is breaking down today.
Joan Lindsey Joan Lindsey, a niece of the late hula instructor Caroline Tuck, currently has her hula studios in Pearl City and Waipahu on O‘ahu I was always interested in the hula but I was raised by my Korean grandparents and they didn’t want anything to do with anything Hawaiian. When I was young I would go to Caroline Tuck’s studio and watch her conduct classes. At seventeen I asked her if I could enter her classes and this is how I started. Caroline never seemed to let anything bother her. She was interested in everybody and she had a tremendous amount of patience and encouragement. People would make derogatory statements about her but she would never turn around and reply. My aunt told me that if I could not respect other kumu and dancers that I would kill whatever enjoyment I had for my own work. I stayed with Caroline for two years until I had a chance to join Lena Guerrero. This was during the war time and she needed dancers so I auditioned even though I wasn’t very graceful. I think she kept me on because I smiled and looked like I was having fun even though I didn’t know what I was doing. Lena’s troupe was like a partnership with Lena as the director and Mae Loebenstein and Alice Keawekāne Garner directing us on certain numbers. After three years I went on to Lena Machado who wanted to go all out for showmanship. She would drive me to the point where I would ask myself why am I here and then we would all sit down at a pā‘ina and forget about all the scoldings. I studied under Lokalia Montgomery and I found her to be a brilliant and warm person but my training was informal and it was nothing like what Mā‘iki Aiu went through. The last kumu I studied under was an old man who came to me and who I only knew as Tutu Sam. Because I am a Christian I went through an incomplete ‘uniki with Tūtū Sam where we chanted prayers back and forth to each other in the hālau. I began to teach at the age of nineteen with my aunt because I admired her so much. She seemed to really enjoy her work and I wondered if it was all that fun. Of course it wasn’t but if you saw my aunt, you would think it was the easiest job in the world. A certain type of hula is good only if it is done in unison. Another type is good only if the audience understands the mele. I think it is more important for a dancer to be graceful and expressive as a soloist and that is something you really have to work at. I admire the young kumu of today because it takes time and commitment to come out with the creative hula that is going on today. The ancient hula of today is very gymnastical but during my time many of the kumus were afraid to tread into the creative areas that today’s kumu are going into. I feel ancient and modern are inappropriate terms when it comes to the hula because the dance is categorized by music, chant, and by each implement. It’s impossible to lump it all together and call one part ancient and another part modern. Sometimes there are definitions that cannot categorize when a certain era began and when it ended. As a result, I don’t think anybody can set up limits for creativity in kahiko. It is up to the kumu themselves. The more you stay in the hula, the more you realize that you are not going to learn everything overnight and you will go to your grave not knowing enough. It’s the natural philosophy of the race. But the hula is like every other body of knowledge in the world. Every other year somebody is always coming out with a book that contradicts what came out before.
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.
Nā Kumu Hula J. Kimo Alama Keaulana - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 57
Kimo Alania Keaulana is currently a Hawaiian Studies instructor at the Honolulu Community College and runs the Lei Hula Hula School in Waimea, Kaua‘i and Honolulu, O‘ahu. When I was small, my mother did not want me to have anything to do with hula because in the 1960s only girls danced hula. If you danced hula when you were young, it was said that you would grow up to be māhū. But hula seemed natural for me. It didn't tell anybody that I was taking hula. Not even my mother knew. The first time I danced hula was at the age of three-years-old. I used to watch my mother and my older sisters take hula lessons from Mrs. Adeline Bee at the Mānoa Playground. When I was nine, I accompanied my younger sister to her hula classes and I was invited to sing with the other children. Aunty Adeline saw that I was interested and she let me assist her by carrying her 'ukulele and other things. Later Aunty Adeline took me to her other hula classes at the different playgrounds. I learned how to play the ‘ukulele, how to phrase Hawaiian words in chanting and singing, and I learned pronunciation. I learned to be a ho‘opa‘a first. I was with Aunty Adeline for fourteen years as a student and apprentice. I assisted her when she had to give workshops. She was a beautiful singer but she always told us that she did not chant very well. So I handled the chanting and the heavy drumming for her. I had just turned sixteen when Aunty Adeline went to Japan and left me in charge of her hula classes for the Parks and Recreation. I guess she would not have done so if she thought I couldn't do it. So I taught at least a hundred kids for the summer program. I also went to Mrs. Hattie Au off and on for about a year while she was living in Kahana. She was Pua Ha‘aheo’s alaka‘i and she was a very old woman at the time I learned hula from her. After Mrs. Au, Ms. Kauhane was my teacher for about two years. They both taught drumming, chanting, and ancient dancing. While attending the Kamehameha Schools from 1969 to 1973, I also learned and worked with Ms. Winona Beamer. In 1969 Aunty Hoakalei Kamauʻu conducted hula workshops for the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. Out of a total of seventeen workshops, Aunty Adeline and I taught sixteen of them. Because of the large registration, Aunty Hoakalei asked Aunty Adeline if I could teach some classes on my own. I did not have a formal ‘ūniki. Aunty Adeline and I were very strong Roman Catholics. At that time I made a decision in accordance with my beliefs but culturally I would not have minded going through a formal ‘ūniki ceremony. Aunty Adeline told me that I did not need any paper because in the old days they did not give any paper. Their teachers sanctioned them as teachers and I was sanctioned as such by my teacher. In 1974, I needed extra money to buy a car so besides working at the Waikikian Hotel, I decided to teach hula on the side. Before I knew it, my friends sent their daughters and nieces, and soon I had forty students. I left my job to concentrate my energies on teaching hula full time. My hula studio grew and soon I had between two hundred to two hundred fifty students. I was fortunate to have been surrounded by family members who practiced Hawaiian arts and crafts. Hula, music, lau hala weaving, feather lei making, Hawaiian quilting, Hawaiian medicine, implement making, and Hawaiian games were so much a part of my life. I was in my twenties when I discovered that other kids did not play Hawaiian games or weave or prepare lau hala. And when the Hawaiian renaissance came, there was such a hunger to learn the language. I was lucky because my maternal grandmother spoke Hawaiian to me and my teacher’s family and friends all spoke Hawaiian. My advice to the younger hula teachers is to learn the language well because that is the most important tool of our trade. There is a difference between spoken language and poetic language. Not everybody has a command for poetry. A word can have multiple meanings. The composers of days gone by knew how to manipulate the language so well that they could express things that you could not take at face value. If you know the language well, you will know what they are saying. Some people call this “kaona.” We don’t see this in the composers of today. They try lint they do it superficially. “Kaona” is something that is very secretive and very subtle. And as a hula instructor you must know the language and what you are interpreting. Hula is something that you cannot learn in just a few years. And just because you dance well, this is not enough for you to be a hula teacher. To be a teacher you must know the language. You must also know the drumming and (lie chanting. You cannot teach what you cannot do. If you want to teach modern hula, you must definitely know hula rhythm, patterns, beats, and different dance types. You must know how to play an ‘ukulele or at least play a guitar. You must know the names of places and about families for “mele inoa” and about the certain rains and winds. All the different places in Hawai‘i have their own personalities and characteristics. Hula has changed drastically. The hula kahiko today is somehow misplaced. I appreciate the effort of people trying to create something that is in the traditional flavor. But there are beautiful dances that are traditional that I believe should never be rechoreographed or redone just because someone thinks it is boring. What comes from another time should stay in that time because it does not belong to us, it belongs to them. If someone gives you something, whether it be a song or a dance, you do that song or dance exactly the way you were taught because that belongs to them. Just like receiving a present all wrapped up and so pretty. You will treasure it, take care of it, not allow anybody to deface it. We must look to our masters and not be afraid to acknowledge someone else as a master. That’s a part of humbling yourself. I don’t even call myself a kumu hula. I never use that title. I always call myself a hula instructor. If anybody needs my help, I will be glad to share. If I don’t know something, I will tell you that I don’t know. Whatever came down from the past definitely affects our present and what we do in the present affects the future. Be proud of our Hawaiian culture and do not let any other cultures influence us. As much as possible keep our culture uniquely Hawaiian. If you are not sure, seek those who are knowledgeable and to do so very humbly. Always remember to be humble. That is the only way we can learn and pass it on.
Nā Kumu Hula Iwilani Silva Ohelo - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 93
Iwilani Ohelo is kumu hula of the Hālau Hula 0 Na Pua Mokihana and the Kalihi- Pālama Culture & Arts Society's community hula and Polynesian dance classes. I began learning the hula at three years-old. During that time there were only a few kumu hula who taught hula to children at that young age. I was fortunate to have kumu hula Mrs. Rose Look, a family friend, invite me to join her beginning children’s hula classes which were held at her home on 6th Avenue in Kaimuki. Mrs. Look studied with renowned hula masters including Alice Keawekane Garner, Kamuela Nae‘ole, and Lokalia Montgomery. She focused her instruction on the fundamentals of the hula. It was she who helped develop my basic hula foundation. After three years of hula training Mrs. Look stopped teaching and relocated to the ‘Ewa district of O‘ahu. Prior to closing her Kaimuki hālau, she assisted her students with referrals to other kumu hula in the area. She recommended me to Mrs. Rose Joshua, the kumu hula and proprietor of the Magic Hula Studio on Kalākaua Avenue. I found Mrs. Joshua to be a sincere and beautiful person as well as an excellent hula instructor. She was very caring, patient, nurturing, and especially loved teaching children. Learning the Hawaiian culture and hula under her tutelage was the most rewarding and enjoyable part of my life. Mrs. Joshua used a holistic approach in teaching and taught us to be well-rounded dancers. Not only did we learn the hula kahiko and ‘auana dance stylings, we were also taught the oli and other chanting techniques. We learned the mo‘olelo, the Hawaiian and English lyrics to the mele hula, and were trained as ‘olapa and ho‘opa‘a on the use of traditional musical instruments to accompany the hula as well as appropriate costuming and adornments. Her teaching methods were thorough and enabled us to gain important knowledge and an understanding of the dances we performed. As part of our learning experiences we were required to conduct our own research on selected chants and mele. The research included studying the Hawaiian lyrics, knowing the composer, the historical significance of the song and possible kaona, if any. Mrs. Joshua’s hālau was noted for its unique hula styling. Her styling is graceful, elegant, and expressive of the dancer’s inner spiritual beauty while embracing a love for the hula as a cherished legacy of an ancient and proud Hawaiian civilization. It is a dance styling born of tradition and inspiration from the Heavenly Creator to entrance and capture the hearts of those honored with its presentation. This is the hula which I wanted to preserve and perpetuate as a dancer and a teacher. As a haumāna of the Magic Hula Studio, I was privileged to also learn hula kahiko and chanting techniques from hula master Henry Mo'ikeha Pa who shared the Magic Hula Studio as a partner with Mrs. Joshua. In addition we also received instruction in Maori, Tahitian, Samoan, and Tongan traditions, culture, music, and dances. Each year Mrs. Joshua would host special workshops and classes conducted by notable Polynesian cultural resources visiting Hawaiʻi and the Polynesian Cultural Center who would teach at the studio. These sessions enabled me to gain an appreciation of my Hawaiian and Polynesian heritage. After studying the hula with Mrs. Joshua for over twenty-one years, I was selected as one of five haumāna who were chosen to ‘ūniki. This was such a very special honor for me because Mrs. Joshua had not given certificates to any students in all of her forty years of teaching hula. The ceremonial presentation of the certificates was held as part of a hula hō‘ike to which other kumu hula were invited. As she awarded me her certificate, Mrs. Joshua gave me her blessings and encouraged me to carry on her hula styling as a kumu hula of my own hālau. She passed on shortly after the graduation ceremony. I first started teaching the hula at the early age of thirteen. While attending St. Patrick’s School I taught my classmates hula which were performed during the school’s May Day programs and Aloha Week festivals. During my high school years I voluntarily assisted in teaching hula for the May Day programs at Kalani and Kaiser High Schools. After graduating from high school I began teaching hula classes in various hotels, schools, church, and community facilities. In 1980 while I was already married, I decided to open my hālau in our family home in Kapahulu. A few years later I began teaching hula and Polynesian dance classes at the Kauluwela Recreation Center under the auspices of the Kalihi-Pālama Culture & Arts Society, Inc. Next year our hālau will be celebrating seventeen years of sharing hula and Polynesian dances in Hawai'i. When the time comes and I feel that my haumana have earned the opportunity to graduate from my hālau, I will ‘ūniki those deserving students. However they must assure me that they will uphold the quality standards of my hālau, cherish my legacy, and w ill teach only what is “pono." They will need to have sufficient knowledge of the Hawaiian language, an appreciation for the positive values of our Hawaiian kupuna, and be able to translate a chant or mele, as well as create an entire interpretive hula using traditional hand gestures that authentically enhance the poetic meaning of the lyrics. They w ill need to celebrate the hula as an art and as creative expression of life. Hula is my life and my life is hula. The knowledge imparted to me by my kumu hula and cultural mentors is a precious legacy which I shall always cherish and endeavor to perpetuate wit h aloha. I see the hula changing. There appears to be more hula steps being performed now than the traditional hula foot movements that I learned during my hula training. Today’s kumu hula have added their own creative expressions to this art which often excite an audience but also frequently raise the question of whether tradition is being preserved or sacrificed. The kumu hula’s creativity is the signature of a hālau styling. I believe that we as kumu hula can be creative within the realm of tradition as long as we preserve the integrity of the culture and authenticity of the dances as shared with us by our Hawaiian ancestors. The hula is a celebration of the life of the Hawaiian culture and will live forever as long as we continue to share this legacy. Nānā I Nā Loea Hula 93
Iwalani Kalima established Hula Hālau O Ko Lima Nani E in 1986 and is currently residing in Hilo, Hawaii. I was eight-years-old when I started taking hula from Uncle George Nā‘ope in Hilo. Uncle left in 1974 to live in Honolulu and returned to Hilo after four years. During that time I didn’t take hula from any other teacher. I went back to Uncle when he returned and I am still studying with him till today. I’ve been with him for over thirty years. Uncle George’s style of hula was very basic. You had to know your foot movements. There was no half step or a side step. It was a full kāholo and your basic steps were the most important thing. If you didn’t know your steps, you couldn’t do hula. That’s what Uncle always told us. You can see the difference in the dancing today. Before it was one motion for one sentence. Today it’s ten different motions for one sentence. Some teachers try to interpret every word with a motion. Uncle was a very strong hula kahiko teacher. You had to learn the kahiko first before you learned the ‘auana. My first hula was “Liliʻu E” and we learned the ‘uwehe step. We learned the kāholo and ‘uwehe by doing “Kawika.” It taught us timing. Uncle also took us out to entertain at private parties and at the Naniloa Hotel. We first started out performing the hula kahiko and hula ‘auana, and then in later years when I was about twelve-years-old, we started learning Tahitian. He brought over Ray Fonseca and Etua Lopes to teach Tahitian dancing. Etua was the dancer and did most of the teaching and Ray was the drummer and perfectionist. I regard them as my hula brothers. In 1982 Uncle gave me my kumu palapala. It was a special ceremony with a hō'ike and ‘ūniki. Although I wasn’t ready for it, Uncle felt it was the time to give me the paper. I don’t know what the requirements were but in Uncle’s eyes, I was ready. Although I had been assisting Uncle since 1981, others considered me his alaka‘i only after I had my ‘ūniki. I continued teaching with him and in 1986 I opened my own hula school. Uncle was a very hard and a very strict teacher. It was difficult to ask him questions because we were to be seen and not heard. He told you when you were ready to learn this or that and sometimes he would force it on you. At that time I thought he was being mean and nasty and I didn’t want to have anything to do with hula because I wasn’t doing anything right. Today I look back at the nitpicking and realize that he did it so that I would become a better dancer. I stuck in there because I was going to prove to Uncle that I could do it. Today I want the kids to come because they want to, not because they are forced to. I try to teach the girls everything I know about the chant or song. When I was learning, I did the motions but could not even ask the name of the dance. I didn’t realize that there was a time and a place that you could ask him. Now with my students I want them to know everything. It took me fifteen years to learn all those dances and I want them to learn it in five years. When I was growing up, I was a tomboy and I never thought Iʻd be a hula dancer. But hula has taught me to respect my heritage, love my culture, and respect people for what they are. Through my hula, I can show people what I feel inside without saying a word. When you have your own hālau, you must remember that the children are the ones that will perpetuate and keep the hula alive. You must teach them to the fullest of your ability. Love them as if they are your own and teach them to have ha‘aha‘a. Today I am very glad that I started my own school because I see how important the work is. When you live in Hawai‘i, you are Hawaiian. "Through my hula, I can show people what I feel inside without saying a word."
Howell Kali‘ula Māhoe “Chinky” Māhoe established his halau Kawailiula four years ago and is presently teaching in Kailua, Oʻahu. The hula kahiko of today is a modernized form. To me, nobody knows how the hula was danced in ancient times. People can only retrace so much and what they recover has been interpreted to them by somebody else. When you enter some competitions today they categorize the kahiko into a certain period. To me the boundaries they set up are very ambiguous and inconsistent. Are you going to limit kahiko to the Kamehameha reign or set the limits at the Kalākaua reign? Why should one be included and the other excluded? Somebody at that time had to dream up the motions and the steps so why can’t the kumu create now because today’s kahiko has to be a combination of modern ideas and traditional movement. We wouldn’t be doing anything different than the kumu of fifty or a hundred years ago did not do themselves. After I graduated from Kailua High School, I began to work at the Kāne‘ohe Marine Base. I started to fall into a rut and I looked at all the people around me, and I told myself I was too young to be growing old. I worked at the Kāne‘ohe Marine Base for two and a half years and then I quit. I went down to the beach and I just wanted to be a bum. I bodysurfed, grew my hair long, and played ‘ukulele. After seeing a performance by Robert Cazimero’s Nā Kamalei, I went to see Robert and later Kaha‘i Topolinski to enroll in hula. I didn’t know that there were specific times for new members to be accepted into their hālaus and both told me to wait for the next registration. I was so anxious that I started training under Uncle George Nā‘ope at Kalihi-Pālama Culture & Arts Society. Uncle George would show us the motions and foot movement and we would just follow his lead. At that time I didn’t know anything and it was very hard for me to take in so much. Uncle George made the class a lot of fun. It wasn’t pressured and that’s what I needed at that time. A friend of mine who was also taking classes with Uncle George would come over and help me practice. He would remember the motions because everything was Greek to me. If it wasn’t for him I might have quit a long time ago. I studied under Uncle George for a year but Kalihi-Pālama was a community group and I felt I needed the structure of a hālau. I heard about Darryl Uupenui’s hālau Waimapuna, so I went to see him and he took me in. Darryl felt once you knew the basic steps then the hand motions would just come naturally. We would go through hours and hours of just working on those basic foot movements. When we started to dance Darryl would explain what hand motions should be used at the different points in the chant and he would show us the hand motions. Then he would pick one of the students, explain to the dancer what was to be done, and the rest of the class would follow the dancer. I began to teach in September of 1979 with a group of guys from the Kailua Madrigals. I went to Darryl for his consent and he said I could teach as long as it wasn’t hula taken from Waimāpuna. The students wanted kahiko so I went home and opened up the Pele and Hi‘iaka book and tried to find a chant that I could handle. The boys kept asking me for more numbers so I figured why not put together a hālau separate from the Madrigals. We started out with fourteen boys and by the third week we ended up with four. But those four stuck with me and we went out and did shows. You want the dedicated ones because everyone wants to dance and they disappear when they find out how much work it is. I liked the style of Waimāpuna so I fashioned our practices around Darryl’s practices. I figured if that’s what it took to be successful then that’s what we would do. Duplication of success I guess. I wanted my dancers to experience what I went through at Waimāpuna. My goal is competitions. To me that is the highlight and reward of dancing. Win or lose, just to be a part of it. I think the only thing that matters is that the aaudience appreciates the dance.
Nā Kumu Hula Holoua Stender - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 106
Holoua Stender has been teaching Hawaiian chant and dance classes as part of the regular curriculum at the Kamehameha Schools since 1979. I was raised by my maternal grandmother and great-grandparents. Together with my paternal grandmother, they spoke Hawaiian to me when I was little. When I attended St. Louis High School, I studied Hawaiian language with John Lake and I continued learning the language throughout my years at the University of Hawaiʻi where I graduated in 1979. I took hula from John Lake in 1970 when I was fifteen. He was a wonderful and exciting teacher. He motivated the students to want to learn. He must have had over sixty students who came to the after school rehearsals to study chant, music, and dance from him. He had a charismatic way of teaching. He used to take us all around the island to learn from different kumu hula. We studied with Aunty Alice Nāmakelua, Pua Dela Cerna and Aunty Hattie Au. He provided us with many opportunities to learn hula and we performed and watched performances by hula greats such as ʻIolani Luahine and Edith Kanakaʻole. After high school I went to the University of Hawai‘i where I took hula classes from Hoʻoulu Cambra and language from Sarah Nakoa and Larry Kimura. In 1973 I joined Ka Pā Hula Hawaiʻi under John Kaha‘i Topolinski. Kaha‘i had the greatest influence on my hula career because of the depth of his teaching and because I was with him the longest. He would take chants and break them down to reveal the different levels of meaning inherent in the language of the chant. Each dance took a long period to learn because of Kaha‘i’s care and scholarship. Sometimes we would visit Mrs. Mary Kawena Pukui to ask her questions about different chants and she would unravel the hidden intricacies of the language. In 1977 1 left Kaha‘i and went to learn from Darrell Lupenui. Darrell was a very loving person. I have special memories of him and the way he taught. He would sit on the floor and he would teach us by describing the motions to us. He wouldn’t perform the motion but he would tell us what to do and the dances would become so perfect and beautiful. He hardly ever changed things. He had a mental picture of the dance in his head and he described and translated his mental images to teach us. It’s like someone who is a genius at creating music. They create the music in their heads. He would explain it to the alakaʻi and they would then show us the motion. Darrell Lupenui was an artist and perhaps a genius in hula. He worked within the parameters of hula and he created art right inside his head. When Keliʻi Tau‘ā asked me to join his kumu hula class, Darrell was very gracious and released me to go with Keli‘i. My entire two years with Keli‘i was spent training for graduation. Part of our training for graduation was to compose mele. Keliʻi invited Manuel Silva, Henry Pa, Kalena Silva, and other renown kumu hula to witness our graduation. They came to watch and comment on our choreography and our compositions. We performed at the Star of the Sea on the evening following our formal graduation ‘ūniki ceremony held at Sand Island. Charles Ka‘upu and I were fortunate to have graduated as kumu hula by Keliʻi Tauʻā in 1979. I teach Hawaiian chant and dance at the Kamehameha Schools. Randie Fong and Wayne Chang work closely with me to create special dance productions for the school. Three hundred students show up for our auditions and we’ll select maybe forty or fifty of the most talented young men and women. They must demonstrate exemplary skills in music and dance. We teach our students, “‘A‘ohe pau ka ‘ike i kāu hālau,” which means, “all knowledge is not found under one roof.” We ask students not to change or forget what was taught to them by other kumu hula. We try as much as possible to teach them a new style and enhance their dancing causing them to strive for greater personal achievement. We are fortunate that most students come to us with experience and we don’t want to dampen that experience. We want to give them another hula challenge and teach them to excel in performance. Students begin class outside on the lānai. They line up at a designated time to chant their oli kāhea. If we feel that the chant is sincere, they will be welcomed inside. At times they may continue chanting for twenty minutes to half an hour. When they walk in, it’s perfectly quiet. We practice the basic steps for anywhere from twenty minutes to an hour. After the basics we break up into three groups and each kumu will teach a different dance. I studied hula because of language. I could see the beauty of the poetry and beauty of the Hawaiian language through dance and chant. That’s what made me interested in hula because hula demonstrates the beautiful soul of the Hawaiian language. 106 Holoua Stender
Nā Kumu Hula Hōkūlani Holt-Padilla - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 41
Hōkūlani Holt-Padilla started her hālau in 1976 and has been teaching hula for over twenty-five years. She is also the coordinator of Nā Pua No‘eau-Maui. There are several reasons why I chose the name Pā‘ū O Hi'iaka for my hālau. One is for my mother’s family who have always been ocean people. The Pā‘ū O Hi'iaka is a beach plant and it is also a native Hawaiian plant. The story about how this plant got its name comes from the Pele and Hi'iaka myth. It tells of Pele going down to the beach with her baby sister Hi‘iaka-i-ka-poli-o-Pele in the early morning. She leaves her sister by the beach and goes into the water to surf. As the sun gets warmer she thinks about her sister and returns to where Hi'iaka lay. She found that a small beach plant had grown to cover the baby to protect it from the sun. So Pele gave that small beach plant the name Pā‘ū O Hi'iaka which means, “the skirt of Hi'iaka. In Pele and Hi'iaka stories the pā‘ū is magical and it can defeat enemies; it was her protection as she traveled through the islands. For all these reasons we thought it was a good symbol to have for our hālau. Hula has always been a part of my life. My first teacher was my tūtū who was Ida Pakulani Long. I was also taught by my aunty Kāhili Cummings and of course my mother Leiana Woodside. Learning from my tūtū and aunty meant being very disciplined: there was no fooling around. You had to watch, listen, and follow. There wasn’t a whole lot of in-depth explanation of what you were doing. You were expected to know it. She explained some things but not like what I do for my students today. Her style was half way between the strong bombastic Hawai'i styling and the more flowing style of O‘ahu. We were encouraged to dance low in the style that is now called ‘aiha‘a. We were also encouraged to move our bodies fluently. Because I lived for a time with my tūtū and my aunty, they would teach me when they were in the mood. My aunty also had a group of dancers composed of my cousins and the people who lived in the neighborhood; we would meet twice-a-week. By the time I was in the ninth grade, I was considered her alaka‘i. She would work out her choreography with me and when the other dancers came, I would be the alaka'i for the class. My interest and my love for kahiko grew because of Aunty Hoakalei Kamau'u. When I was nineteen, the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts began a program in which they were encouraging the development of kumu hula. That’s when I began learning with Hoakalei. She started with about thirty students. She used to teach in different areas like Waimanalo, Kalihi, and Kane‘ohe. As students started to drop out and the size of each class dwindled, Aunty Hoakalei brought us all together in one place up in Nu'uanu. For the first three years we did nothing but kahiko; it was like a regular hālau. We would do a little bit of chanting but learn primarily hula. Aunty Hoakalei taught without any paper or tape recorder. We had to pay attention, listen, and follow. When we got the choreography down, she would pass out papers and we would sit "Learning from my tūtū and aunty meant being very disciplined; there was no fooling around. You had to watch, listen, and follow and do the ho‘opa‘a part and learn the accompanying myth. While I was still studying with her, she came to me and said it was time for me to have my own class. We arranged for the first class to be in Kaimukī. She would come for the first couple of weeks and observe me. She’d give me feedback and she would leave me alone for a few weeks. A few weeks or a month later she would check on me again. The classes were usually held in school cafeterias and they were open to the general public. Observing what other people call ʻūniki, I would say I did not ʻūniki. After returning to Maui I talked to my mother when I was ready to begin my hālau. She told me that it was not necessary for me to do that kind of ‘ūniki because hula was in our family. It wasn’t necessary for me to go through a formal ceremony. She said it was enough that I go ahead and teach because my tutu would have wanted that for me. My tutu had already passed away by the time I started my halau. Although my tūtū never mentioned it, I do recall at family parties I would see' her sometimes eating particular parts of the pig when she thought that no one was watching. She must have gone through a formal 'ūniki herself. I am a third generation kumu hula. Perhaps there are even more generations than that but I’m not sure. My mother comes from a family of fifteen and I have over forty first cousins. All of my cousins learned how to dance but I am the only one right now who is a kumu hula. Becoming a teacher was a conscious decision. First of all I wanted to be a good dancer. Then as I started learning from Hoakalei to develop into a teacher, I found that sharing knowledge with people was something that I liked to do. I always wanted to share my love for the hula with others and to have others love and enjoy the hula as much as I do. Hoakalei taught me how to teach but my mother taught me how to be a kumu hula. She taught me the little things on the quality of movements, the dress, the philosophical behavior of kumu hula, and their relationship to their students. She taught me how7 to take responsibility for the needs of my students. I have my family style of hula: lots of hip and upper body movement in expression. Our tempo is upbeat but not too fast. I try to pass on the dances as they were taught to me by my various teachers but I also feel that what makes a kumu hula grow and flourish is that they have this creativity within them as well. Hula kahiko uses chants rather than singing and is accompanied by traditional percussion instruments rather than contemporary instruments. It is more earthy; its expressions come from the movements of nature. The purity of the movement is what is important; it is a pure movement that has come through the generations.
Hoakalei Kamau‘u Hoakalei Kamauʻu is the niece of the late ‘Iolani Luahine and served as her ho‘opa‘a and alakaʻi for the last fifteen years of her life. In the beginning I wanted to be a nurse but once I got started in the hula that was it. I danced informally with the USO (United Service Organization) during the war but it wasn’t until 1943 when I first came to Honolulu that I really began to be trained in the hula. My first kumu hula was Emma Moniz Bishop. Her studio used to be on Pensacola and King Street and coming from a background of informal training she seemed very strict. She wanted you to learn and really be someone. She was a great influence on me because she gave me a desire for learning from the first day. She made me realize there was a right way of learning the hula and she was satisfied with nothing less. I learned modern hula and a little kahiko under Emma. Because it was during the war a class would graduate every six months. My mother and the rest of my family lived in the studio and our job was to take care of the building. I stayed with Aunty Emma for three years and then I moved to Kaka‘ako and lived with my aunt ‘Iolani Luahine on Ilaniwai Street. It was Kawena Puku‘i that told ‘Iolani to train someone within her family to carry on her knowledge and that’s how she started to train me. Aunty ‘Iolani was my greatest influence because she was able to make me see the values that are in the dance and not just the dancer. She put a tremendous emphasis on fundamentals. She felt unless you had a solid foundation you couldn’t grow so we spent the first three months learning only fundamentals. Many people think I was trained by her to only be her chanter but I had to learn all of her dances as well. With Aunty Emma everyone looked forward to the graduations and receiving her certificate of instruction was a great joy for me. But with ‘Iolani there were no degrees, no certificates. It was a continued learning experience. Today the paper is very important but with ‘Iolani it was what you knew and what you could do. ‘Iolani would hold classes right in her home in Kaka‘ako until she opened her studio on Queen Street between Kalani and Ward Avenue. Her studio was upstairs and this was where I began to teach. In 1969 I opened my hālau and I was asked by Alfred Preis of the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts to be the Dance Coordinator for Hawai‘i. Many people felt at that time that ancient hula was kapu and you weren’t supposed to do it. So people were frightened by it more than anything else. ‘Iolani made us enjoy the ancient dances and she never said don’t do this or that. My job was to go around and find some of the old-time kumu hula to share what they knew because there were so many hula teachers that wanted to learn. In addition the State Foundation funded another program that was administered by the Waiʻanae Coast and Kalihi-Pālama Culture and Arts agencies that trained hula instructors in the ancient hula so that they in turn could go out and teach it better. In 1969 hardly anybody was doing the ancient hulas and I give Mr. Preis credit because he foresaw the need for this. ‘Iolani learned and was trained in the old ways but she never said I have to go back to the old ways. She taught it to us, she told us about it, we learned and appreciated it but we have to live in the present. She said you live in the present but respect what was done in the past. I feel however that we are creating something new that is not keeping to the traditions and fundamentals of ancient hula but we are still calling it traditional hula. I think there should be a limit to creativity in ancient hula. When I choreograph a kahiko dance I choreograph in the style that I have learned. I was taught by ‘Iolani that the ipu and pahu always complemented ancient dancing and the ‘auwana was always accompanied by music. Modern hula could describe practically anything but the kahiko was much more secular and disciplined in its movement. The ancient hula was regimented in its movement but not to the point where it was stiff while the ‘auwana was free-flowing and full of personality. We Hawaiians are blurring these boundaries and modifying basic motions with movement altogether foreign. I realize that there are many different schools of thought reflecting the hula of different islands but there is a basic set of fundamentals shared by all. Traveling around the Pacific I’ve seen the different dances and we must keep our dance unique and individual from the others. We have so much at hand and so much to do if we just be Hawaiian and not try to be something else. Perhaps the ancient hula of today will be called traditional fifty years from now but what’s going to happen to the authenticity of our culture, of our traditions?
Ho‘oulu Cambra Ho‘oulu Cambra is a member of the faculty of the University of Hawaii at Mānoa and the Kamehameha Schools. If a person has Hawaiian blood, one might presume this precludes an inherent awareness, an affinity to the culture from within enabling one to catch on to the knowledge of the hula and the chants faster than a non-Hawaiian because this is the history of the race, this is the individual’s past. My life in the hula has really been an outgrowth from my training in music, Hawaiian language, and chant. In 1956 I attended the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. My first love is music and I was taught to teach it in the public schools but I began to realize that it wasn’t something that I wanted to do forever. When I returned from the Mainland in 1958, I taught piano at the Punahou Music School to make ends meet but I became restless so I took up ethnomusicology at the University which is a more scientific approach to the music of the world. My interest at that time was in the Hawaiian language and between 1958 and 1964 I studied under Rob Brown, Edwina Kanoho, Dr. Samuel Elbert, Kalani Meinecke, and Dorothy Kahananui. In 1962 I was introduced to Dorothy Gillett, the daughter of Dorothy Kahananui, and it was Mrs. Gillett who got me excited about traditional Hawaiian chanting. I was an East-West Center grantee studying Polynesian dance and music at the time, and from Mrs. Gillett I was led to Ka‘upena Wong who took me even deeper into the knowledge and traditions of chant. The next logical step from the chant was to be trained in the dance. In 1971 I met Aunty Mā‘iki Aiu Lake and she has been my greatest influence because she taught me the intricacies of teaching the hula. She gave me a methodology and a set of goals to guide myself. I went to Aunty Mā‘iki because I felt I needed an academic, university-style regimen since I was starting my training so late in life. I needed to absorb so much, so I needed a hālau with a strong structure. I had studied at the University under Hoakalei KamauTi in 1965 — 66 but Aunty Ma‘iki was the first regimented academic situation I had in the hula. Ma‘iki’s class was a school in that it had a curriculum and expectations. There were examinations to be passed and assignments to be completed. I graduated as the first kumu hula of Hālau Hula O Māʻiki in August of 1972 in a traditional ‘ūniki. In 1975 I went on to train under Aunty Kau‘i Zuttermeister for six months. There I was taught to chant in the Pua Ha‘aheo style and I found the discipline and regimentation of Aunty Kau‘i’s hālau similar to Aunty Māʻiki’s school. Some of my kumu have had a greater influence on me than others but I am grateful to all of them because they were all there to share with me at a time when I was hungry for their knowledge. I began to give individual instruction in traditional chant for beginners in 1967 at the Music Department of the University with the approval of Dorothy Gillett, Kaʻupena Wong, and Hoakalei Kamauu and that was the start of my teaching career. I regard the hula as an art, specifically a living art that must be worked at and prepared for constantly. This is a very slow, tedious process that requires many procedures because I insist that my students study the history and culture relevant to the particular dance and chant they are learning. It has always amazed me how the composers of these chants were able to combine major ideas and themes into a few, concise, terse lines. You can’t help but respect and admire the Hawaiian culture if you know the language and can read the chants. Hula is a way of life, it is a people’s inspiration. It is the Hawaiian’s connection to the universe around him. That is why books and pencils have very little place in this type of school. The dilemma is of course that without paper and pencil today’s students would have great difficulty retaining what I have to pass down to them. My kumu taught me that contemporary chants and hula written in the kahiko style cannot be considered traditional. It must be handed down from generation to generation in its entirety. Kahiko is a convenient term used more to define what is not modern hula rather than what is traditional hula. I don’t know if students are learning the vast vocabulary of the hula and the chants that are essential to its perpetuation. Our young people are very impatient and very eager for the finished product. Audiences of today seem to goad the dancer into dancing more suggestively. The more exaggerated the dancer’s ‘ami, the more it satisfies the audience. The modern audience is attracted mainly to the graphics of the dance. Their reaction to the hula ma‘i at times is to hoot and yell. These are products of the American culture where talk of sex is suppressed and thus when they see hula ma‘i, it’s their chance to react freely.
Harriet Nē Harriet Nē has taught the traditional hula on the island of Moloka‘i for the past twenty-two years. I was brought up in an atmosphere where male hula was taught. This was in the valley of Pelekunu on the east coast of Moloka‘i. I was born on O‘ahu but at four months I was taken back to Moloka‘i. I became interested in the hula at five because I had the opportunity to walk in and out of the hālau and watch the male dancers train. I had three uncles who had a hālau so I was permitted entrance. I learned to take my first steps to the beat of the pahu drum. My first kumu was Ka‘ō‘ō of Moloka‘i. He taught me that you cannot do anything unless you have the right feeling within you. You can feel the vibration when your thoughts about the hula are correct. Ka‘ō‘ō would get inspired by going down to the ocean and then up into the mountains. Sometimes I would play by the seashore and watch him. One time I asked him what he was doing and he said he was waiting for the spirit to come into him and inspire him so he would know how to express the words. I was five-years-old when I started with Ka‘ō‘ō and he believed in training early in the morning. We would begin to train when the sun rose in the east. He would tell me that the sun is shining and another day is beginning where you are going to learn something new. Your heart and mind must be wide open to the acceptance of these teachings and that means you must discipline yourself to be open. I stayed with Ka‘ō‘ō for nine years and then my family moved to Honolulu because Moloka‘i did not have a high school. We lived in Kaimukī on 9th Avenue and I went to a kumu named Kapele who was a big, husky hapa Haole who lived out in Kahalu‘u. Kapele gave every student special attention. He would encourage our strong points in class and work on our weaknesses out of class. I was confused at the time because my father was a Christian minister and he said I couldn’t be a Christian and dedicate myself to Laka at the same time. So after three years with Kapele he pulled me from the class. I went on to Enoka Paleka in Kapahulu but after two years my father again pulled me from classes. My last kumu was Nanawai who taught me down at the Lalani Hawaiian Village on Paoakalani Avenue in Waikīkī. Nanawai was very good but he was a dreamer. He used to say to dance the hula you have to be a dreamer because you have to imagine yourself in another world, you have to visualize the mo‘olelo and kaona of the chant. It took me seven years with Nanawai before I was able to ‘ūniki. I began teaching comic hula at age thirty-six because that’s all people were interested in at that time. In 1958 one of my uncles was dying at Lunalilo Home. I went to visit him and he asked me if I was teaching. I told him I was teaching children on Molokaʻi, and he instructed me to teach the Moloka’i Ku‘i and that it should be taught to the men of Molokaʻi first. He told me to come to the side of his bed and with a traditional Hawaiian ceremony he passed his talent onto me, the next generation in the family. I told him I didn’t know the Molokaʻi Kuʻi. He then got out of bed and performed the Moloka‘i Ku‘i step for me. He lay down on the bed and I think he was very happy because a few days later he passed away. I went home to Molokaʻi and I opened my hālau which was filled only with boys from Moloka‘i. When I was growing up my nickname was “Lovely Hula Hands”. My aunty would tell me to be proud of my hands and I was always conscious of them. I was always taught that the palms of your hands should always face up because if they are turned down you will lose all your talent. Every part of your body from your fingers to your feet should be signifying a part of your chant and I think that discipline is being lost. I think kahiko is becoming more commercialized. It’s alright for a student to take an unchoreographed kahiko chant and put motions to it as long as he or she understands and is faithful to each line in the chant. But there are kumu today that don’t understand the language and must learn it if they are going to continue. The language and the culture are the same. When I lived in Pelekunu I was exposed to a community that only spoke Hawaiian. When I moved from the valley I lived in a world that only spoke English and I began to lose my knowledge of the language. If you don’t know the language then you and your dancers are just making gestures. To me dancers are actors on a stage so in order to direct them a kumu must know the language, history, proper costuming, and the background of each dance. I have big arguments with kumu because they tell me we cannot stay traditional all the time. They say we have to move along with the times but it’s hard for me to see it their way.
Harriet Kuuleinani Sheldon Stibbard
Nā Kumu Hula Harriet Kuuleinani Sheldon Stibbard - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 109
The late Harriet Kuuleinani Stibbard was a public elementary school teacher for forty-one years before retiring. She opened Kuulei’s Hula Studio in October 1931. Once while dancing on stage, a Hawaiian woman said, “What is that haole lady doing up on stage?” I have Hawaiian blood in me and I am proud of it. Her remark encouraged me to do better. When I was young, my parents did not want me to dance the hula but I was determined to learn. I did not learn to dance however until I was twenty-one-years-old and married. I was teaching school on Maui when I met Alice Garner, my first hula teacher. Alice was a soft-spoken and beautiful person from whom I learned kahiko and 'auana. After five weeks of lessons she told me, “Harriet, I don’t know why you are coming to me. Your talent is God-given. I just can’t teach you anymore.” When I started my classes, I taught ‘auana first then kahiko much later. I had my own style and it was very different from other hālau. My costumes, pā‘ū, holokū, and ideas came naturally after I visualized my songs and dances. After I went on my own. I asked Aunty Daisy Boyd to translate the Hawaiian songs for me. Language to me is very important in hula. If Aunty Daisy Boyd did not translate for me, I would not have been able to do anything. My best memories are of the children. Some were as young as three-years-old. I always said to them, “Do not waste your parents’ money if you don’t want to learn.” After taking hula for about six months, the children were given a certificate with a picture of myself for learning good manners, good feelings, attire, and discipline. My advice was to put their heart and soul into what they do, work diligently, and set goals. I also taught at Punahou School. After three years they wanted me to give up my studio to teach full time for them. I refused because I wanted to keep my studio in Honolulu. After one of my recitals in Hilo, Mrs. Helen Desha Beamer said that she would send her granddaughter to me for private lessons. That was a great honor to have Mama Beamer trust me. I take pride in the fact that the students of Kuulei’s Hula Studio were on the cover of “Paradise of the Pacific,” “Time,” “Newsweek,” and inside of “Collier’s Magazine.” All of these articles and dates are in a book that my granddaughter Maunalei Love is using in her hālau O Kuʻulei Aloha. The newspaper articles about my keiki were tremendously rewarding. The hula has changed a lot. When I look at the ‘uwehe of today, we never opened our legs. Old Hawaiians were rascal and naughty but in a clean way. I love kahiko but I never composed because I felt I was not an expert to do so. I prefer ‘auana songs especially “Mī Nei.” I am very honored to be recognized today. It is a compliment when somebody reminds me that I was his or her teacher and that I was teaching their granddaughter. What a beautiful reward for me. My greatest joy is what I gave to the children because it lives on today.
Kumu Hula George Pulamahia Maile - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 75
Presently employed by Aloha Airlines, George Pulamahia Maile graduated as kumu hula in the “Papa Lehua ” class from Māʻiki Aiu Lake in 1974. I must have been about seven or eight when I first took hula lessons from Aunty Mary Pukui at her house on Birch Street. There were two cousins and three other members of Aunty’ s family. I took on and off for about a year until Aunty cancelled the lessons when the cousins stopped coming. My next teacher was Momi Auwae-Yaw who I stayed w ith for two years. She studied under Ruby Ahakuelo and she taught us strictly ‘auana. It wasn’t until years later that I started with Aunty Māʻiki Aiu. I was twenty-four when I started with Aunty Māʻiki and I stayed for over twenty years. I came and never left! It was really a chance coincidence that I got into her hālau. We were all at a wedding reception when I was persuaded to go up to dance. I was going to die. It was years since I danced. After I finished, Aunty Māʻiki said, “Where did you learn that? You did my whole routine. You’re coming into the boys’ class next week!” So that’s how it started. I had picked up her whole routine without even realizing it by going into her hālau to wait for my friend and by talking story with Aunty Māʻiki. I guess I was just absorbing all these things. In 1970 the kumu class was opened up to the public. We started with ‘auana and then the kahiko was slowly interjected until we actually studied to become kumu. The name of our class was “Papa Lehua”. I was asked by Aunty Māʻiki to be in this particular class for kumu. I think there were twenty-four in our class and we all became kumu. We trained for four years to become ho‘opa‘a and then we trained to become kumu hula. The first student in “Papa Lehua” to become kumu was Ho‘oulu Cambra. The rest of us puka as ho‘opa‘a that year and we followed as kumu the next year. The first ‘ūniki was at Ulumau Village in Kāne‘ohe. It was an overnight thing. We had our ‘ailolo ceremony the next day but we went through the meditation and the preparation the night before. Many people were there to watch: Ka'upena Wong, Aunty Sally Wood, Aunty Alice Nāmakelua, Aunty Lani Kalama, Aunty Lokalia Montgomery, and Uncle Manuel Silva. Our class performed in mass at the ‘ūniki. As part of the ʻūniki process, we had to compose and then put a mele to it. Some were to be kept private and some were performed. After the ‘ūniki I continued with Aunty Māʻiki. I’ve never had my own hālau. I stayed with Aunty Māʻiki forever and a day. At first I stayed on basically as a performer and a student. Then I started to teach in the hālau. When I teach, I try to be as close as possible to how Aunty Mā‘iki taught it and try to keep her style of dancing. The only time I taught outside of the hālau was with Kealoha Wong and her sister when they were teaching for the May Day program at Maryknoll. I also taught the Aloha Airlines promotion team and I did four Hula Bowls’ half-time shows. Sometimes I wonder where they got the foot movements for the hula kahiko today. I feel a lot of influence came from other Polynesians especially in the male kahiko. I remember watching the gentlemen dance thirty and forty years ago and I see nothing the same today. I think that it was prevalent with the old masters that if they thought that you weren’t ready, they wouldn’t give and you couldn’t ask for it. There was no way that you could say, “I want to learn this, please.' You wailed until it was given to you or until the time was right. And sometimes that’s sad because these masters took half of it with them when they passed on. Nobody got it.
George Lanakilakekiahiali'i Na'ope
George Lanakilakekiahiali'i Na'ope text from Nānā I Na Loea Hula Vol One Page 112
George Lanakilakekiahiali'i Na'ope In 1973 George Na'ope co-founded the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival that is held annually in Hilo. Born in Kalihi, 0‘ahu, Mr. Na‘ope was raised in Hilo, Hawaii. In the old days, everyone was afraid of knowledge being stolen so the old masters would die without sharing it. The different races that live here are part of the future of the culture. I teach Haole, Japanese, Pake, and I used to get scoldings because of it. I want to share because if we don’t share these dances they are going to die. My students are all different races but when they dance I know they’re Hawaiian. My first kumu was a woman who lived next door to my family in Hilo. She was Edith Kanaka‘ole’s mother. Her name was Mama Fujii. She was married to a Japanese man. She was a short lady, even shorter than me but she was a master of the hula. I studied under Mama Fujii for five years and I will always remember her. I started with Mama Fujii when I was four-years-old. I’ll always consider her my kumu because she did the hard work. She was the one that gave me my foundation and my basics. The teacher that laid the foundation should be the teacher you give the greatest credit to. That’s the hardest thing to teach. Mama Fujii, first of all, was very strict. She and my great-grandmother were dear friends and that’s the reason I went to hula. My greatgrandmother told me that our kupunas were kumu pa‘as so she felt someone else in the family had better learn the hula. So it really wasn’t a matter of me having a choice about learning or not learning. I was forced into the hula so the more I was taught the more I didn’t like it. It wasn’t until later that I realized how great a teacher Mama Fujii was. She spoke the language fluently and she had a deep-down, root feeling for the hula. Mama Fujii taught me only kahiko but since she was a Christian she only talked about the kapus during my training. She would also teach us sitting dances and the oli but there would be no kuahu. There would only be Christian prayers before and after we danced. At the age of ten, I went on to Joseph ‘Ilala‘ole who I stayed with for ten years until he left for Honolulu to become a policeman. He taught me the kapu dances and unlike Mama Fujii the training was like the olden days. You had to chant a password to enter the halau and if it was correct, he would answer your chant and let you in. After graduating from high school, I studied under Aunty Anna Hall who taught me chanting and Aunty Jennie Wilson who taught me ‘auwana. Aunty Jennie had a very sedate way of moving her hands. She taught me that the hands tell the story so nothing can be kuikau. Every hand movement had to be a definite motion. My family was poor so I began to teach when I was thirteen- years-old. This Japanese lady named Mrs. Tsubaki was retiring from the barbershop business in Hilo so she took out all the chairs and let me use her shop to teach. I charged fifty cents a week and with that money I was able to get through school. I think we need a separate festival of contemporary kahiko because I think within its own limits it’s great. Then we can have the great young kumu of this time create the chants and dances that reflect their era. I’ve seen tremendous changes in Hawai‘i since the Forties but of my generation there is not one chant that talks about the coming of the airplane, the war, or statehood. I have tried to teach the hula as a classical traditional dance but others are teaching it as a modern, creative dance and are still calling it a traditional dance. Today we are seeing modern-day versions of what people think went on in ancient Hawai‘i. You have kids coming out who are confused and are calling personally-created motions, kahiko motions.
Frank Kawaikapuokalani K. Hewett
Frank Hewett, a faculty member of the Windward Community College, is the kumu hula of the Kuhai Halau O Kawaikapuokalani Pa ‘Olapa Kahiko
The greatest hardship for me was to live under the strict kapus I trained under for twenty years. But I love to dance and the people that taught me were so inspiring that I have no regrets. When I dance I offer certain evocations to ask certain spirits to become a part of me so that they may be happy again in coming back to life through me. That’s what gives me great joy because that’s what the hula is all about. My grandmother Eva Kana‘e was a dancer so the hula was something that surrounded me as I grew up. She spoke Hawaiian and it was through her that I was taught the foundations of my hula and the history of He‘eia and Kealohi. I spent eighteen years with my grandmother and she instilled in me a great love for hula kahiko and hula ‘auana. After my grandmother I spent a year with Edith Kanaka‘ole. Aunty Edith taught me how to give. I remember one time she was asked why she taught the hula to the Haole and she replied ‘Because, we are all God’s children.’ She made me aware of the disadvantages of being too generous but she inspired me to give out because that’s why I was given the knowledge. After Aunty Edith I spent ten years with Aunty Emma deFries who took me to the very depth of the hula, back to its very beginnings and foundations. She said that the beginnings of the hula is the essence of our people, and she explained the workings of the kapus to me and the symbolism of the different colors and plants in nature. I began to teach in 1978 in He‘eia and Kealohi because my family has roots there. I don’t train performers; my students have to be content with just gaining knowledge. Hawaiians are not lazy like we have been stereotyped and that’s what I’ve been trying to do, break the stereotypes that brand the Hawaiians. The biggest problem we have today is the broad use of the title of kumu hula. The people of today are training for one or two years when in fact they should be training for ten to twenty years. There has to be definite divisions in the hula because the title of kumu must carry dignity. There has to be an orderly, credible procession up the ranks. My opinion is that there should be four distinct levels of study in the traditional hula. The premier level should be the kumu hula and the people within this division should be sources of knowledge within themselves. The kumu hula should be well- versed in all aspects of the hula. Below this division should be the hula teacher who would be allowed to teach only with his or her kumu hula acting as a mentor. They would be designated as pa hula or teachers of hula. The third division would consist of senior students and they would be called alaka‘i. An alaka‘i would be a student in training with either a kumu hula or a pa hula and they would act as the dance leaders on the floor and would be placed in the front line. The fourth division would be filled with beginning students and they would be called ho‘opili because they are strictly mimics of their teachers. Hula is not just dancing and chanting but a deeper spiritual aspect which must be accrued by the student and cannot be picked up in one or two years. In the days of our ancestors, a student would train one five-year period in the ho‘opili division and one five- year period in the alaka‘i division. This five-year period was called a palima and two palima were designated as a hale ‘umi. The kumu hula would ‘uniki each student to the next level and only the best students after completing a hale ‘umi of training would be chosen by the kumu to be trained as kumu hula. By custom the pa hula would only move up to the level of kumu hula after the passing away of their kumu. It was an entire social system of selection that hardly exists today. I think what’s starting now is that anybody can stand up and say they’re a kumu hula and if it continues the hula will be demeaned and become common. There is a need for the kumu hula to come together and set standards and express concerns about what is happening in the hula world. Today it is the dance motions in kahiko that command all the attention because the Hawaiian of today does not understand the language. That’s why today’s motions are so vigorous and exaggerated. The dancers are trying to tell the story totally through the motions of the dance. Hula kahiko must be passed down in its entirety from generation to generation because only then does the culture that the kahiko is expressing remain intact. Hula is a religious ceremony to the Hawaiian gods and goddesses of our ancestors and we can’t get away from that. I think creativity can be allowed in the hand movements but the five basic foot movements must be left alone. Each movement symbolizes something important and if they are embellished then we have blurred the lines.
Faye Pomaialoha Dalire Aloha Dalire, kumu hula of Keolalaulani Hālau ‘Olapa O Laka, has taught hula on O‘ahu for over fifteen years. She has the distinct honor of being the first “Miss Aloha Hula” crowned at the Merrie Monarch Festival in Hilo. I think the reason why the hula kahiko will prevail and never die is because of all the creativity being done today by the kumu. I was put into the hula at an age when I really didn’t have a mind of my own. When you’re brought up in a family that consists of dancers, you dance. My mother’s name was Mary Keolalaulani McCabe Wong and I consider her the backbone of my career. Without her I wouldn’t be enjoying the hula the way I am today. I started the hula at the age of three under Uncle George Nā‘ope who had graduated my mother and my older sister. Uncle George was a perfectionist and I was trained mostly in ‘auwana. When I turned ten, Uncle George decided to return to the Big Island. At that time Tahitian and Maori dancing were starting to influence the hula. This was in the Sixties and people started to change the scope of their dancing. It wasn’t so much hula anymore but Polynesian dancing. My mother needed a chanter for her ‘ūniki so I began listening to chanting records of ‘Iolani Luahine and tried to imitate her. So I suppose my first lessons in kahiko were taught to me by a record. At the age of twelve I chanted at my mother’s first ‘ūniki and I was approached by Elke Ross-Lane, the executive director of Aloha Week. She asked me to train under her and it was Elke that brought me out of my shell. She showed me how to research material and to make sure that a song or a mele must be understood thoroughly if it’s going to be used. I graduated from my mother at the age of eighteen but it was a very modern ‘ūniki. I had to pass certain tests that were basically a lot of paper work and research into different phases of the hula. It was an exercise in making sure you understood what you were doing and what you were getting into. I began to teach for my mother at the age of fifteen but I still don’t consider myself a kumu because there is so much to learn. When I was growing up in the Fifties there was always a fear of the kahiko because of the consequences of breaking a kapu. I was not able to learn what I consider the real ancient hula because people were not as open and they wouldn’t share. They would just show you and teach you so much and that was it. It’s important that the haumāna be given more today because many students of the past were left with only a half- baked understanding and perspective of the culture.
Emma Kapiolani Farden Sharpe
Emma Kapiolani Farden Sharpe Emma Sharpe is a member of the Farden family of Maui and today makes her home in Lahaina. Mrs. Sharpe is credited with helping to pioneer the renaissance of the hula throughout the island of Maui. As a little girl of eight, I lived in the village of Pu‘unoa in Lahaina with a lot of Hawaiian families surrounding us. There was always a lot of dancing and a lot of music. I used to love to listen to their singing. But going towards the fence and looking over I would see people doing the hula. And I would always want to learn what they were doing. I would always see kupuna coming together and having a party and singing and dancing to their songs. That’s what really interested me since my dad couldn’t send me to a dancing school. You see what I was always interested in was the ballet. Since I couldn’t go to a school for ballet then I wanted to go to a school for hula. My family being musical with instruments such as the guitar, ‘ukulele, autoharp, mandolin, and piano; it was natural for me to want to be a dancer. I didn’t study with a kumu until I was fifteen-years-old because my father didn’t want me to dance. His only exposure to the hula was what was being danced on Lahaina Street and he didn’t want any of his children ever becoming involved with that. I wanted to learn the hula so badly but at that time the only hula that was performed was done at private parties. As far as I can remember I don’t think there was one hālau on Maui at that time. A neighbor of ours told me about her mother- in-law Kauhai Likua who was a dancer at the time of King Kalakāua’s reign. I went to see her but she refused to teach me. Kauhai at that time was a minister for the Church and she said she had danced once but she was doing God’s work now. I told her we were both children of God and when she died she would take all her knowledge with her. That helped to change her mind and for the next three years she taught me in secret because of her position in the Church. I was her one and only student. She taught no one before or after me. I would go to her home three times a week and I would always bring two leis with me. One would be for myself and the other would be for the goddess of the hula. She had one big room where she kept her hula things and I would be taught only in that room. She would teach me only on the days she was not preaching. I was taught hula ‘auwana but the words ‘auwana and kahiko were never used back then. I never knew any other type of hula existed but modern hula because that’s all that was danced on Maui. Now the ‘auwana that was taught to me had no music to it. It was taught to me simply by chanting. She would get her little ipu and paʻī the beat and chant the meles to me. She would talk to me briefly about each dance and then teach me the motions. While I was learning I had to follow certain kapus. I could not go into the ocean while I was menstruating and I could not go out with men. In order to enter the hālau I had to kāhea a certain phrase or I would not be allowed to enter. At the end of my training she had a little pā‘ina in which my family was invited. At the end of the meal she wrapped up all the leftover food and threw it into the ocean at Makena. This was done to purify everything that had come before. After I graduated I wanted to learn kahiko and the kumu I wanted to learn from was Joseph ‘Īlālā‘ole. He lived in Honolulu so during the next three summers I asked him four times to teach me a chant. Each time he turned me down and it hurt because I was so eager to learn. The next time I went to Honolulu I asked Aunty Ka Treadway to speak to him for me so she brought me to his house. He was sitting on the lawn on a white settee with his brother who was a minister. Uncle Joe’s brother rose when I entered and told him that I had provided entertainment and helped set up benefit shows for all churches on Maui and I deserved to be helped. At that point his wife who I think had the last say all along told Uncle Joe to take me in. From that day on I was his student. I would come to Honolulu every summer to teach at the University of Hawai‘i and I would live with Uncle Joe for one week before classes started. He taught me only kahiko and I wish he had lived long enough to teach me the hula kapu. I learned from Uncle Joe by just watching and listening. First he would show me the dance, then explain the mele, then he would pa‘i the drum, and this is how I learned. He sent me to Kawena Pūku‘i and I would show her a mele from Uncle Joe and she would give me the background on it. She used to kid me because I was always writing and drawing everything down but I told her when she and Uncle Joe passed away there would be something to pass on to the next generation. My sincere gratitude goes to these three kumu that gave so much to my life. I see steps today that I’ve never seen before. Steps are not precise and controlled today but long and outstretched. People ‘uehe outward today rather than upward and I’ve never seen an ancient dance before where the dancer falls to the floor and lays there. But this is what I’m seeing today. The hula of my time was not done for entertainment only but mainly to share the culture. I believe the Hawaiian people must teach and share their own culture. If we create, we must acknowledge what is a modern creation because the modern audience, left uninformed, will believe they have seen a traditional dance. The big problem of today is that many of our Hawaiian people themselves don’t know what is and is not traditionally Hawaiian in the hula.
Ellen Ku‘uleialohapo‘inaole Pūka‘ikapuaokalani Smith Castillo
Ellen Ku‘uleialohapo‘inaole Puka‘ikapuaokalani Smith Castillo - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 27
Ellen Castillo has been teaching the hula since 1958. She was also a kupuna for the Department of Education, Hawaiiana Program on the Windward side of O‘ahu. Puka‘ikapuaokalani is the name of my tūtū on my father’s side. She received rigorous training in hula and danced only for a select audience. When I was three-years-old as we were preparing to return to Honolulu from one of our visits to Tūtū’s Kaupō home, she decided she wanted me to stay. Although my mother and father were saddened by this separation, the family respected the Hawaiian tradition of hānai. So Tūtū raised me in Maui speaking only Hawaiian, and shared with me her knowledge and love for our culture like lau hala weaving which were a part of our daily routine. My Tūtū Puka‘ikapuaokalani’s name lives on through my hālau. I studied hula with Aunty Bella Richards when I was nine-years-old. She had about thirty students and we danced on her lawn on the side of her house. She emphasized hula ‘auana, and later taught Tahitian dancing. Aunty Bella learned traditional hula from her kumu Bella Kuamo‘o and from Mary Fujii, the mother of Aunty Edith Kanaka‘ole. I stayed with Aunty Bella for fifteen years. I served as her alaka‘i and taught with her for a couple of years as a requirement for my certificate. Aunty Bella wouldn’t let her students teach without first overseeing them. I graduated and received my certificate from her in 1958. Between lessons from Aunty Bella, I received additional training in kahiko from Aunty Emma Kahelelani Bishop, and later from Aunty Kekau'ilani Kalama. Aunty Bella was with me during the first few hula lessons I taught. My initial teaching experience was at her home where she made me teach a new class of thirty students. She also had private students and I would go to their homes to give lessons. After teaching for her, I branched out on my own in 1959 with her blessing. I enjoy watching my students perform. As a kumu you work hard with your students to achieve what you envision. People wonder why you keep entering competition after competition. When I see my students and the finished product presented on stage, I feel very fortunate to be able to perpetuate my culture and preserve the beauty of hula. I try to instill in my students, the same love and respect for our language and culture that I learned from my Tūtū. ‘O ka hula ka‘u makana na ku‘u Tūtū Pūka‘ikapuaokalani. (The hula is my gift to my Tūtū Puka‘ikapuaokalani.) “I enjoy watching my students perform. As a kumu you work hard with your students to achieve what you envision.”
Nā Kumu Hula Elizabeth Hu‘i Park - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 97
Remembered as a beautiful and accomplished dancer, the late Huʻi Park taught hula for seventeen years. Her daughter Coranne Park-Chun is continuing her legacy at the Huʻi Park Hula Studio I learned the basics of hula at the age of eight while attending the Parks and Recreation program at Lanakila Park in the summer. During the weekdays I took hula ‘auana from Aunty Sally Wood at Likelike School. My greatest influence however was Joseph Kahaulelio with whom I studied under for fourteen years. There were about fifteen girls in Uncle Joe’s class. He would always tell us the story and translation of the chant before teaching us the dance. We had to learn the chant by memory then he would go into the basic steps and hand motions. He taught just four of us to pad and that’s how I learned to pa‘i with my finger and thumb. I danced for Leilani Alania for a year and a half before my cousin Flo Koanui asked me to dance for Aunty Vickie Iʻi Rodrigues. There were ten of us who danced for Aunty Vickie and we were called the Hauʻoli Girls. We were the best dancers on the Islands, entertaining in the hotels and on the boats during the Sixties. Aunty Vickie’s forte was hula ‘auana so she did the ‘auana portion of the show. Uncle Joe, Kawai Cockett or George Holokai did the chanting for us. My cousin and I taught the girls who didn’t know kahiko. Like Uncle Joe, Aunty Vickie didn’t allow us to write down the words to the song she was teaching. Rut I wrote it anyway because when you get older, you forget. She told us what the dance was about and let everybody have an input in putting the motions to the dance. We would try it this way or try it that way. By doing this, she knew which students would become teachers and carry on. Aunty Vickie has given me so much. She inspired me to grow as a person and taught me to be a lady. She polished us to be beautiful hula dancers. Although I danced for Aunty Vickie for seventeen years, my style of dancing is still Uncle Joe’s and Aunty Vickie was pleased with me for keeping his style. I don’t believe in ‘ūniki and my teachers never believed in ‘ūniki. In the old days you had to live with the kumu. You had to abstain from sex and only concentrate in learning the hula. I remember Eleanor Hiram Hoke telling stories about her ‘ūniki and why we cannot go through those rituals anymore. I didn’t realize that I was going to be a teacher until Aunty Genoa Keawe asked me to teach hula for her. At that time I had to say “no” but the second time she asked me, I said “yes” because I had planned to quit my job to help my daughter take care of her baby. I taught at the Genoa Keawe's Hula Studio for one year and then the following year in 1975, she turned it over to me. On my fifteenth anniversary of teaching I graduated six students who had been with me from ten to fifteen years and they were given a certificate of accomplishment. For five years they had to teach the basics to a beginners’ class. I gave them a hapa haole number to create into a hula. Before every girl graduated, she had to earn a paper certifying t hat she knows how to make a ti leaf skirt, haku or kui a lei, and do everything else I taught her. My joy is having the respect and dedication of a student who has become an accomplished dancer. She is my final product. It’s a feather in my cap that someone else wants my student and I feel great that she can go on to other things. In my opinion kahiko is telling stories of old through a slower medium. I teach only girls so in my kahiko the dancers are soft. They don’t jump all over the place. That’s how I was taught from the very beginning at Lanakila Park and from Uncle Joe. Nānā I Nā Loea Hula 97
Eleanor Hiram Hoke The late Eleanor Hiram Hoke was the third child of Moses Kealoha Hiram who in the 1920s held the konohiki fishing rights for Lāʻie, O‘ahu. She was considered at the time of her death in 1983 one of the last remaining hula kapu students of Hawaiʻi. I was taken at birth by my grandmother Katherine Keakaokalā Kanahele to be the chosen one for the hula kapu. I was reared in the area of Marconi Wireless Station in Kahuku, and it was there that I received my hula kapu training until age eight. To prepare for my training, Tūtūkane and Tūtūwahine went to the mountains and picked certain greens. A room within their home was set aside that no one could enter. Within this room the greens were hung without water on chicken wire upon a kuahu. On the day that I was born Tūtūkane selected a black pig and brought it to the kuahu. Tūtūwahine would begin to chant and slowly the animal would grow drowsier and drowsier. The pig would fall into a deep sleep and in its sleep it would pass away. A weapon could not be used to kill this sacrifice. Accompanied by a chant I was given a taste of certain portions of the animal: the brain, the front legs for my hands, and the back legs for my feet. This ‘ailolo prepared my body for the training to come. Absolutely none of the hulas or chants were put down in writing so the ‘ailolo served to heighten my senses and sharpen my memory. Whatever was not consumed was wrapped in greens and taken to the ocean. For eight years all I did was live the hula. Hawaiian chants were chanted to me like nursery rhymes are sung to other children. Throughout the day and the night all I did was practice and study chants. A hula kapu student has to be chosen before birth. I could not be touched by unclean hands and my meals had to be prepared at the kuahu in the halau by Tūtūwahine alone. The mullet that I ate had to come from a pond in Marconi Wireless and not from the ocean. The pigs that were fed to me could not be fed swill but only the best of grain. They also had to be spotlessly clean so they were raised in a cement pond by Tūtūkane. When I came of age I was taken to school. I was not allowed to share any part of my lunch with my friends nor was I allowed to exchange any food. Because of my kapu training I was not allowed to play with the neighborhood children. If I had a cold and went outside I had to carry a ti leaf with me. I was told to spit only in the ti leaf and then to come home and have Tūtūwahine dispose of it. At the age of eight, a child knows right from wrong and the kapu is ‘oki. The day before my ‘ūniki, Tūtūwahine graduated me in front of the kuahu. All that I had learned I performed before the kuahu. I took a vow in front of the kuahu that I would never again practice the kapu rituals that I had learned. Accompanied by a chant, the kuahu was taken down, wrapped in dried mats along with my ipu, ‘uli ‘uli, and costumes, and taken to Makapu‘u. Tūtūwahine went down to the beach and began to chant. The ocean was very calm and suddenly one wave appeared. Tūtūkane threw the kuahu greens and implements into the wave and it all disappeared. At the point of the cliff near the ocean, two ladies appeared in kikepas, one in red, one in yellow. This sign meant that I was accepted from Tūtūwahine and from that hour on the kapu was ‘oki. Tūtūwahine and her assistant Luika Pele Kaio were students of Niuola‘a and Kamawae so the next day every well-known teacher in Hawai‘i came to see what Tūtū had passed on through me. Among them were ‘Īlālā‘ole, Ka‘ō‘ō and every well-known kumu of that time. The year was 1926 and I was the last hula kapu student to be graduated from Tūtū Keaka. After my ‘ūniki I entertained with Tūtū at Hawaiian Town and at the military clubs around the island. At nineteen I stepped aside and began to train students but I have discontinued my hula for a long time now. The hula kahiko that was taught during my time is dying away now. People cannot recognize what is authentic or newly created in the hula anymore. I will not perform my hula ‘ilio or hula kupe because I’m afraid of what people will do to it. People don’t understand it anymore. I performed it in front of elderly Hawaiians who had never seen hula ‘ilio before. This hula is the sacred temple dance of the dog and the people laughed and called it crazy hula. The reason my knowledge of the hula has survived is the hula kapu. Nothing was written down but yet I can remember every mele, every hula motion, every chant that I learned at the kuahu.
Elaine Kaʻōpūiki Elaine Kaʻ ōpūiki has devoted over 30 years to teaching hula on the island of Lanaʻi. I live on an island that is so isolated that I hardly see things that would change my style. Thirty years ago, anytime we needed instruction we would fly to Honolulu. Flights weren’t expensive like they are today. I would spend a weekend in Honolulu and I would go to any instructor that was available. The kumu would give you translations of chants and you would learn them on your own time. In those days, you learned by the hour so you had to take as many chants as you could in an hour. We didn’t have tape recorders so a lot of knowledge had to be jotted down or sung so I wouldn’t forget. I was trained under such kumu hula as Leilani Alama, Luka Kaleikī, and Noelani Māhoe but the instructors that I saw the most were ‘Iolani Luahine and Tom Hiona. My greatest honor was to be able to learn and dance under these great masters. I began to teach both kahiko and ‘auwana on Lāna‘i because we didn't have a teacher in the hula. I was an entertainer and I felt I could do it. In those days the requirements to teach were up to the individual herself. There were no requirements that I knew of so I just did it on my own. There are seven steps to my kahiko and the dance is very simple. I don’t need the fancy steps. What I do need is expressive hands, bodies, and eyes because the traditional dance compared to the ‘auwana has almost no movement.
Nā Kumu Hula Edward Etua Lopes - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 71
Etua Lopes is kumu hula of Hālau Hula Na Pua Uʻi O Hawaiʻi and has been teaching hula on the grounds of the Hulihe‘e Palace in Kailua-Kona since 1984. It was through Lokelani Anderson that I met Uncle George Nā‘ope. He had come to teach us to paʻi for the girls in her show. Originally I went to Lokelani’s hālau to become a Tahitian drummer. I was fifteen-years-old and my first hula experience was watching the girls dance. I just fell in love with the hula. I stayed with Lokelani for about three years and in 1971 I left Honolulu and went to Hilo to learn from Uncle George. That’s when my focus on learning the hula began. I’ve been with Uncle George ever since. Uncle George had the most influence in my hula. He taught me that I can’t be exactly like him so he sent me to different teachers. Because of Uncle George Eve met a lot of very well known hula masters. I was able to take a few classes from Henry Pa, Lokalia Montgomery, ‘Iolani Luahine, Edith Kanaka‘ole, and Eleanor Hiram Hoke. Aunty ‘Iolani did not teach me to dance but she gave me a lot of the history. For four years my hula brother Ray Fonseca and I spent every weekend with Aunty ʻIo in Kona. At that time she was the curator of the Hulihe‘e Palace and she lived in the house where the gift shop is now. On Sunday we would take her down to her Napo‘opo‘o home and spend the day with her. Ray and I were always around when Aunty ʻIo and Uncle George did oli, blessings, and other rituals. We gained a lot of knowledge by listening and watching Aunty ʻIo and Uncle George. When Uncle George returned to Honolulu and taught hula for the Kalihi - Pālama Culture & Arts Society, Inc., Ray and I were alaka'i for his classes. The Society also sponsored classes such as feather lei making, lau hala weaving, implements and drum making. We attended all these classes to help us prepare for our ‘ūniki. Ray and I had our ‘ūniki at Farrington High School in 1976. The day of our ‘ūniki was very exciting. We were the first two males to ever ‘ūniki from Uncle George. The days before our ‘ūniki were spent gathering laua‘e, palapalai, maile, hau, ‘ohi‘a lehua, and ʻilima. We met him at Farrington’s auditorium and we set up the lele for Laka made from ‘ohi‘a. Laka was made of lama. Uncle explained to us the different kino lau that went on the kuahu and the meaning of each plant. We opened that evening with pule and oli and then hula palm such as: “Kaulīlua I Ke Anu O Wai‘ale‘ale,” “A Ko‘olau,” and “‘Au‘a ‘la,” followed by ‘ala‘apapa with ipu heke and implements, and finishing with the hula ma‘i. Ray and I took turns chanting while the other danced. When Uncle George chanted, we both danced. After a short intermission we had fun with the hula ‘auana. That evening is special to me because it’s when I became kumu hula. I still teach and carry on what Uncle George taught me. But I feel that I have my own style because I was also inspired by another man that I really respect in hula, Uncle Henry Pa. Our kupuna are very important. They are the source and we must go back to talk to them. Kumu hula must learn from the masters. If you need help as a young kumu, you must seek their knowledge. Seeing my girls in their costumes on stage is worth all the months of hard work even if it’s only for a five-minute performance. Just to see them on stage and to hear the audience’s applause for what they have done is my reward. As a kumu hula you deal with not only your problems but also with the keiki and their problems at home. Some of the children have a hard time at home and it reflects in class. I try to work with them and encourage them to do their best. I’ve been teaching for over seventeen years. Although I am not ready to ‘ūniki any of my haumāna eventually I would like to have them go through the same process that I went through and have an ‘ūniki. I would expect the same things from them as my kumu expected from me. However things have changed. When we first learned how to dance, it was basic ‘ōlapa. Today when you listen to the ho‘opa‘a play the ipu heke, they’re just slapping away. We had definite beats that we had to use. In comparison the hula kahiko of today is very flamboyant. One of the reasons why I decided to become a hula teacher instead of a Tahitian drummer is because I love children. I made my decision and went into the hula all the way. Being around children makes me happy. To me the children are our future. If we teach our children right, they are going to carry on the tradition of our people.
Edith Kawelohea Kapule McKinzie
Edith Kawelohea Kapule McKinzie Edith McKinzie is a member of the faculty of the Honolulu Community College and is researching, lecturing, and publishing in the area of Hawaiian culture. I first became interested in the hula because I grew up in a musical Hawaiian family. I was performing with my family before I ever entered formal training and my Aunty Mary who was a dancer for the hula master Antone Ka‘ō‘ō encouraged me to take up the hula. Since that time I have trained under several different kumu hula and each one had his or her influence on me and my style of the hula. I trained under Joseph ‘Īlālā‘ole for three years at Pālama Settlement, at Kulamanu in Kāhala, and at his home in Kapahulu. This was my first formal training and from him I learned hula kahiko. This entailed learning the basic hand motions and foot movements along with the names and symbolic references contained in each motion. The discipline under which this training occurred went beyond just a certain amount of time spent working at the dance. It included personal carriage, personal attitude, presentation of gestures and the necessary respect involved in the tradition of the dance. I am not certain who ‘Īlālā’ole’s teachers were; that was not an important question at the time. Later I trained under Eleanor Hiram Hoke for eight years, dancing professionally for her, performing in tableaus, and learning the drumming and the dances associated with the hula pahu, which was her specialty. Eleanor held classes at her studio in Mānoa. She had been a student of Keaka Kanahele and during the period I studied with her, she was occasionally assisted by Katie Nakaula. Upon completion of my training, I went through the process of an ‘ūniki. After a long period away from training in the hula, I returned to take lessons with Hoakalei Kamau‘u whose teacher has been ‘Iolani Luahine. This was a period of renewal and excellent reinforcement for me in hula kahiko. Hoakalei was the Director of the State Council on Hawaiian Heritage Dance program which allowed many students as well as teachers exposure to a variety of teachers and teaching styles. While performing with Hoakalei s group at the Bishop Museums Heritage Theatre in Waikiki, I had several opportunities to seriously discuss chants with Pele Pūku‘i Suganuma, an expert chanter, trained by her mother, by Malia Kau, and others. I studied chant under her direction and her sharing allowed me greater insight into the art of oli. I will always be grateful to Pele for the training I received and for her recommendation that led to my working with Edith Kanaka‘ole in the State Council’s Mele Project. During the last few years of her life, I was fortunate enough to spend a good deal of time with Aunty Edith Kanakaʻole, a master of many Hawaiian skills including hula and chant. I learned the basic chanting styles, a good deal of hula, composing, and she portrayed to me a fine example of a true Hawaiian and an outstanding kumu hula. Most of my training with her occurred at my home where she stayed when she visited O‘ahu. From Aunty Edith, as well as all of my teachers, I was taught to imitate their movements and sounds. I have taught extensively throughout the State of Hawai‘i, Midway, Guam, and Alaska, and other places; and hula continues to fulfill and provide me satisfaction. I enjoy working with young hula dancers and chanters. Teaching is an integral part of my life. I consider myself a traditionalist, but I teach both traditional and contemporary hula. My teaching reflects that which I learned from my teachers. Hula existed in a much different and smaller role when I was first learning than it does today when the value of it is being acknowledged by so many. To the kumu hula of today, I would remind them that every hula has a history, a story content, and a reason for existence. Don’t just pass along the motion. I would also say to the kumu and haumāna that the language is vital to comprehension and to the expansion of knowledge within the culture. To the students of today, I would say don’t expect your kumu hula to be your only source of learning in “na mea Hawaiʻi.” You have to seek knowledge diligently and invest energy if you wish to achieve excellence.
Denise Ka‘uhionamauna Kia Ramento
Nā Kumu Hula Denise Ka‘uhionamauna Kia Ramento - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 98
Denise Ramento founded Aloha Pumehana O Hawaiʻi Nei in 1972 and is currently teaching hula and Tahitian dance in the Waipahu area. I began to learn hula at the age of seven-years-old. My first teacher was John Piʻilani Watkins who taught at his home in Kaimukī. He was not really into traditional hula. John was very theatrical. He liked using a lot of cellophane. He also taught us Tahitian, Samoan, and Maori dancing. I spent the next nine years with Aunty Luka and Aunty Louise Kaleiki at the ʻIlima Hula Studio. It was through their lessons that I got more involved in the hula. Aunty Luka did most of the teaching. Aunty Louise did the paper work for the business and she was the disciplinarian. I concentrated so much in hula that I never got a chance to go to football games. Aunty Luka and Aunty Louise were very strict; if you missed one performance, you couldn’t dance. I remember a few of us never went to our proms because there was hula. I graduated six years after joining Aunty Luka and Aunty Louise. There were six of us that were up for graduation. All of the dancers who were graduating had to learn a number of their own. Aunty Luka and Aunty Louise chose each song and the girls learned their particular song privately. I learned hula kahiko from Uncle Henry Pa when he came to the hālau to teach Aunty Luka. Before we started the kahiko, he sat and explained about the dance. He met with us for three years and during the last year he taught us hula kahiko for our ʻūniki. All the students from the halau participated in the graduation lū‘au held at Ka Makua Mau Loa Church in Kalihi. The graduating class danced hula kahiko chosen by Uncle Henry Pa and each of I he graduates had to dance her special song. My song was “Kau‘ionalani." Aunty Luka and Aunty Louise asked me to become an alaka‘i but my parents sent me away to Maui to attend Lahainaluna High School. Because I missed my hula, I started at the Royal Lahaina Hotel as a solo dancer under the direction of Robert Kalani. I performed Aunty Luka’s songs and choreography. After living in Maui for a year I returned home and went back to Aunty Luka. But all my hula sisters had left and there was a kind of emptiness so I decided to rest. I was eighteen-years-old when I was asked to teach some teenagers in Waipahu. I began with Tahitian because I was stronger in that area. My twin brother Dennis took care of the drumming and I taught the dancing. I also taught hula but when we were asked to do shows, they usually wanted Tahitian dancing. Aunty Luka and Aunty Louise had the most influence on me. Besides teaching me, they gave me the desire to move on and to learn more. They were the biggest inspiration on my hula career. My advice to the young teachers is to know what you’re doing. Learn the language. Respect the kupuna and our culture. We all have different styles because our kumu hula all learned from different people. Don’t over elaborate the hula. Just take it from the basics and don’t forget the roots. 98 Denise Ka‘uhionamauna Kia Ramento
Nā Kumu Hula Cy M. Bridges - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 23
Cy M. Bridges, the great grandson of Kuluwaimaka who was a court chanter during the reign of Kamehameha II to Kalākaua, is a Bishop of the Hauʻula IV Ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and has been employed at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Lāʻie for many years. Hula is a bit different today. We’ve all seen movies of hula dancers of the past. All you have to do is pop in a video and you can readily see how much it has changed. Mele hula and mele oli were once the textbooks of Hawaiʻi. The History and words that were carefully woven into the chants were very important. Today the words at times become secondary while the motions take on the primary role. Crowds go wild when they see certain movements. They may not know what the words are saying but the moves are so electrifying especially in the kahiko that the audience get carried away. There are some things that I have enjoyed watching and yet would not dare incorporate into my own teaching. Our hālau hula began with four kumu hula: myself, Bill Kauaiwiulaokalani Wallace, Enoka Kaina, and Keitli Kalanikau Awai. William Cravens, who at the time was the President of the Polynesian Cultural Center, called Bill and me in and asked us, “Why don’t we have a hālau?” We told him it would be taxing and would take so much time and effort to have fund-raisers. Cravens said, “Don’t worry about any of that. We'll sponsor it and fund whatever you need.” We felt we would give it a try and that’s how we got started. Enoka suggested the name Hui Hoʻoulu Aloha for our hālau. We thought the name was nice, appropriate, and had a good meaning. I think the most important thing is love, not only for each other but for the culture and for what we do. After a while everyone moved on. I dropped off for a season but I came back to keep the hālau going. Aside from everything else I was involved with, my family had to also share time with the hālau. It was a big part of their life. Ever since l was quite young, I was fascinated not so much with the dance but more so with the chanting and how the voice was used as well as the haunting sounds of the ipu and palm. I wanted to learn how they did that. The very first training I got was really from my mom and grandmother. Now this was interesting because they were not chanters or hula people at all however they would tell me how it should or shouldn’t sound based on what they had observed through family members growing up. And as for myself, I would listen and mimic recordings of chanters that I heard especially our tūtū. My formal hula training began when I was in high school with Aunty Sally Wood (Naluai) at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Lāʻie. I consider her my hula mother because she was my first formal teacher and I was with her for a number of years and graduated under her tutelage. Aunty graduated me fourteen years after l first started dancing with her. She called me early one morning. She was crying on the phone and told me she was sorry. I didn’t quite know what she was talking about. She said to me, “I see a lot of kumu hula who are teaching and entering competitions. I thought of my own students who I’ve trained and they didn’t ʻūniki. I want you to graduate.” So our group got together and seriously started training once again. Her nieces Sunday and Ellen Gay were the first to graduate. Keith and I followed soon after. While still with Aunty Sally I also began training with Aunty Hoakalei Kamau‘u. it first started when Aunty Hoakalei came down to Church College of Hawaii to help us with a Hawaiian Club assembly. Afterwards Aunty needed male teachers to help her with performances and hula workshops. In 1976 a performing group went to the South Pacific Festival of Arts in Rotorua, New Zealand and Aunty Hoakalei was our coordinator. It was a small group and I was very fortunate to be a part of it. During the time we were with Aunty Hoakalei. I also learned from other hula masters through our involvement with the workshops, hōʻike, and the Arts Festivals, etc. We were able to learn the stylings of Aunty Edith Kanaka‘ole and her daughters Pua and Nalani who were also in the New Zealand group. I was fascinated when Aunty Edith would explain about the different winds and rains or other elements and how they were associated with the various chants we learned. I also had the opportunity to learn from Aunty Pat Nāmaka Bacon most of which were in conjunction with other festivals. I still call on her today when I need help. Like many others, she is a special person and a great inspiration to me. Aunty Sally is a graduate of Lokalia Montgomery and I had the opportunity of also learning from Aunty Lokalia. I first met her when we did a performance for the crowning of the Lei Day Queen at Kapi'olani Park Bandstand. About a month later she invited me to come and learn from her. What was even more special was the fact that one of Aunty Lokalia’s teachers was my tūtūman while he was at Mossman’s Lalani Hawaiian Village in Waikīkī. I did not train intensively in chanting with Aunty Sally. Basically I was given the words, she would chant it for me, and I would follow her until I got the gist of it. But as I went to other teachers, I found that Aunty Pele and Lokalia would incorporate techniques that were slightly different. I gathered a little bit from all of my teachers. Noelani Kamekona took me to Kaʻupena Wong. At that time he had just finished working with another student and was not able to dedicate the same time and effort with me however he gave me some chants and shared some techniques and said I could call on him at any time. That in itself was a great boost for me. My style is a combination of all of my kumu. It is so very important to me what my mom, grandmother, Aunty Sally, Aunty Hoakalei, Aunty Pat, and others think about what I do and how I do it. I only wish I can bring honor to them and what they’ve shared with me. I hope I never disappoint them. The interesting thing with our hālau is that our haumāna are from Oʻahu, the Cook Islands, New Zealand, Fiji, Rotuma, Honolulu, Kauaʻi, Big Island, Japan, and Spain. They’re from all over the world and they come to learn and love the hula. One of the greatest joys I get is seeing someone who has never danced, be able to do it well. They can understand, appreciate, and love Hawaii, its people, and its culture through its unique music and dance. Oh the pain! Aahhh I guess it’s worth it! Nānā I Nā Loea Hula 23
Cecilia Kawaiokawa‘awa‘a Akim
Nā Kumu Hula Cecilia Kawaiokawa‘awa‘a Akim - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 10
Cecilia Kawaiokawa‘awa‘a Akim Cecilia Akim has taught the hula for over twenty-five years and is presently teaching at the Nuʻuanu Day Care Center with her kumu hula, Hoakalei Kamauʻu. How do you teach somebody who does not know the language? I’ve seen a lot of misinterpretations of dances. They don't understand the beauty of what the chant is talking about. Our old chants are in Hawaiian and today s students need to understand the Hawaiian language to know what they’re dancing about especially because the motions are very simple. “Kawika” is a beautiful chant because the vocabulary is there, the poetry is there, the history is there. The romanticism, an important part of our cultural heritage, is there. It’s all there. As a dancer you’re painting a picture. You put into motion our oral history. My mom took me to learn hula from Aunty ʻIolani Luahine when I was three or four-years-old. I stayed with her for about six years until she retired from teaching and moved back to Kona. The girls she taught were eight to twenty years older than me. She had me dance with all of them. We performed all over Waikiki and different places. I learned both kahiko and ‘auana from Aunty ‘Io. She taught us dances like “Little Brown Gal” so we could learn basic hula motions and how to be a little more graceful. We learned our kāhea and mele while learning the dance. It was very repetitious. We would go over it again and again. When Aunty ‘Io retired, I went to Aunty Pele Pukui. I think because I was so young, Aunty Pele gave me private classes. Her fundamental steps were the same as Aunty ʻIo’s. Aunty Pele reviewed the dances that I had learned with Aunty ‘Io so that she knew which ones I had learned. With her I learned more numbers, many with implements, and she worked on my chanting for the hula noho. After about a year and a half she suggested that I go to another teacher. So at fourteen I went to George Nā‘ope and stayed with him for over seven years until he moved back to Hilo. That was the first time that I was actually in a class with other dancers who were the same age as me. Uncle George had a studio a few blocks from my home in Kalihi. So why stay home and help my mother clean house when I could go down to the hula studio and help Uncle George? I literally hung out at the studio and danced with all of his classes. After Uncle George moved to Hilo, I couldn’t find any other teacher. So I freelanced on my own doing the shows at the International Market Place with Uncle Johnny Watkins, Aunty Lydia Wong, and Aunty Louise Freeman. After I graduated from high school, I went to the University of Hawai‘i and I dropped out of hula completely. When Aunty Hoakalei started classes for the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts, I went back to hula. The purpose of the classes was to train dancers to be teachers and that’s what I’ve done. Being with Aunty Hoakalei is a continuation of Aunty ‘Io. Her style of teaching is the same. I am very comfortable with Aunty Hoakalei. She’s a different person from Aunty ‘Io but she’s just as beautiful. When she did “Aia Lā ‘O Pele,” it was like going back to the days of my youth with Aunty 'Io. I’ve remained with Aunty Hoakalei since 1969 and I’m still learning with her. “As a dancer you’re painting a picture. You put into motion our oral history.” 10 Cecilia Kawaiokawa awaa Akim
Nā Kumu Hula Cecelia Kuamo‘o Ka‘ai - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 10
Cecelia Kuamo‘o Ka‘ai Born and raised on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi until the age of eighteen, “Cissy” Ka‘ai has taught the hula on Kaua‘i for the past thirteen years. I was interested in the hula when I was a little girl growing up in Opihikao on the Big Island. There would be family parties every Saturday afternoon in church halls, pavilions, and any other area where tents could be erected. We children would help serve the food and afterwards everyone would call for entertainment. I didn’t know anything about the hula but my friend and I would make up motions to the songs the musicians played. I came from a large family which spoke fluent Hawaiian and although my aunty Rose Kuamoʻo was a well-known hula instructor, I did not have the benefit of training under her since she lived in Hilo. When I turned twelve, however, she asked my father if she could give me lessons. He agreed and a bargain was struck between them. He would supply her with the ti leaves she needed to entertain and she would give my sister and I hula lessons. Every Saturday my father would drive us to Hilo in his car for our three-hour lesson with Aunty Rose where we would be trained in both ‘auwana and kahiko. During high school in Hilo I studied informally with George Nā‘ope and Martha Kaʻiawe and upon graduation I moved to 0‘ahu to attend Church College in Lā‘ie. I took a few lessons with Pi‘ilani Watkins in Kapahulu when I first arrived but before long I was more interested in Polynesian dances other than hula. While attending Church College I met my future husband Nelson Ka‘ai whom I married after graduation. We lived in Kaneohe until shortly after our daughter was born and then we moved to Kauaʻi. On Kaua‘i we became active with the Kaumualiʻi Civic Club and eventually they asked me to dance at club functions. Prior to that time my husband did not approve of me dancing in public but he encouraged me to dance and my interest in hula was renewed. I met Uncle Joe Kahaulilio who had also moved from Honolulu to Kaua‘i and at this time he was already a popular kumu hula. Unlike some teachers who did not seem to care whether the hula was learned correctly, Uncle Joe would tell you the meaning of the song, why you were dancing it, why you were doing each motion, and he would watch everything you did to be sure it was proper. I studied under Uncle Joe until he moved to California and I consider him the greatest influence in my career. I began to teach under Hoakalei Kamauʻu and the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts in the 1970s. She trained us and then sent us out into the different districts of Kauaʻi to teach. I wanted people to see the way Hawaiians told their stories, and that it was all in the hula.
Nā Kumu Hula Carolee Nishi - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 88
Carolee Nishi has been a full- time volunteer for the Nuʻuanu YMCA Hawaiian Youth Program for close to thirty- years. Besides working for United Airlines as an Executive Services Director, she is a kupuna for the Department of Education Hawaiian Studies Program. The beginning of Hula Hui O Kapunahala began in 1968. While working on contract in the United Airlines Red Carpet Room, a co-worker asked me to teach hula to her daughter and four of her friends who attended Kapunahala Elementary School. We gathered every Sunday morning at their home in Kāne‘ohe for hula lessons. Soon after our small hui was invited to participate in Expo ‘70 in Osaka, Japan. To provide information for the billing we were asked the name of our group. Since the students came from Kapunahala, the Japanese Expo officials immediately provided us with calling cards bearing my name as director of the Kapunahala Hula Club. When we returned to Hawai‘i, the word “club” was substituted with “hui” and we were renamed Hula Hui O Kapunahala. I started hula at age five. In the late Forties my sister and I attended weekly classes at Eunice McLean’s Kalihi home. We were not taught the words but practiced diligently to the tune of many 78-speed recordings. I also took hula at the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) and eventually spent many years in Kaimuki at Mamo's Hula Studio. Hula ‘auana and hapa haole songs were very popular at that time and all the numbers we learned were choreographed by Aggie Auld. We entertained a lot for the military and went all out for the Waikīkī ho‘olaule‘a. In those days Genoa Keawe, Pua Almeida, Harris Kaleikini, Buddy Hew Len. and Val Kepelino were among our regular musicians. In the Fifties around the time of the opening of the International Market Place in Waikiki, my uncle owned and managed a saimin stand next to Don the Beachcombers. In true ‘ohana fashion my parents helped my uncle and consequently the Market Place became my hangout. I was very familiar with the Beachcomber staff, all the small shop owners, members of the Martin Denny’s group, Buddy Fo & the Invitations, and even performers with John Piʻilani Watkins Polynesian Review who featured Al Barcarse as a Maori dancer. I sat through all the shows daily and I knew the routines like the hack of my hand. Most inspiring to me were the fire dancer Kimo Lee, the model/hula dancer Mamo Howell, and the strong voice of Ron Jacobec. After my graduation from Roosevelt High School I attended University of Hawai‘i. Throughout my college years I continued to dance, learned to sing, practiced the ‘ukulele, and studied the language. In the Sixties I joined the Hawaiian ethnic studies group, studied Hawaiian chorus under Dorothy Kahananui Gillette, Hawaiian history with Pauline King Joerger, and learned hula kahiko from Ho‘oulu Cambra. I even dedicated some time to Tahitian and Maori dancing with Bella Richards in Kailua. I spent a lot of time with Aunty Alice Nāmakelua. I was fortunate to have three years of semi-private lessons with Aunty Alice. She taught me to play slack key guitar and to sing many traditional Hawaiian songs. At the same time I became a very close friend to Genoa Keawe. Through the years she has been the one who taught me the most. Through her influence I learned to do a lot for myself. There were many years of guidance and even today if I need her kokua, she’s always around. She has a generous attitude towards helping others. She’s a good role model and I love her. My husband’s best friend, Alan Masuda, strongly suggested that I volunteer my talents at the YMCA. Alan’s brother Robert, who was the executive director of the Nuʻuanu Y, asked me to start an outreach program. That was the beginning of my affiliation with the Y. Aunty Genoa, Kawai Cockett, Huʻi Park, and my mother helped me through my initial years setting up the program. As the program stabilized, membership was opened to the public. Today we have a strongly committed hui who assist me not only in keeping the members active in Hawaiian studies but keep me abreast of community events. Some of these personalities, namely Sherilyn Fukuji, Calvena Moe, Robyn Nishi, Dora Yamamura, Alyssa Malo, Kapiolani Chang, and Nalani Ke‘ale who began membership from the beginning of their elementary school years, are true volunteers keeping the aloha spirit alive by passing down their knowledge of the culture and art of Hawaiʻi. Together we’ve learned that a good kumu haumāna relationship is beneficial to the entire hui. Today they stand strong with the YMCA system working to keep the foundation of our volunteer group pa'a and moving in a positive direction. I know for certain: you get out of life whatever you put into it. The returns have always followed in far greater numbers. Money cannot buy experiences, opportunity or aloha. And for that we say “mahalo ke Akua no Hawaiʻi; lucky we live Hawaiʻi.” Collectively we are blessed not only with the most beautiful sand and sea but also the unique feeling of ‘ohana despite our various cultural differences. I like the words of Haunani Apoliona as she depicts the Hawaiian tradition in her song “‘Alu Like.” “E nānā aku i ke kumu, e ho‘olohe mai, e pa‘a ka waha, e hana me ka lima”* We do need to focus on taking a little more responsibility in keeping the Hawaiian language and culture alive and giving our community a better understanding of its origins. For our children’s sake, Hawaiʻi and all that it stands for needs to be forever, keep the tradition. *Lyrics from “‘Alu Like” 88 Carolee Nishi
Bill Ali‘iloa Lincoln In 1947 Bill Lincoln ran the largest and most influential hula studio in Hawaiʻi, employing such teachers as Ida Wong, Barbara Johnson, and Alice Keawekāne Garner. It wasn’t until I went to school for the first time that I began to speak English. The same was true for the Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Portuguese students who attended the country school called Pohakuloa. The Hawaiian students would talk to each other in Hawaiian and the other students would converse with each other in their mother tongue. One group would be able to talk to the other group in broken English and today it is called pidgin English or as a Hawaiian would say namu-pa‘i-ʻai. The teachers told us to forget our languages and just speak the English language. This seemed impossible at that time but today it is the spoken language. My father was a rancher and foreman on one of the ranches in Kohala and that’s where my whole family was born. I was the last of four boys so I had a better chance to further my education. I went on to finish high school and that’s where I became interested in music. In those days it seemed like music was the only acceptable outlet for the Hawaiian culture. I began to listen to records by people like Sol Ho‘opi‘i, Sam Ku, George Kainapau, and Madame Alapa‘i. And a man named James Asia started to put on Hawaiian tableaus in Kohala that I thought were terrific. He started to give me singing parts in his tableaus and that’s when I first got interested in the hula. When I graduated from high school in 1931 I had decided to become a teacher. When I turned twenty I came to Honolulu but I didn’t have the money to get a degree so I started playing music' with Sam Alama and Johnny Almeida for five dollars a night. I met a man named Clarence Kinney who also produced Hawaiian tableaus and I began to appear regularly in his shows as the “Prince” opposite a lovely girl named Dorothy Dudoit. I was living in Waikīkī back then and some friends told me to open up a hula studio. I was working at Fort Shafter so I quit and took their advice since there was only the Betty Lei Studio in Waikīkī. I never studied under any teacher formally. I just watched and learned. As an entertainer I became associated with some of the foremost hula teachers of my time. In the course of my musical career, I learned informally under Papa Bray, Manuel Silva, ‘Iolani Luahine, Sally Wood Nālua‘i, Lokalia Montgomery, Henry Pa, Alice Keawekāne Garner, Katie Kapaona, Emily Zuttermeister, and Mary Kawena Pūku‘i. Eventually I opened a hula studio and hired teachers to conduct hula classes. After awhile they would go off on their own and I began to step in and take over some of the teaching duties. When I taught I tried to combine the motions of Mā‘iki Aiu, Rose Joshua, and Alice Keawekāne Garner into one style. In my day there were things you could do and you couldn’t do. The style was to dance very sedately with very little flair. Only five or ten dancers would dance at a time and they would be accompanied by drumming that did not overpower the dancers. But who of us can prove that this was the style of dance of our ancestors? Creativity and change has always been a part of kahiko. In Kohala we were never allowed to use shell, plastic, or store- bought leis but when I came to Honolulu in 1931 found that’s all anybody used. The dancing of today is very physical and that’s because of the influence of television and other Polynesian dances. But there is nothing that has been kept in books or in the Archives that proves kahiko was danced a certain way. All we have are pictures of dancers in poses. I think the most important thing was that I knew my Hawaiian and I am grateful to my ‘ohana for that. Some people get lost because they don’t know the language. But it’s hard for the young people to learn Hawaiian because it’s a foreign language today. From birth you live and speak one language and it’s hard to take on another.
Beverly Healani Sun Lan Apana Muraoka
Nā Kumu Hula Beverly Healani Sun Lan Apana Muraoka - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 83
Beverly Muraoka, sister of kumu hula Lovey Apana, has been teaching hula on Kaua‘i since 1988 and is the founder of Healani's Hula Hālau & Music Academy. My father bought a fifteen - dollar guitar from Sears and that is how we started to learn how to play and sing. I played music with people like Aunty Genoa Keawe, Uncle Benny Bogers, Victor and Ku‘ulei Pūnua, and Uncle Joseph Kahaulelio. I also played with Peter Ahia and Uncle Val Kepelino. Everybody expected die Apana Sisters to dance and play music. Kutchie Kuhns was a Polynesian entertainer who came to live on Kauaʻi. She asked my mother if my sister Lovey and I could learn hula from her. I was nine-years-old at the time and we probably would never have started otherwise. Aunty was known for her comedy. She was a feisty hula teacher who loved fast comical numbers. The first dances we learned were “Hula Lōlō,” “Tūtū E,” and “Princess Pupule.” In 1961 Aunty left Kaua‘i because she wasn’t feeling well. So we joined the Kapa‘a Mormon Choir where we learned hula and singing under Jane Kina Goo, Inoa Aniu, Puanani Smith, and Germina Quereto. Through them I learned to dance the slower dances that I m known for. Not bragging but in my time I have been known to be the smoothest, slowest dancer. Moving to Honolulu I learned from Aunty Sally Wood Naluaʻi who was the Hawaiian instructor at the Church College of Hawaiʻi. In the meantime I also became involved in singing and dancing with Aunty Genoa Keawe. She gave me more instructions and I consider her my mentor. Returning home people asked me to teach but I was working for the government and couldn’t do both. Also Lovey owned a hālau and I didn’t think it was right for two sisters on the same island to compete. Later Lovey became ill and asked for my assistance. When she totally left the hula, people were still asking me to teach so I consented. I left the government and embraced the hula. Hula has made me blossom and become more humble. It has taught me to endure hardships but has also given me many blessings. My hālau is small compared to others but I love each student very much. My husband helps me create designs and is our manager. To me the hula that I see today is kind of mixed tip. It can be confusing. You are not too sure if the dancers are dancing anciently but dressed modern or dancing a modernized kahiko. When we were growing up, we were told to use only greens and to keep our costumes simple. Today you see baby’s breath and other modern flowers intertwined in the kupe‘e. Nānā I Nā Loea Hula 83
Bella Richards The late Bella Richards, a respected hula resource, taught hula for over forty years. Born on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, she later founded the Bella Richards' Hula Studio in Kailua, O‘ahu. I went through ‘ūniki exercises with Bella Kuamoʻo of Keaukaha. It was just a presentation. I graduated as a dancer, not a kumu. I studied with Bella for three years. We went to her house because in those times there was no such thing as a hālau. Hālau was not a freely-used word like it is today. It meant a very choice group of people. In a real hālau the students had to live with the kumu, eat and sleep with the kumu. I believe only those people can call themselves students of a hālau. My first teacher in the hula was my mother and she has been my most important influence because she was family. Her kumu was Elizabeth Beamer and I was taught piano and Hawaiian bass along with the dance. When I turned eight my father passed away and my mother said nobody must mourn. She packed us all up and sent us to Bella Kuamoʻo. Bella taught us the ten basic ‘ōlapa steps but she gave us no instruction in chanting. After several years of in-depth study with Bella, I was graduated as a dancer. Then I was sent to Mary Fujii, the mother of Edith Kanaka‘ole, who I studied under for the next two years. I learned a lot from Mrs. Fujii because her style of teaching was very strict. We would sit on the floor and the kumu would stand on our legs. Then we would stand in the doorway with our hands outstretched and ‘ami to the floor then back up. This was all to make our bodies flexible enough to dance the way our kumu expected us to dance. In those days you could not question the kumu. You just had to do what you were told. You had to listen to every word and watch every motion because when it came time to dance the kumu gave you little if any help. I began to teach in Hilo with my mother in 1935. What I remember about teaching was that the Hawaiian people I taught never took notes or wrote anything down. In my time we were trained to remember everything but today’s Hawaiians try to imitate that tradition without the disciplined training that we were given. My forte in teaching is the ‘auwana and to tell you the truth I wasn’t a very good dancer even though I had a good memory. I see myself in all my students and I tell them to concentrate on themselves. There is no future in trying to keep up with the “Jones’s”. I train my kids hard but I read once where Mikhail Baryshnikov practices seventeen hours a day and it gives me faith in my kumu. I am a contemporary kumu and I watch all the dance programs on PBS (Public Broadcasting System) and I put any ideas I get into my hula ‘auwana. But when I was young we were taught that the ‘ōlapa must be left as it was passed down. Today all the motions in the ‘ōlapa are created and I’m not saying this is right or wrong but it is not the ‘ōlapa that was performed by my kumu hula during my time. As a result I cannot judge the contemporary groups today because what I consider important in ‘olapa is not considered important anymore. I feel the ‘ōlapa that I knew is going down the drain. The kumu of today don’t know the language or the culture so they have created an entirely new dance to fit their needs.
April Pualani Peeples Chock
April Pualani Peeples Chock - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 31
April Chock is currently teaching for the Kaimukī Adult Education Program and the Queen Liliʻuokalani Children’s Center in Honolulu. In 1957 I began taking hula lessons from the late Māʻiki Aiu Lake who had her studio on Ke‘eaumoku Street. Besides the hula, she also taught us other things like how to haku lei and how to wrap a kīkepa in many different ways. We had the best years with Aunty Mā‘iki because she always had time for us. In 1958 I started performing at the Lau Yee Chai Restaurant during the weekends and at the Halekūlani Hotel once a month with Aunty Mā‘iki. I danced at the Queen’s Surf with Terii Rua, at the Hilton Hawaiian Village with Danny Kaleikini and at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel for special events. I worked in Nara, Japan at Dreamland and sang with Ed Kenney in the Tapa Room in Waikīkī. When I wasn’t performing, I was studying with Māʻiki at the studio to puka. But I left when I got married and had children. If you can’t concentrate, you can’t study. I was sad to leave Mā‘iki but she always told us that family conies first. I would go in to help her but not as much as I did before. I was there if she needed me but it wasn't like I was going in every day and opening up the studio. I taught for Mā‘iki in her hālau whenever she traveled to do shows. When I had my second child in 1965, I asked her if I could teach some friends of mine who wanted to learn hula for their wedding. From those four friends my studio grew in number. In 1982 I knew I had to learn more and go deeper into the knowledge so I went to Kamamalu Klein to finish up. On August 18, 1985 I puka with Kamāmalu Klein in Kāne‘ohe. What we receive from our teachers is the kīhei. That is our certificate, not a piece of paper. The ceremony shows what we accomplished throughout the years. We made our own pahu, ipu heke, and ulī ʻulī for these are crafts that teachers should know and be able to explain. It’s a review of all we learned but we keep going to classes because we really don’t stop learning. After I puka, I changed my hula studio name to Hālau ʻo Apelila. In 1992 Kamāmalu gave me another name for my hālau which I use as a signature, “Uluwehikalikolehuaikauanoe.” Her thought was that any student leaving my hālau would flourish and any student in my hālau would have the knowledge of Hawai‘i and would keep it as heritage. Nānā I Na Loea Hula 31
Alicia Keolahou Keawekāne Smith
Alicia Keolahou Keawekane Smith Alicia Smith in collaboration with Mae Loebenstein, founded the Halau O Nā Maoli Pua located in Kalihi, O‘ahu. I go back to my na kupuna of the Kuni‘ohana of Waialua, O‘ahu, who were well-known at that time for their beautiful pageants and tableaus. Here I was born and as the saying goes, “I learned to dance before I could walk.” I grew up in the ‘ohana style of observing and learning quietly so everything would sink deep into the na‘au. I was taught not to be nīele or maha‘oi but to minamina and cherish the sense of values that was being passed on to me. I am the adopted daughter of Amos and Alice Kuni Keawekāne Garner whose father was the Reverend Joseph Kuni. Grandpa Kuni taught the ‘ohana to sing and dance and they traveled from island to island raising funds for the church. This was the start of mom’s hula and entertaining career. Singing and dancing was a means of livelihood for our family. Mom gave me the basic introduction and interest in the hula. My mom played music with Aunty Mae (Loebenstein) and Aunty Lena (Guerrero) and I became a dancer for Aunty Lena’s hula troupe. This was during World War II. We danced for the USO (United Service Organization), entertained at private parties, and performed at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. At the age of fifteen, I was hired as a hula instructor at the YWCA (Young Women’s Christian Association) in Honolulu. Here I taught modern hula for twenty years until I resigned to open my own hula school called the Alicia Smith’s School of Polynesian Dancing. I taught almost every kind of Polynesian dancing there is. This continued for three years and at the end of this period I experienced a deep desire to improve my knowledge of my own Hawaiian culture. I searched for help in learning the old way of hula. It was then that I turned to Aunty Mae for help and I have learned a stronger discipline and spiritual guidance with her teaching. Together we started grooming seven little girls, the nā maoli pua, the real true flowers, and this in time blossomed into Halau O Nā Maoli Pua.
Alice Ku‘uleialohapoina‘ole Kanakaoluna Nāmakelua
Alice Ku‘uleialohapoina‘ole Kanakaoluna Nāmakelua Alice Nāmakelua, long recognized as the first lady of the Hawaiian slack-key guitar, retired in 1969 after teaching hula in the Honolulu City and County Department of Parks and Recreation for twenty-four years. I, Alice Ku‘uleialohapoina‘ole Kanakaoluna, the widow of the late Solomon Nāmakelua Nāhulanui of the island of Hawai‘i, was born on August 12, 1892. I grew up among the men who had survived the battles of Kamehameha to bring the islands under one ruler and some of these survivors were related to my parents and great-grandparents. Some of these men while relaxing would sing and reminisce about their life on the battlefield. These men had documented what they had gone through by putting their experiences into chants and these menfolks were the early dancers in the community. The men would hum a little tune and chant the stories of the battles. The only stringed instrument I saw used was the ‘ūkēkē. There was no such thing as a hālau in our community but one of my family who was pretty good at chanting started teaching a few of us little children to do a few simple dances. We lived in a lumber house near the bottom of Maunakea mountain faraway from any big town or city, so my companions were the birds by day and the kāhuli in the evenings. My parents were not entertainers but they sang for themselves and family gatherings. Our family had prayer services in the mornings and evenings and that’s when I learned to sing. In 1899 I moved to Kihalani above Laupāhoehoe where I was trained briefly by my uncle Joseph ʻĪlālā‘ole, in the hula. In 1901 I came to Honolulu and at the age of nine I was trained by my uncles. Back then there was no such thing as a studio and hula teachers were predominantly men. It wasn’t until after the arrival of the missionaries that women were allowed to dance hula so it was very hard for me to be trained in the hula outside my family. Through church socials down in Kaka‘ako I met Keahi Luahine and I went on to train under her. At the age of sixteen I was trained by my last hula instructor David Kaho‘aleawai Kaluhiakalani who served as a chanter for Prince Kūhiō. He advised me not to teach the ancient hula if I should venture out to teach. This is the reason why I’ve never taught the traditional hula. He warned me that if I forgot a single foot movement, hand motion, or word of a chant, I would be breaking a kapu and either myself or my student would physically suffer for it. In 1908 I was married against my wishes to a boy who was very jealous so I wasn’t permitted to do any dancing or singing for the next twelve years. But in 1945 I was offered a job with the Department of Parks and Recreation to teach hula ipu and I ended up retiring twenty-four years later in 1969. I basically taught ‘auana and I asked all my students what my uncles had asked me when I began. Did they want to become an instructor, an entertainer, or did they just want to do it for fun? I taught them the mele, then the translation of the mele, and then I trained them on cowboy handkerchiefs. If you can dance on a cowboy handkerchief you can call yourself a dancer. You must be able to perform everything on that space. I was taught by my uncles that the ‘uwehe step that is danced outward today should always be danced upward, and that turning your back on the audience is rude and impolite. Some of my students have seen variations of these traditional rules but if you want to learn from me you have to forget what you already have seen in your mind and eyes. If you cannot, then I cannot teach you. In 1905 at the age of thirteen I started to serve the last ruler of Hawai'i, the Queen Liliʻuokalani, and today I am ninety-two-years- old so it’s difficult for myself and other elderly people to understand this new hula of today. The majority of the hula that the present generation looks upon as ancient was created during the reign of King David Kalākaua. As we lost Hawaiʻi, we lost a great amount of our songs and dances and chants, and we are continuing to lose it. Today it seems we are losing almost everything Hawaiian about our culture; our language, our dress, our religion, and now our arts. I don’t consider what is being done today as Hawaiian hula. There is not much remaining that people my age enjoy and recognize. It is only exercising. It exists today only to keep modern audiences happy. I don’t see the hula being Hawaiian in the years to come. The people of Hawai‘i don’t know the Hawaiian language so there is no stability. I don’t want to offend any hula instructor because they have a right to create but there is no one around to keep them in line today. They are on their own. There are no boundaries or definitions anymore. You make the cake the way you want, I make the cake the way I want.
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.
Nā Kumu Hula Al Makahinu Barcarse - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 17
Al Makahinu Barearse Al Barearse has realized his dream of building a Hawaiian village on the grounds of the Samuel Wilder King Intermediate School where he is employed as a Hawaiian Studies teacher. I was born and raised in Waimea, Kaua‘i and attended Waimea High School. Hula was taught to us in the sixth grade as part of the school curriculum. My actual formal training began in 1951 with Leolani Rivera, Larry Riveraʻs sister. She taught hula kahiko, ‘auana, Maori, and Tahitian dance and in 1957 I received my kumu hula certificate from her. After graduating from high school I attended tin; Church College of Hawaiʻi and continued my hula training under Christina Nauahi, a kumu hula in Lāʻie who also taught a lot of Maori dances. While attending the Church College I formed a group and taught them hula. We first performed at school functions and then for the hukilau at Lā‘ie Bay. Our group became a regular special guest for John Piʻilani Watkins’ show at the Club Aloha. Then in 1959 we started performing at Don the Beachcomber Show, our first professional gig. In 1959 Rose Joshua contacted me because she wanted to learn Maori. I taught Maori at her studio and she in turn taught me hula. I took formal lessons from her for two years and then informally for five more years. Whenever she needed me, she would call. Besides dancing and teaching Maori. I also chanted for her. Both George Holokai and Henry Pa were affiliated with Rose Joshua and as a result I learned some chants and dances from them as well. In 1963 Jack Regas hired me as his assistant choreographer for the Polynesian Cultural Center. Aunty Sally Wood was in charge of the Hawaiian section so I studied under her for two years. Because Aunty Sally and Grandma Rose Joshua were hula sisters, their styles were basically the same. I got involved with teaching school kids when I was at Kalani High School. I was student teaching and I organized a group call the “Na Makahinu to do shows at the Outrigger Canoe Club, Sea Life Park, Hilton Hawaiian Village, and Hula Hut. As a group we toured Japan, I long Kong, Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, and Tahiti. My sons, who also took hula from me, talked me into entering the Merrie Monarch Festival when I was teaching at Kaimukī High School. The first year we entered, we took a group consisting of football players and cheerleaders. After Kaimukī I went to Moloka‘i as a district resource teacher of Hawaiian Studies for a year and returned to Oʻahu and taught at Mililani High School, Castle High School, and am now presently at King Intermediate. I have entered the students in the Merrie Monarch Festival from all of the schools that I’ve taught at. Besides teaching Hawaiian language and Pacific Islands Studies al King Intermediate School, I teach hula during the first semester and other Polynesian dances the second semester. One of our regular community service projects is to perform at five different care homes during Christmas and Easter. I feel it is important for the students to perform for our senior citizens. A lot of my students come from broken homes and feel that they have no purpose in life. When they see the audience enjoy their performance, they know that they’ve done something worthwhile and feel good about themselves. The name of my hālau Ka Ua Kilihune means, “the life giving rain. It rains all the time in the mountains and it keeps the mountains green and alive. I relate to this rain because I have devoted my life to keeping Hawai'i alive by teaching hula to the children. One of my mottos is, “It matters not what happens to you, but rather what happens to them if you do not get involved.” Uncle George Nāʻope had the greatest influence on my hula career. When I decided to give up hula, he was the person who encouraged me to continue. He helped me on my way and became my mentor and my teacher. The things that I’ve learned from my kumu hula I try not to change. Keeping the dance intact is sacred as far as I’m concerned. I will create motions for other chants but I think I am basically influenced by what I’ve learned from my kumu hula. At one time in our history nothing was written down. There was no written language and everything had to be memorized. Dancing the hula to all of the ancient chants has made those things become real. The easiest way to memorize our history is by doing it through the hula. Hula keeps our history and our people alive, and without it one cannot truly identify oneself as being Hawaiian. “Uncle George Nāʻope had the greatest influence on my hula career. When I decided to give up hula, he was the person who encouraged me to continue.”
Agnes Kalaniho‘okaha Cope and Kamaki Kanahele
Nā Kumu Hula Agnes Kalaniho‘okaha Cope and Kamaki Kanahele - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 1 Page 39
Agnes Kalaniho‘okaha Cope Agnes Cope is the executive director and founder of the Waianae Coast Culture and Arts Society. My background in the hula started more than fifty years ago with Tūtū Keaka Kanahele. She was the grandmother of Eleanor Hiram Hoke and she was a hula master of the ’30s. Tūtū Keaka was our neighbor in Kalihi for many years, so it was easy for me to go through the backfence twice-a-week and attend practice. I started with the kahiko and in those days we had to put our hands up against the wall, bend our knees, and go down to the floor until the back of our heads touched the ground. Then Tūtū Keaka would have us rise to our feet and repeat the motion until she was satisfied. It was the old way of training as far as I know of. I practiced with Tūtū Keaka for many years in Kalihi on Mokauea Street and then she moved to King Street where my classes continued every Saturday for four hours. My training lasted fifteen years and it wasn’t until 1969 that I went to another kumu. I must pay tribute to my mother Sarah Kalaniho‘okaha Haku‘ole Mengler and my father Henry T. Mengler who permitted me to attend hula classes and gave me the support and encouragement that I needed at that time. In 1969, the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts asked ‘Iolani Luahine and Lokalia Montgomery to select someone to leave their knowledge to. Everyone knew there was Hoakalei Kamau‘u to step into Aunty ‘Io’s place but there was no one for Lokalia. At a conference in Kona at the Hale Hālāwai, Lokalia asked fifteen of us to her home for lunch. At her home she announced that I was the one she had chosen. I told her she had to make another choice because I had other obligations. She pounded the table and said if I was not going to accept, she would take her knowledge with her. So I stayed in Kona for one year, coming home every other week to work and be with my family. My training with her lasted from dawn to dusk, six days a week. If I was on the fourteenth verse of a fifteen-verse chant and made a mistake, I would have to go back and start all over again from the first verse. During my training Lokalia prepared all my meals and did everything for me. If I wanted even a glass of water, Lokalia would serve it to me. All that was asked of me was to train and concentrate. She left with me many chants that have not been heard of. There came a time when the arthritis in my legs began to bother me and I couldn’t bend or rise. At that point my son Kamaki took my place and continued on with her. There is nothing that can compare with the hula lessons that I received from these two great masters. I would like to pay tribute to Tūtū Keaka and Tūtū Lokalia for their efforts, support, and the opportunity they presented me to study the hula under their guidance. Kamaki Kanahele Kamaki Kanahele, son of Mrs. Agnes K. Cope, is currently the administrator of the National Endowment for the Arts, Education Program, in Washington, D.C. I didn’t realize I was interested in the hula because I was already doing it as a part of my everyday life. To me it was normal. My mother and grandparents were my first teachers and we were raised to move, sit right, stand right, and speak correctly. To understand these things is an important part of life. We not only learned basic movements but with it came the use of herbs for healing purposes. This also became a natural learning experience. We were taught the importance of healing the body then developing it. Gathering herbs, chanting its purposes and processes of cleansing and healing, and thanking ke akua, always thanking ke akua. The healing was called lā‘au lapa‘au, lā‘au kahea, ho‘oponopono, lomilomi, and more. The developing was called oilioli, hākōkō, na pa’alula, running, swimming, short-long breathing techniques, concentrating on the na‘au, and many more. Our other games were imitating animals of the land, sea, and sky, and always talking to and thanking ke akua. We learned by watching and repeating. Sometimes doing it daily or only in the mornings. As children we practiced our healing lessons on our dogs. They were very good patients and because we loved them the healing lessons were very wonderful. My grandparents also taught me the closed art of ‘anā‘anā. Our responsibility was to nail the army blankets to the windows to block out the windows. My tūtū said that this lesson was not to be spoken of. We would let he or a visiting kahuna do his work and we just had to watch and learn. All Tūtū said was that this was a necessary part of life. We were always taught with strict observance the protocol of this very ancient art form. In sickness we healed ourselves. For somethings you can heal and cleanse, for others we must return to the teacher or suffer from kāpulu work. We never realized what we had learned or been given until we were adults. Like all children we just wanted to play. Our lessons were our games. In 1963 I went to the Church College of Hawai’i and worked under Aunty Sally Wood Nālua’i and also learned from Aunty Emma Paishon. In that time I worked under the tutorage of George Nā‘ope also. Finally I came to Grandma Lokalia Montgomery. She finished my formal training in the hula kahiko. She told me that I would be her last formally trained student. My family had taught me that the feeling for hula should come from within you, Grandma Lokalia took the feelings of hula and formalized it. She put it into a specific class. It was then that I came to realize that all the things that I had been taught belonged into separate categories under different standards and yet all of it was one in life. To know that each had its own mana‘o, formidable and controlled, Grandma had taken me and had gone over the entire structure of hula. Everything had its place. She was hard-nosed, no- nonsense, and stout. She would summon me at any time of the day or night. So out from Lā‘ie I would drive. I learned that the hula is not just merely getting up to dance or to perform. Instead everytime you stood to dance or sat to chant it was your responsibility to summarize life and hint at its happiness and sadness. Describe the good and the bad, make a beginning, and end it with pride. The dancer becomes an ali‘i, a god, a shark, or a dog. They can be beautiful or arrogant, handsome or ugly. You give the human being a glimpse of his time on earth with a repeat of these reminders each time he comes to the floor. My training took four years and became an image of my upbringing. Grandma gave me an ‘uniki that was personal and loving. For her, my mother, and for all things I thank ke akua. Before her death, Grandma gave me her collection of chants, tableaus, hula notes, compositions, and her love. Aloha ke akua. Our kumu were trained under the structure that was similar and yet distinct from island to island. It is the structure that we must identify and have as a foundation and preserve what has been handed down in hula kahiko. When that precedent is set then everything thereafter becomes ‘auwana. It is healthy for our youth to move beyond this foundation once set. For they have their time in life. They must experience the turtle, the shark, healing, and power. It is unhealthy to state that that structure is binding upon everyone and therefore limit creativity. It is and should be considered an ancestral seed by which to grow. Hula must always have its piko, its center of balance. It is a living energy and a beckoning force. There will always be controversy about what is proper or correct, but a demonstration of the unity of hula in our time can only solidify the remnants of what is left of a great heritage. I feel that the youth, the breath of our life, is giving to us the breath of our dignity. Our contributions then to them is to give what we have as a ho’okupu. It can only make their reach in life a little more comfortable.
Adeline Nani Maunupau Lee
Nā Kumu Hula Adeline Nani Maunupau Lee - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 1 Page 87
Adeline Lee has dedicated twenty-nine years as a Hawaiiana instructor for the Department of Parks and Recreation, City and County of Honolulu. She currently resides in Kapahulu, O‘ahu. The best thing about my life today is that I am able to pass on my knowledge to an alaka‘i. The knowledge and tradition of the culture was given to me only to give out. How will people learn about and respect the culture if no one tells them about it? The responsibility of the kumu hula becomes then to choose someone who will be faithful to what is being passed down. I come from a family of eleven and we were all taught to sing and play instruments from childhood. My father Thomas Kananiokeaupunimālamalama Maunupau and my mother Eunice Keolamauloakamō‘i- wahineokamālamalama Molaka Maunupau taught us that you can be raised in a Western world but still remain a Hawaiian. We were all sent to Catholic private schools where we were told never to speak Hawaiian but when we arrived home the language was spoken fluently and constantly. My first kumu was my aunt Mrs. Baker. Family members would come and share with us any knowledge and training they had. I was trained at a very young age and we were taught to sing the Hawaiian mele by memory with the correct enunciation and pronunciation. In 1950 I joined the Department of Parks and Recreation and this was how I began to teach the hula. There was a required hula course that all the instructors had to attend and this was how I was able to learn under some of the great kumu hula of our culture. Nona Beamer taught us dances aimed specifically for children and more than that she showed us the joy of children and childhood. Tom Hiona taught us the names and styles of the different drum beats, and we were trained by Alice Keawekāne Garner in the comic side of the hula. Because we had to teach all ages of students, Aunty Mary Kawena Pūku‘i taught us a wide variety of traditional hula that was suitable for children and adults. In addition we were trained in hula ‘auwana and Hawaiian music by Aunty Lena Machado and John K. Almeida. Ten of us would go into these workshops and when we came out we would teach the same hula but it would be infused with our own personalities. Basically what I see being done today in hula kahiko is the same thing that was done in my time. Today s hula is very bombastic. Creative, individual personalities have always brought out the different aspects of the hula but they have never changed the hula. The hula is too vast for that. There are one hundred different steps to the traditional hula but the most you can use in one hula is six. What I see today is a revival of what was done before. The young people love their culture so much they want to bring it out. The teaching is so condensed today that in two hours a haumana must learn the chant, the step, the beat, and then the performance. In the end the students only want to learn the dance and not the entire preparation or performance of the hula. I credit my father for giving me my background in the Hawaiian culture but when I was growing up I didn’t appreciate that kind of discipline in my life. I used to wish he would just let us run free. Today I am so grateful for the direction he gave me.