Edward William Collier Jr.
subject: Nā Kumu Hula Edward William Collier Jr.
description: Currently a (lance teacher at ‘Iolani School, Edward William Collier, Jr. has been teaching hula for over thirty years and is the kumu hula of Hdlau 0 Nd Pua Kukui located in Kalihi. When I first started to teach hula, my halau was known as Ed Collier's Dancers. As time went on however we wanted to use the word “halau in our name. One day the name Hdlau 0 Nd Pua Kukui came to me. I was dancing with Kawai Cockett and the Lei Kukui Dancers in the late Sixties and early Seventies. So l asked Kawai if it was alright to use this name. I used the word “pua” instead of “lei” because as the “pua,” we re still growing and learning about hula. Also the kukui is symbolic and the Hawaiians used it for their food, medicine, dyes, and mainly for light. I felt this was an appropriate name for my halau. I first learned hula when I was about twenty-years-old. Instead of being a dancer first then studying to become a teacher, it was the complete opposite with me. I was a teacher first. While involved with the St. John’s Church in Kalihi, I got kids who didn’t have anything to do and who had studied under different hula teachers to share with all of us. Because these kids loved to perform, we did shows at hospitals, old folks homes, and service clubs. My first students were also my teachers. They showed me the basic steps. I just had a love for the hula. Although 1 didn’t know how to dance, I was able to choreograph by watching my kids. But 1 wanted to learn ancient hula. I wasn’t trained formally and I didn’t really understand it. I used to watch somebody dance and copy it, thinking it was alright. I later found out what I was doing was wrong. The person I consider my first and only teacher is Henry Pa. He was teaching at the Magic Hula Studio where he and Aunty Bose Joshua shared (lie studio. 1 stayed with him for about four years. Uncle Henry Pa set me straight . He told me that hula is your own creativity. You have to create your own dance. You cannot use somebody else’s hula. Unc…

Mae Ulalia Loebenstein
subject: Nā Kumu Hula Mae Ulalia Loebenstein text from Nānā I Na Loea Hula Vol One Page 94
description: Mae Loebenstein is the daughter of the late Ida Long of Kahului, Maui and currently works in collaboration with Alicia Smith of Halau 0 Na Maoli Pua. The hula, as I was growing up in the home of my parents Henry and Ida Long of Kahului, Maui, was a vital, living experience. Mama, born Ida Pakulani Kaaihue, studied with the hula master Kamawae of Maui. She lived in the halau and was trained in the art of kuahu and hula ‘olapa. As our first kumu hula, Mama shared the knowledge of her halau life with us. This knowledge is a living reality based on a vast experience of learning and sharing. Everyday we were taught a little bit about the dance — kaholo to get a sense of rhythm and beat or how to use the implements. We learned kahiko first and then ‘auwana. We would dance in the afternoon after all our chores were done. It was our recreation time. My mother would take us to the mountains to learn which ferns were used for dancing or to the ocean to learn which seaweed was used for healing or for eating. The most precious gift my mother gave me through hula was a sense of discipline. Discipline develops assurance and confidence. Mama taught us hula as a way to know our culture and heritage rather than for entertaining. I came to 0‘ahu to attend St. Andrews Priory, and in those days the only way to travel between islands was by ship. That’s an experience that today’s children have missed. After high school I became a musician and met Lena Guerrero. Eventually, we joined Daddy and Mama Bray who were performing at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. Once a week, the Brays would have a lu‘au at their home in Pu‘unui for the tourists and we would provide the entertainment. Mama Bray had an aura of mysticism about her and as our teacher in the hula, she helped to develop a natural fashion sense in hula costuming and it’s overall effect on the dance. So me of my fondest memories are of the years I spent as an entertainer at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel. That was an era of elegance and gentilit…

Olana Ai
description: OlanaAi is the daughter of hula teacher Blossom Clark Kaipo and has taught hula on 0‘ahu for the last eight years. It’s very exciting to be living during an era of renaissance in Hawai‘i. A time not only of rebirth for the old arts and culture but also a time of new growth and development in these areas. Finally the Hawaiians are dancing for themselves. Not just for the gods, not just for the ali‘i, not just for the tourists but finally for themselves. My mother Blossom Clark Kaipo is my kumu and she is the source, the teacher, and the inspiration for all that evolves in our halau. When I was growing up, our home was a stopover place for strangers as long as I can remember. Strangers were welcome and they would return again and again. My mother taught hula so there were hula skirts on the walls, and music and the implements surrounded us. She never prodded my sister and I to dance but once we showed the interest she began to train us. I began with my mother at age three and I continue to study under her today. I was taught the chants, traditional Hawaiian mele, and hapa Haole songs but there was no definite division between kahiko and ‘auana back then. In class my mother taught the basic steps the way she had been taught by her mother. Our knees were bent, our steps were precise, and our shoulders were steady; and this helped to make the swaying of our hips more natural-looking. I did not go on to another teacher after my mother because I felt it would be disloyal. In 1975 my daughter Natalie Noelani was in kindergarten and I wanted her to learn the hula style of my family, so I gathered together a few girls who were interested and I began to teach. I’ve never thought of myself as a kumu hula but a hula teacher. I’ve gone very, very slowly and I’ve kept my goals small because I wanted to fit my family into my life. Today we are all involved. My husband Howard Ai is the halau musician, advisor, and artistic designer; and my children participate in the halau as techni…

Lilinoe Lindsey
subject: Nā Kumu Hula Lilinoe Lindsey text from Nānā I Na Loea Hula Vol Two Page 66
description: Lilinoe Lindsey is the niece of kumu hula Joan Lindsey and currently teaches hula at the Manana Elementary School in Pearl City, 0‘ahu. It was an unspoken law in our family that all the girls went to dance for Aunty. Our families realized the opportunity there was for us by learning hula and hopefully, teaching. So at parties and functions all of the cousins knew how to dance. Aunty Joan Lindsey has been my kumu hula from the age of five- years-old. 1 have been with her all these years and we continue to have a close relationship. We actually teach at the same school with our classes running simultaneously. She is my mentor and we are an ‘ohana- type of halau. Aunty Joan taught me to dance hula at my grandfather’s home where we both lived. Her classes were made up of aunties, cousins, neighbors, and friends. 1 went with her when she started to teach at ka Makua Mau Loa Church in Kalihi and at St. Elizabeth Church in Pearl City. She taught there until I was about twelve-years-old. Then I helped her teach when she opened a halau in ‘Aiea and in Moanalua Shopping Center. So as I grew up, I was always with Aunty Joan. Since she didn’t have children until a few years later, I was pretty much considered her daughter. I was twenty-one when we had an ‘uniki at the Neal Blaisdell Center. We all had to do our kahiko and our "a liana as part of the ‘uniki ritual. Each class had to make their skirts differently and all who ‘uniki were required to have taken hula for at least ten years. As a teenager growing up in the Sixties, every weekend was spent dancing. We would dance on Friday nights, and on Saturdays after hula classes do three shows in the evenings. We went from one church to the next, from one side of the island to the other side. We danced in Waikiki at the Halekulani, Princess Ka'iulani, and Moana Hotels. We did “Hawai‘i Calls” and performed at the International Market Place. This went on for about seven years. You never realize how much you have learned and gained f…

George Lanakilakekiahiali'i Na'ope
subject: George Lanakilakekiahiali'i Na'ope text from Nānā I Na Loea Hula Vol One Page 112
description: 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. T…

Robert Uluwehionapuāikawēkiuokalani Cazimero
description: Robert Uluwehionapuāikawēkiuokalani Cazimero, widely regarded as a major influence in the rebirth of male hula in the 1970s, is kumu hula for Halau Na Kamalei. In terms of the hula I feel I have shaken this state up. I have opened their eyes, I have kicked them in the pants but you know what? I didn’t even know I was doing it. I was from a time in the Sixties where being Hawaiian was not important. It was more important to be American. You were trying to get through school so that you could work in Hawai‘i or maybe go away to school. The idea of hula was foreign. It was an embarrassment to want to do it for all of us. Men’s dancing was a novelty and I think to a point it still is today. Men just didn’t dance. Kaha‘i Topolinski started before me and I remember watching his boys and they were fabulous. Ed Collier was another one who had a male halau years before I even began to train. It took a lot of guts for a guy to get on stage back then. There was an immediate branding of being effeminate and so it was really hard. I’m glad that things have changed a little and I suppose on the surface it looks like it’s changed a lot but it really hasn’t. Nona Beamer was my first kumu and she was my first contact with the hula. I was a sophomore at Kamehameha, guys were just beginning to dance and I was amazed. When Nona was teaching at Kamehameha there was a kapu on dancing. No one was allowed to stand up and dance and Nona changed all that. With Nona we began to stand up and actually dance. In my senior year Nona had us choose a song and interview the author. I had chosen Kui Lee and my dear friend Puna Kalama had chosen “Aloha Kaua‘i,” a song written by Ma‘iki Aiu Lake. Puna got her aunt to come to the class and I think I fell in love with her immediately. She sang for us and I accompanied her on the piano and when she left she told me to come to her if I ever wanted to learn hula. It took me quite awhile to go to her but I started my training in 1968. The class was held one …

Pat Nāmaka Bacon
description: Patience Elmay Namakauahoaokawenaulaokalaniikiikikalaninui Wiggin Bacon Pat Bacon, born in Waimea, Kaua‘i, was adopted at birth in the hānai tradition of the Hawaiians by Mary Kawena Pūkuʻi Some of the people today would find the kahiko of my day dull because today’s kahiko is performed with much more vim and vigor. I think today’s ancient hula is aimed at the visitor because if you don’t understand the language, you won’t understand the kaona of the mele. The emphasis in the traditional hula was on the poetry of the language and you have to understand the language if you are going to appreciate the poetry. The changes in kahiko have come about because you have to keep the audience interested. I was thirteen when I studied with Keahi Luahine. Kawena’s grandmother had been a court dancer for Queen Emma so informally there were always aunties teaching us. My mother trained us in the dances handed down through the family but it was under Keahi that I began my formal training in the hula. Keahi taught us the pig dance, the hula ki‘i, the hula pahu, the kālaʻau with the papa hehi, and dances that were strictly from Kaua‘i. After a year I went on to Keahi’s cousin Kapua, who I trained under for another year. Kapua spoke very little and only showed us the dance once so we would have to absorb as much as we could. This was just before the war and we would go once a week and dance without a break from six p.m. to eight p.m. Back in those days you didn’t question the kumu, instead they questioned you. It was an era where children were seen and not heard. At eight o’clock the siren atop Aloha Tower would sound signaling the curfew and we would pick up our things and hurry home. When I turned fifteen I trained under Joseph ʻĪlālāʻole with whom I stayed for the next three years. From Īlālāʻole I learned dances with a faster tempo and greater foot movement. In those days many of the teachers carried a long rod of bamboo and if you made a sloppy motion you got a little sting on yo…

Frank Kawaikapuokalani K. Hewett
subject: Frank Hewett, a faculty member of the Windward Community College, is the kumu hula of the Kuhai Halau O Kawaikapuokalani Pa ‘Olapa Kahiko
description: 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 becau…

Margaret Kilauano Aipoalani
description: Margaret Kilauano ʻAipōalani Margaret ʻAipōalani is an employee of Kekaha Elementary School and has taught hula on Kauaʻi for over twenty years. The one thing that my mother did for me was to teach the hula without any kapu. I think she knew my generation couldn't handle it and she didnʻt want me getting hurt. She realized that the hula kapu was of her time and she wanted to put it away. Kalalau was the original village where the Hawaiians first started out from. Some Hawaiians went out to Haena. Others came out of the village and ended up on this side of the island. I was born in Kekaha and became interested in the hula when I was a young girl at age eight. I received ʻōlapa training as well as ʻauwana. Kahiko is a new word for what I was taught to be ʻōlapa. I was trained by my mother Kawehiwa Kaholoiki who was taught by her father. Tūtū Kaholoiki was a hula instructor in Kalalau where the hula is believed to originate from. The people of this village were the source of much of our Hawaiian culture. When I was young I was not really interested in what my mother was passing down to me. She would concentrate on the paʻi and the oli of the mele, and then she would rise and dance as another woman would paʻi. Afterwards she would explain the manaʻo of the chant through stories that had been passed down to her through her father. Because of the rituals I did not ʻūniki, but I was asked by some high school kids to help them and that's how I began to teach. I try to teach my students that hula ʻōlapa is a tremendously strict form. The movement of your feet and body are within strict boundaries, and everything is dictated by the paʻi of the mele. To me ʻōlapa is the chants and dance motions handed down from generation to generation. I can't revise or modernize my definition. I'm set with it and I have to stay the way I am. The ʻōlapa of today is a beautiful, theatrical show and it's fantastic what's going on but I wouldn't like to see the ʻōlapa of the future.

Mililani Allen
description: Mililani Allen began her teaching career in 1973 with the founding of Hālau Hula O Mililani in Waianae, 0‘ahu. In the last ten years, the most significant change perpetuated upon the hula has been an increase of respect, scholarship, and interest. People have recognized it as a classical art expression of the Hawaiian culture. However, the style of dancing has changed because the greater emphasis today is on the dance itself rather than the language and poetry. I don’t look upon this as negative. There are so many of us that lack the fluency of the language and the understanding of the poetry. So the emphasis is now on the dance form rather than the verbiage of the mele. It is just another transition that has happened. Exposed to hula at the age of six by my mother, I began my formal training under Aunty Mā‘iki Aiu Lake at the age of eleven. The lessons continued for three years until I entered high school and then they were interrupted by piano lessons then college. It was during my college years that my appreciation for the hula was nurtured and revitalized. Realizing my lack of knowledge in the art form contributed to my learning process and eventually it brought me back into the hālau after graduation from college. I enrolled in Aunty Mā‘iki’s hula kahiko class and she emphasized the mechanics of the hula, the value of research, and written documentation of everything we learned. Her method to convey this knowledge of our culture was as much an oral presentation (“talk story”) as it was classroom-oriented. It was a positive reinforcement method and we were trained with succinctness. Aunty Mā‘iki would first write the chants on a chalkboard and she would chant it for us. We were instructed to repeat the chant then allowed to write it in our notebooks. She was very positive in her approach. This was the most distinctive aspect of her teaching style and she remains a great influence on me today. After my ‘ūniki with Aunty Mā‘iki, I studied with Aunty Edith Kanaka‘o…

Kawai Aona-Ueoka
subject: Nā Kumu Hula Kawai Aona-Ueoka - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 1 Page 14
description: Kawai Aona has served as kumu hula for the Queen Liliʻuokalani Childrenʻs Center since 1979. I was hānai by my Tūtū Mary C. Pua‘ala Aona from the time I was a baby. I knew basic Hawaiian words and phrases and some hula ‘auwana from my tūtū but to me it was nothing because Tūtū could speak Hawaiian fluently, and I’ve been told that she also taught hula kahiko. When I first went to the University of Hawai‘i, I was this tita from Nanakuli. I was dorming on campus and one day these two Japanese exchange students came up to me and asked, ‘Are you Hawaiian?’ I answered yes proudly and then they asked, ‘Can you do the hula or speak Hawaiian?’ I said no, and they gave me a funny expression and said, ‘You not Hawaiian then.’ I got very angry but I found the strength to control myself and went to my room to think. I came to the conclusion that they were right. I was born with Hawaiian blood and my tūtū had a wealth of knowledge but I never really understood it. The Hawaiian culture I knew was surface. Having the Hawaiian blood and doing things Hawaiian is not enough. You have to understand, and have a respect and feeling for the culture in a deeper sense. The kaona was the essence of all mele because our kupuna were not surface people. After that incident, I made it a point to learn more of the language and more of the hula. I was introduced to Aunty Mā‘iki Aiu Lake by some friends that were taking hula ‘auwana classes from her. It took about a year of taking ‘auwana classes before Aunty invited a few of us to enter her hula kahiko class. I studied with Aunty Mā‘iki for two and a half years and she made Hawaiian history come alive through the mele. Her requirement for research gave me an understanding of the many things my tūtū had said and done but didn’t know how to explain. I began to understand the depth of Hawaiian values and the importance of respecting all that it stood for. I graduated traditionally from Aunty Mā‘iki’s ‘Ilima class in 1975, and I went on to Aunty Edit…

Lovey Leina‘ala Yau Choy Apana
description: Lovey Leina‘āla Yau Choy Apana “Aunty Lovey” Apana began to teach on O‘ahu in 1963 and in 1970 opened her studio on Kaua‘i. As I reflect upon my growing- up years I was always involved in school programs that involved Hawaiiana whether it was the May Day program or commemorative honors for King Kamehameha. While still young I worked within the tourist industry and I traveled throughout the world. I entertained on the side but I still felt something missing in my life. There was an incomplete ingredient to “level” the bread of life and happiness. Thus I went to my tūtū lady for advice and discussed my future with her and she encouraged me to teach hula. She said I possessed the gift of laughter and patience and that I should continually teach children. She also said the hula was an integral part of our family many years back and that I had the responsibility to study hard and to try my best to perpetuate the art. I am very grateful to my late tūtū Caroline Apao and my mother Christine Apana who still inspire me today as I dance or teach the hula. I also look to other teachers who were and are part of my life in the Twentieth Century such as Tūtū Roberts, Aunty Kuchie Kuhns, Aunty Sally Wood Nalua‘i, and Aunty Hoakalei Kamau‘u among others. All of these people served as my resources in my Hawaiian studies. There have been tremendous changes in the hula but I cannot downgrade or resist these changes because the Hawai‘i of the past is not the Hawai‘i of today. We have no choice but to grow and adapt to this modern world. What makes me uneasy is that many people today seem to see the production of the dance and not the intrinsic value of the art and the traditions. If someone wants to create in the traditional hula they must use a composition written today in the traditional style and choreograph that. Today young people are going deep into certain facets of the culture and they wish to recreate and relive the ancestral ways of their forefathers. They must have the prope…

Roselle Keli‘ihonipua Bailey
description: Roselle Keli‘ihonipua Bailey Roselle Bailey is the founder of the hula hālau Ka‘Imi Na‘auao O Hawaii Nei and currently makes her home in Kaumakani, Kaua‘i. In 1971 I had just come back from living abroad. I was literally more Arab than Hawaiian. From head to toe I was really a foreigner, from my clothes, to my speech, to my gestures. While living in Iraq I would have dreams of home. I would dream of Hawaiian words and phrases half a world away. When I came home Aunty Edith Kanaka‘ole was the only one that said she would help me. When I got together with Aunty Edith, it was like coming back to my roots. I would go once a week to her home for chanting lessons. The lessons included much more than chanting. We did a lot of talking about ‘ohana, giving openly and not holding anything back. For that I give Aunty Edith a lot of credit. She had that kind of soul thinking and feeling. My first kumu was Aunty Emma Sharpe. When a person is four-years-old, he or she is never interested in the hula as a profession. I was just told to dance. From four years old to the fourth grade I thought of nothing but to be a good child and follow directions. Later, I started to teach my own peers in high school but I’ve never considered myself a kumu hula although others have called me that. To me an ‘ūniki means that you have graduated in the traditional ceremonies and you are qualified to go on to teach. I’ve never gone through a traditional ‘ūniki. I think the qualifications for a kumu are tremendous because you not only have to know the motions of the hula but you have to be able to interpret a mele, visually and vocally. A true kumu has to be a psychologist, psychoanalyst, historian, naturalist, priest, choreographer, nurse, sister, and mother. Today I base a great amount of my work upon the background of the twenty lessons that I received from Aunty Kau‘i Zuttermeister in 1974-75. It was what Aunty Edith taught me in 1971 that helped me understand and appreciate what Aunty Kau‘i stress…

Mrs. Louise L. Beamer
description: Mrs. Louise L. Beamer Louise Beamer is the daughter-in-law of Helen Desha Beamer and has taught the hula for forty-nine years. She currently resides on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi. I was born on January 22, 1907 in Honolulu and in 1923 at the age of sixteen I married into the Beamer family. My husband’s mother was Helen Desha Beamer and she lived in Hilo on the Big Island. Mother Beamer was a musician, a composer, a dancer, and she was my first kumu. She taught me everything. Mother Beamer always taught at her mothers home on Eighth Avenue in Kaimuki whenever she visited Honolulu. All the young ladies would come to learn and there would be thirty young women dancing in the living room. Now Mahi’s (Mahi Beamer) mother and I, the two daughters-in-law, would stand in the backline and that’s how I really got started. Mother Beamer had her own way of teaching. She didn’t do too much dancing for you or with you. She got up and showed you the dance one time. She taught ‘auwana the same way, she would sit at the piano and play it one time. You were allowed to watch the motions and listen to the words once, and then you were expected to get up and do it all. The hula that we were taught was simple and subtle. The subtler the better. Our knees were always drawn up rather than outward when we would ‘uwehe and the dance always projected the words of the chant. I went through the process of learning the hula kapu but because of the kapus associated with the dance, I’ve chosen never to teach it. Mama had a very beautiful way of teaching. She always told me, ‘You know Lou, you always have to be aware of how you are teaching. You always have to teach your students the way you would have wanted to be taught.’ What she meant was a teacher had to go down to the level of each student. I first began to teach at home in ‘Alewa Heights. We had a very long porch with a spectacular view of Pearl Harbor and that’s where I held my classes for five years. Sometimes I would teach a student someth…

Winona Beamer
description: Winona Beamer Nona Beamer is the daughter of Louise Beamer and is the mother of Keola and Kapono Beamer. She currently serves on the Native Hawaiian Study Commission and is a member of the faculty of the Kamehameha Schools. The house in Hilo is right on the banks of the Wailuku River. “Sweetheart Grandma” always had stalks of bamboo in the corners of the house and there was a gentle breeze, a nice flow of air always drifting through the house. I was mesmerized by the feeling of this breeze, how soothing it was as it mixed with the sounds of the river and the rustling of the bamboo. The hula for me was a family obligation. I’m not sure if I really liked it when I began. My earliest recollection of dancing was at the Volcano on the Big Island. It was cold and there was gravel on the ground and I was very upset with my grandmother for making me dance. My first kumu were my great-grandmother Isabella Desha and my grandmother Helen Desha Beamer whom we called “Sweetheart Grandma.” She was a great inspiration to me. She was always trying to train us to have the right feelings within ourselves so that we could experience the calmness that was all around us. When we walked into a room we had to walk as if our feet weren’t touching the mat. If she heard your feet scuffling the mat you would have to go out and come in again. Sometimes she would train us outside and the fragrance of the leaves and mangoes would be all around. There was a hallway in the house where my grandfather had collected war implements from all over the world, and as a little girl it would frighten me to go through that hall and into the room where we danced. My grandmother would give each of us a tī leaf and talk about faith and hope and love. She would tell us the chants of Laka and she would tell them as if Laka was right there. While she talked she would tell us to feel the shape and the texture of the leaves and to put them up to our faces and feel their smoothness. She would talk of the mist over th…

Tita Beamer Solomon
description: Tita Beamer Solomon Tita Solomon is the daughter of Louise Beamer and makes her home today in Kohala, Hawaiʻi. In our family, hula is a way of life. We have always been in the arts. My daughters Malama and Hulali represent the fifth generation. It has never been a question of choice but a commitment to our culture. My sister, Nona (Nona Beamer) and I spent every summer on the Big Island of Hawai‘i with our grandmother Helen Desha Beamer and we were brought up with music and hula. We thought every family played the ‘ukulele, sang, and danced. This was Grandmas philosophy for all of us and how we took it from there was our own kuleana. Everybody had to be trained in the fundamentals of dance and music, so while other children were outside playing, we were with the family practicing. For Mother and Grandmother, the Hawaiian language was their first language but for my generation it was more important to learn English. The hula encompasses everything in the Hawaiian culture and Grandmother realized that unless she got all of us involved with the Hawaiian arts we would lose the Hawaiianess in our lives. I began to dance at the age of two under Mother and Grandmother, and I was taught both kahiko and ‘auwana. When Grandmother would come to Honolulu, Nona and I would dance in the backline of her hula classes. Mother shared with us the quiet and the beauty of the art while Grandmother stressed discipline and perfection. The hula was something very special and we had to take care when we studied or danced it. I graduated from the Kamehameha Schools and enrolled at the College of the Pacific in California. A local YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) was putting together a Hawaiian cultural program and I was asked to teach. This was how I began. I taught easy Haole hula because I wanted them to enjoy the art and not be intimidated with the culture. You always have to keep in mind that we are taking the Hawaiian lifestyle and sharing it with keikis who are coming from all …

Ku'uleialoha Beckman
description: Ku‘uleialoha Beckman Kuʻulei Beckman is the niece of Aunty Alice Nāmakelua. She began her teaching career at the age of seventeen under the supervision of her family. I think the greatest hardship I had as a dancer was believing that at one time I would appreciate the knowledge that was being given to me. I started my training in the hula at four- years-old and it wasn’t until I became a teacher at the age of nineteen that I realized and appreciated all of what was taught to me. My advice to the young dancers is to be faithful and loyal to what has been taught to them. Be grateful that someone opened up and shared the knowledge with you. It’s only when you grow older that you appreciate the beauty of your own culture. I’m very grateful to have had three kumu hula who took precious time and effort in teaching me. My first kumu was my grandmother Emily Keko‘olani, and I studied under her for two years. My grandmother had trained under Pua Ha‘aheo and ‘Iolani Luahine so my classes were really in the style of the “old school”. Everything was very strict and very disciplined, and I wasn’t allowed to speak my mind. My mother Katherine Kahanohano Keko‘olani Dambley and my aunt Myra Kolani Chartrand, took over my training after my grandmother and I found them to be much more precise. My mother was taught by my grandmother so I was consistently trained to be attentive to the precise motions of my hands. The result is that the dancer looks like she knows and loves what she’s dancing about and the audience is drawn into the hula. The foremost kumu in my life was my mother and I began to teach at seventeen with her as my mentor. At nineteen I went out on my own because I felt I had been given so much knowledge and I wanted to pass on the knowledge to my own children before I began to lose it. I teach my students with less intensity than I believe my grandmother trained because today’s students don’t reside with their kumu. But I feel the best part of teaching is still and will …

Ho'oulu Cambra
description: 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 ha…

Wayne Wai Keahi Chang
description: Wayne Wai Keahi Chang In 1975 Wayne Chang and Robert Cazimero co-founded Hālau Nā Kamalei, one of several mens hālau that helped to revolutionize the popular notion of menʻs hula in the community. He is currently Director of Admissions at the Kamehameha Schools. My advice to the young dancers of today is stay with the dance. Don’t look for added rewards. Don’t look beyond the enjoyment of dance. The dance must be treated as art or else it becomes an endless circle of performances. If you are looking to use the hula only as a vehicle for greater reward you are making a mistake. You must be able to dance in a room with no one around and feel the force of hula. You shouldn’t need anybody to watch you. My first kumu was Aunty Nona Beamer who I first met in 1968 as a senior at Kamehameha Schools. From the start what Nona gave me was a joy for performing and dancing. I was raised on the Mainland until I was thirteen so I didn’t have a Hawaiian background to fall back on. I did not know the pronunciation and meanings of Hawaiian words so Nona was the perfect teacher for the level that I was at. I think if my introduction to the hula had been more accelerated I would have been intimidated by the culture. With Nona if you danced in time to the beat and you enjoyed yourself that was enough. It wasn’t important to be perfectly synchronized with the other dancers. If the audience enjoyed the dance and could see you enjoying yourself that’s what really mattered. I studied with Nona for a year and then in 1974 I began my training under Aunty Māʻiki Aiu Lake. The hālau at that time was located on Ke‘eaumoku Street and in Mā’iki’s school the hula was presented as a form of study and discipline which was something I had never encountered before. There was a sense of continuity that permeated Māʻiki’s teaching. She stressed that the traditional chants must be protected and perpetuated. She tempered this by encouraging us to create new mele and new choreography. My ‘ūniki was held in …

Rena Maile-Māhoe Apo Ching
description: Rena Maile-Māhoe Apo Ching Rena Ching began her training as a hula student on Maui and currently makes her home in Kahului. My first hula teachers were actually my family and I was pushed into it whether I liked it or not at the age of four. My grandmother Annie Kala‘au had come from Kona and she had been trained in ‘ōlapa. My aunty Helen Apo Hanu was taught by my grandmother and she was my first teacher. My first kumu outside the family was Alice Keawekane Garner. She would put on concerts at the county church and she was a member of the Mormon Church. Aunty Alice needed a place to teach so my mother offered her our home because we had a big lānai. She would teach and I would sit down and watch. I graduated from Aunty Alice in her home in a very modern ‘ūniki. When Aunty Alice left Maui I returned to study with my aunt Mrs. Helen Apo Hanu. Then I began to dance professionally for Eddie Tam, the late mayor of Maui. When I got married my husband refused to let me dance professionally so I began to train my little girl who was seven. After awhile I wanted to learn ‘ōlapa so I could teach it to my daughter, so my mother recommended Manuel Silva. My mother wanted me to take from Manuel Silva because he was known for his chanting and ancient style of dancing. So my husband and I went to Honolulu to see Mr. Silva who was living in the Kaka‘ako district in the back of the Honolulu Star-Bulletin building at that time. He told me that if he didn’t know my mother he would’ve sent me away because he didn’t take new hula students anymore. His basics were really hard. You had to lay back on the floor with your legs folded under your thighs. You were then required to roll your torso while in that position. Then he would walk on your thighs to limber the leg muscles. I also had to lie flat on my stomach and he would bend my legs back. These were the regular, preliminary exercises prior to learning the hula. When finished with these exercises, I was exhausted. I learned never to co…

Agnes Kalaniho‘okaha Cope and Kamaki Kanahele
subject: Nā Kumu Hula Agnes Kalaniho‘okaha Cope and Kamaki Kanahele - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 1 Page 39
description: 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 fift…

Thelma Kāhili Cummings
description: Thelma Kāhili Cummings Kāhili Cummings is a daughter of Ida Long and a sister of Mae Loebenstein and Leiana Woodside. She resides on Maui and has taught the hula since age seventeen. I started hula when I was a little girl. There were fifteen of us in the family and we all learned from our mother, even the boys. In those days there was not much entertainment except for fundraisers and church socials that featured hula. My family was always involved with these shows and that’s how I began to dance. My mother Ida Pakulani Long was the greatest influence in my hula. She passed her love and knowledge of the hula to myself and others in our family. When my mother taught us the hula there was very little verbal instruction. There was more actual demonstration and we learned by copying her motions. The pū‘ili was a very important implement in my mother’s hālau. It was used to help us hear the proper timing for the hulas we were learning. It was also used quite often to correct improper hand and feet motions. I was about twelve when Alice Keawekāne Garner began to teach us through the church. From Alice I learned ‘auwana and unlike my mother, she explained a lot of what was going on in the dance. My mother had trained us in kahiko and her knowledge and range of style seemed narrower. I stayed with Alice until I was seventeen and then there was a lull in my training. I went back to the hula only after my sister Mae began to make frequent trips back to Maui. She taught us the dances she had learned in Honolulu while working with Lena Guerrero. I began to teach at the age of seventeen because people needed someone to teach dancers for concerts. I did not ‘ūniki but for a lack of a teacher I was asked to help. I kept helping one group after another and I found that I liked it because it was a way of expressing myself. I like to teach little children because you can get your point across faster than with adults. You can be stern or cross with them and they forget about it. I fee…

Faye Pōmaialoha Dalire
description: 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…

Māpuana deSilva
description: Māpuana deSilva Māpuana deSilva established Hālau Mōhala ‘Ilima in 1976 which is currently situated in Kailua, O‘ahu. I am learning to hold true to the spirit of what my teacher gave me. I think now that this spirit comes in two parts. First, it is my duty to respect and preserve the traditional dances. If I inherit a holokū from my grandmother I don’t chop it into a mini-skirt just because fashions have changed. The same is true for the chants and hula that have been given to me. They are priceless gifts; I shouldn’t be so presumptuous as to fiddle with them just to keep up with what is fashionable. Secondly, it is also my duty to create. I am a keeper of the record of my own time and of my own place. With my husband Kihei, I create mele hula for my family, my dancers and my Kailua home. We have tried to re-create the chant and dance tradition of Kailua which for several generations has largely been hidden in books and Hawaiian language newspapers. Did you know that Kawainui Marsh was once a fishpond and before that a lagoon? Did you know that Hawaiians have lived on its banks for 1500 years and that Kailua was once immeasurably wealthy and an ancient center for the arts? It’s my duty and pleasure to revive the chants which speak of those things, and to create new mele that remind us of what was, describe what is, and ask of what will be. So you see I’m learning that I have two roles. I’ve tried to keep and honor what was passed on to me, and I’ve worked hard to build through creation and recreation, a tradition of my own. It was after I graduated from college and returned to Hawai‘i that I began taking hula in a serious way. I had been taught hula ‘auwana by my mother as I was growing up but in 1972 I was introduced to Aunty Mā‘iki Aiu Lake and I immediately felt that she was the kumu I wanted to learn the hula from in a deeper way. I started my training that January and I found Aunty Mā‘iki to be a wonderful teacher. She loves the hula so much and she conveys thi…

Kent Ghirard
description: Kent Ghirard A great love for the hula brought Kent Ghirard from the Mainland to Hawaii where he established himself as a kumu hula and choreographer of hula productions. We were the first Hawaiian group to tour Japan, in 1955. We performed in Nichigeki Theatre in Tokyo and the audience was jammed into the hall and they were cheering us like we were The Beatles. We had one singer, four dancers, and myself backed by scores of Japanese girls in cellophane skirts dancing on white tiers that stretched up to the ceiling. I was born in San Francisco, California on September 1, 1918. I was twelve when I first became interested in the hula. My parents came over here on the old Malolo on a regular tourist vacation. Even at that age the minute I saw the hula I loved it. It was the Bray family that I saw and I just took right to it. I bought some old 78 RPM hula records and I even bought a hula skirt. During my college years I learned how to play the ‘“uke” from Hawai‘i students up at Stanford and I learned how to sing from listening to the records. I came over here in 1938 for summer school at the University but it was just an excuse to get over here. In those days the Kodak Hula Show had just started and I was there every week. Every Boat Day I would go down and watch the dancers and listen to the music. That’s when I started to pick things up on my own. The first person who taught me anything was Marguerite Duane who had danced hula professionally on the Mainland and was a very good friend of Hilo Hattie. I was twenty-one at the time and we both were living in San Francisco. So it was through Marguerite that I got my foundation and once I got the basics I just fell into it. I felt it inside, and as long as I could get a translation I could make up the rest because I knew the basic motions. In 1947 I came to Hawai‘i to stay and Marguerite and I took lessons from the Bill Lincoln Studio. At that time Bill Lincoln was the premier writer and singer of hula songs. Everyone was d…

Leina‘ala Kalama Heine
description: Leinaʻala Kalama Heine Leināʻala Kalama Heine, born and raised in Pālama, O‘ahu, opened her hālau Na Pualei O Likolehua in 1975. She is a featured dancer with the musical group The Brothers Cazimero. Whatever happens from now and hereafter will be looked upon as kahiko in the future. There are those that hang on to the past and there are those who only live in the present. In each case there is no movement because the definitions for each side are very narrow. So it’s stagnant right now. The present and the past have to co-exist with one another if the hula is going to move forward. I don’t think a lot of people who knew me before felt I had the ability or the desire to take on the responsibilities that I have now. I do things today that I never would have done ten years ago. The comic dancer was my role. I was never a straight dancer. I fooled around so much that people wondered about my seriousness. But underneath, the straight dancing was my want. I was a line dancer before I became anything but I could not hold still in a line. I’m one who gets bored fast and I like to make things happen. It was a wonderful feeling to have people laugh with me and at me. It made no difference. Just the fact that people wanted to see more of me was enough. After awhile I started to ask myself where am I going to go from here, so I started to do some straight numbers and people would laugh thinking I was trying to be comical. My interest in hula started when I was enrolled by my mother in classes under Ruby Ahakuelo. I was three years old and Ruby would hold class at the YMCA (Young Men’s Christian Association) right on Fort Street. Back in the early Forties, hula did not have the interest level that it has today so there was no separation between ‘auwana and kahiko. Young kids were enrolled at the YMCA or the Department of Parks and Recreation program. I was then taken to my aunt, Rose Maunakea on Kam IV Road and then to the Alama Sisters (Pua and Lei) with whom I stayed with for…

Leimomi Ho
description: Leimomi Ho Leimomi Ho, a regular dancer with the Kodak Hula Show, has taught hula for the past twenty-three years. I have stayed with Aunty Vickie Iʻi Rodrigues till this day and she has been the one that has made me what I am today. She shares so much with me and I’ve grown to love her like a mom. I’ve become her hands and feet. If someone wants to learn a dance from her, she teaches it to me and I take it from there. It is indeed an honor to be one of the many that have been touched by her work and to be able to share a part of her great knowledge. My grandmother and my parents were involved in the hula on Kaua‘i. When I turned three- years-old, I was taken to Helen Waia‘u and remained with her for six years until we moved to Pauoa in Honolulu. Through our neighbor I was led to my second kumu Sam Kamuela Naeʻole. Sam’s studio was on Nu‘uanu Avenue in a building that they’ve torn down by now. He used to yell at us and we would get so scared but he was a good teacher who was always emphasizing fundamentals. Hālaus back then were known as studios and the ‘ūniki was called a recital. It’s only in the last few years that more teachers and students are using these terms. I stayed with Sam for three years and then I met John Pi‘ilani Watkins. I studied under John for five years and for two summers I worked with him at Jones Beach in New York. We had to learn to work with theater people and it was all big production numbers. Because of all his trips to New York, John Watkins was very modernized. During my second summer in New York, I met Joe Kahaulilio who was a partner of Vickie I‘i Rodrigues and I began to train under them when I returned home. I was grateful for what John had given me but Uncle Joe taught me the hula as it should be. I didn’t like doing production numbers like “Bali Hai” and Uncle Joe and Aunty Vickie started training me in ancient hula, soft ‘auwana numbers, and old Hawaiian songs. I began to teach in the 1960s but in a very off-handed manner. It was …

Marilyn Leimomi Ho
description: Marilyn Leimomi Ho Marilyn Leimomi Ho resides in Kuliouou, Oʻahu and currently works for the United States Air Force. She is married to Harry A. Ho, Jr. and teaches in conjunction with her hula sister Jan Yoneda. One thing which Aunty Edith Kanaka‘ole said which has stayed with me is that we are all individuals and when we chant “Kawika” we all sound different even though there is a standard chant style to “Kawika”. And that is all right. I began my training in hula at the age of seven with Aunty Alice Namakelua through the Department of Parks and Recreation program. Classes were held at the Royal School, and Aunty Alice provided me with my basic foundation in the hula. In her method of teaching, students did not use paper and pencil to make notes but only followed Aunty Alice’s verbal instructions and committed movements to memory. At age thirteen 1 moved to Guam where I studied the hula under Mrs. Lillian Aquai. Her training primarily included modern hulas and the use of hula implements. Mrs. Aquai’s hula movements were a little different from those of Aunty Alice’s but her students also were asked to learn totally from memory. After my training with Mrs. Aquai I went on to Edith McKinzie who I still continue to study under and who I suppose is my greatest inspiration. I consider her not only my teacher but a friend. I was trained in both modern and traditional hula along with other Polynesian dances. Aunty Edie had me as a teenager so she would get up and physically show us steps and motions, and she would provide us with written instructions on movement and expression. After graduating from Mrs. McKinzie at eighteen, my family returned to Honolulu. Shortly thereafter I joined the Hālau Hula O Mā‘iki where I studied under Mā‘iki Aiu Lake for the next four years. With Aunty Mā‘iki, she wasn’t satisfied that you just learned the dance; you had to know the meaning of the dance and that meant hours of research. Aunty Mā‘iki could talk to people on their own levels an…

Eleanor Hiram Hoke
description: 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…

Rose Kapulani Joshua
description: Rose Kapulani Joshua Rose Joshua established the Magic Hula Studio in 1947 and continues to teach modern and traditional hula in Waikiki. My parents on occasion danced at parties and special events. I loved to watch the expressions on their faces as they danced. That’s what first inspired me about the hula. I started my training under Esther Paulson in 1937. There was no such thing as a hālau back then. Esther would have to come to my home and she would train me in hula ‘auwana. In 1939 I moved on and began to train under Tom Hiona and it marked the beginning of an eight-year education. Three times a week I would go to Tom’s house on Queen Emma Street and for three hours he would train us in hula kahiko. A haumāna would begin with the fundamental steps until Tom was satisfied with her progress. Then he would introduce a particular mele which the student would practice until Tom again gave his approval. Finally, the student was allowed to rise and learn the corresponding dance step. The training was a slow, painstaking process. You didn’t move on to the next level until he was satisfied. Tom demanded a great deal but the result was the blessing of a solid foundation. The practice of my kumu was to first feel the manao of the story and then to translate those emotions through the dance. Once I was having trouble with the mele of the hula ‘auwana “Mi Nei”. I knew all the steps but there was something missing in my movements. My mother took me aside and began to tell me an old story. She spoke of two sisters who were deeply in love with a great prince. One sister she explained, was a great beauty and the other was very plain. Now the grandmother of these two girls felt very sorry for the plain sister. She decided to teach the girl a very beautiful and magical dance that would win over the handsome prince. The prince fell in love with the plain sister and this was the story of “Mi Nei”. Because of that very special moment between my mother and I, “Mi Nei” became my most …

Lorraine Joshua Daniels and Blossom Joshua Kunewa
description: Lorraine Joshua Daniels Lorraine Daniels, daughter of Rose Joshua, teaches with her mother at the Magic Hula Studio in Waikiki. She has recently returned from coordinating a Polynesian show for the Maunaloa Restaurant in Cancun, Mexico. Because my mother and father were entertainers our life as we were growing up was always filled with music and hula. My mother danced in a hula troupe with Sally Wood Nālua‘i and Helen Fuller, and their dancing inspired me and left a lasting impression on me. We used to have parties on the beach and whenever the music would play I would just get up and dance. I was trained first by my mother but she wanted her children to have a broad education in the hula so my first kumu outside the family was Mrs. Ku‘ulei Clark. I graduated traditionally with Mrs. Clark and then I was taken to Aunty Louise Akeo and then to Mrs. Po‘omaikai who is better known as Hannah Ho. During that time the only hula that was taught was ‘auwana complemented by very simple kahiko lessons. When it came time to ‘ūniki from Mrs. Po‘omaikai we were told to go out into the sea and she would accompany our walk with an oli. My dad was deeply Christian and he refused to let us delve into any kapu hula or kapu chant so I was not allowed to participate in the ‘ūniki ceremony. The last kumu who I formally trained under was Henry Pa who gave me my foundation in ancient hula. He inspired me to better myself as a student and I found him to be a very strict teacher with a great deal of warmth for his haumāna. In the 1930s I began to dance more actively with my father’s group, The Moana Entertainers. We performed abroad, on the Mainland, and at Honolulu showplaces such as the Waikīkī Sands, Lau Yee Chai, and the Princess Theatre. In time people began to approach me and ask if I could teach them and that is how my teaching career began. I taught at my mothers home and I learned that a kumu has to go into teaching with her whole being. You have to discipline yourself and your life…

Cecelia Kuamo‘o Ka‘ai
subject: Nā Kumu Hula Cecelia Kuamo‘o Ka‘ai - Nānā I Nā Loea Hula Volume 2 Page 10
description: 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 fro…

John W. Keanuenue Ka‘imikaua
description: John W. Keānuenue Kaʻimikaua John Kaʻimikaua began to formally teach in 1977 with the establishment of Hālau Hula O Kukunaokalā. I was but a very young boy of fourteen years standing six feet tall when I first met my benefactor of Hawaiian knowledge. Her name was Kawahinekapuheleikapōkāne and she was ninety-two-years- old. She stood erect and tall, six feet four inches to my six feet, like a young woman in an old womans body. She asked if I was interested in my Hawaiian culture to which I answered in the affirmative. She told me she had in her possession a compiled record of hulas, chants, and stories of our Hawaiian people and no one in her family was interested in learning them. She then told me she had been waiting and praying for a very long time for someone to come so that she could teach and pass on this knowledge. But each year passed and no one approached and she thought the knowledge she possessed would die with her. The woman was extremely well-preserved. She had short, white hair, a rather dark complexion, and very dark, piercing eyes which made one feel as though she were looking into the very depths of your soul and comprehending everything about you. Her voice was captivating, and when she chanted in the oli fashion she didn’t have to tell me what the oli was about for her voice tones were made to sound like the waves washing over the sand or airy like the winds above a cliff or whispery like the soft rustling leaves. She made me feel as though I were a part of the very essence of nature itself. To me, I was the earth, the wind, the seas, and the skies. For two years I met with her at her home everyday after school. She taught me well and I was fortunate to be able to absorb all she had to teach me in the very short time we had. In 1975 at the end of my junior year in high school she passed away. I never knew if she had an English name or even what her family name was. I never knew if she had any family because when I visited with her she was always al…

Ka‘aiikawaha Kekau‘ilani Kalama
description: Ka‘aiikawaha Kekauʻilani Kalama Lani Kalama, cousin of Māiki Aiu Lake, serves as a hula consultant for various hula halaus throughout Hawaii. She currently resides in Kailua, O‘ahu. When I was fifteen-years-old, my friend Nellie Wong told me she had heard of a lady named Lokalia Montgomery who was teaching the hula pahu in Kapahulu. My yearning to further my knowledge in the hula prompted me to pay fourteen dollars to learn which was a lot of money in those days. I didn’t dare ask my grandmother because I was sure she wouldn’t let me, so I broke my piggy bank and I took that money to Lokalia to pay for my lessons. My formal hula training actually began at the age of seven under Tūtū Keaka Kanahele and Gertrude Makini at Aunty Gertrudes home on Rose Street. The class was made up of all the neighborhood children and the kids in my family. The Makinis’ had a big yard and a large home and we would move all the chairs in the living room, and that’s where we would dance. We would go to class everyday and if Tūtū felt like it we were there for hours. If she was tired the class would be cancelled for three or four days. I graduated traditionally with Aunty Gertrude and then I went on to Harriet Kepelino Fernandez who trained me in hula ‘auwana. I went through the hula kapu training with Aunty Harriet but when it came time to perform the rituals myself my grandmother stopped me. I am especially grateful to my grandmother Helen Pamaiēulu Ha‘o Correa who exposed me to the hula at a very tender age. She made me aware of the mannerisms and protocol of the hula because back then the definition of hula ‘auwana meant hula that was free of any ritual ceremony or kapu and had nothing to do with creativity or musical accompaniment. I graduated traditionally from Aunty Harriet at fourteen but I wanted to study more of the hula pahu and that is how I was led to Lokalia Montgomery. In Lokalia’s dining room she had a great dinner table where she would talk with her guests. Beautiful Hawai…

Robert Kalani
description: Robert Kalani Robert Kalani began his hula training under Henry Pa at the age of eleven. Born in Paia, Maui, he has taught the hula for twenty-six years in Lahaina, Paia, Kula, andKahului. When I went to learn the chants from my kumu, my mother was against it. My grandmother had been a kahuna and my mother didn’t want me involved in the old ways. My grandmother lived in Makena and when she walked along the streets, the neighbors would get so afraid of her. She would constantly oli until one o’clock in the morning and my mother didn’t want to see that happen again with me. When I was eleven, I visited Honolulu during the summer months and I would stay with my aunt. Henry Pa would come over and use her house for hula rehearsals. This is how I got into dancing. Every summer I would learn new and different dances under Henry Pa. His classes would last for three hours. I studied for three summers under Henry Pa and then I stayed back on Maui and went to Rena Ching for six months. 1 graduated from Rena Ching and went through a modern ʻūniki with her. After Rena, I decided to go back to Honolulu and that’s when I met Hattie Au and Tom Hiona. My aunt was being trained by Hattie for nine months and this was how I was taken into the hālau and taught the kuahu dances. I studied under Hattie for nine months and then I was led to Tom Hiona who has been the greatest influence on my career. Tom had the ability to teach and to find the right English word for Hawaiian ideas. This was back in the early Fifties and Tom would not teach us at a studio but at a private home that we would go to on the weekends. We were trained in the different styles of traditional dance, and the different beats of the ipu heke and pahu. I spent three summers with Tom Hiona and I found him to be a very sensitive and demanding man. I began to teach when I was attending high school. Some of the students wanted to learn, so I would have my mother translate songs for me and that’s how I started. My kumu taugh…

Luka Kaleiki
description: Luka Kaleikī Born and raised in Papakōlea, Luka Kaleikī became interested in the hula at the age of eight. She began to teach at a hula studio owned by her sister Louise Kaleikī at the age of fifteen. We Hawaiians have a culture but we don’t protect it. We would rather modernize. That’s why I admire Joseph ʻĪlālā‘ole, Manuel Silva, and Henry Pa. They had an element that you don’t see nowadays. They were very devoted to the hula and not to the audience. I was always on the big side and I was ashamed of that so I never was interested in learning from the kumu hula that were in my family. I think that’s the one thing I regret in my life. My first teacher was Dorothy Ortiz and I was trained in modern hula. She was a friend of my sister Louise and together they had opened a studio in Papakōlea in 1959. When they moved their classes to the old George Nā‘ope studio in Kalihi, my sister asked me to help with the teaching load. My sister had been left a book of hulas and I studied the book like people study to go to school. The classes would come, I would put on the record, and that’s how we would start. My first idol was Joseph Kahaulilio but his classes were few so I learned my basic steps for ancient hula from Manuel Silva. When I turned seventeen, I went to Henry Pa and he became the greatest influence on my hula. Henry’s teachers included Katie Nākaula, Keaka Kanahele, Joseph ‘Īlālā‘ole, Akoni Mika, and Kauluwai Maka Palea. Whenever I needed an ancient number for a big show, I would go to Uncle Henry and in 1962 he graduated me as one of his students. When I was in high school, I was studying to become an opera singer. I took classes at the University of Hawai‘i but I stopped when my sister needed help with her hula studio. Once Istarted teaching I never felt the need to go into anything else. Hula has been my sole support. I simply enjoy the teaching aspect of working with a student and watching that student grow and mature as a person and as a dancer. I think it’s imp…

Hoakalei Kamau‘u
description: 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 importan…

Elaine Ka‘ōpūiki
description: 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.

Kaulana Kasparovitch
description: Kaulana Kasparovitch Originally trained in fine arts and classical music, Kaulana Kasparovitch established the Lehua Dance Company and has taught the hula for the past eight years in Honolulu. We are close to a point of saturation in the hula right now unless there is something new that arises to keep the next generation interested. In any culture you will have peaks and valleys. In the next three to five years the interest in the culture will level off and possibly turn downward. Other things will arise because today Hawaiʻi is cosmopolitan. My grandmother Minnie Liliaokalani Wilhem Jones was the one that saw to it that I was introduced to Hawaiian music and dance. She introduced me to a lovely lady named Emily Thomas who had an ‘ohana group that were all friends of my grandmother and this was how I started. My first kumu was Manuel Silva who was a member of this group and he taught my cousin and I to chant for three years until he passed away. I was being taught Hawaiian music at this time by Aunty Pauline Kekahuna and in 1971 her dancers decided to retire from the Hau’oli group. Aunty Pauline and one of her musicians decided to open a hālau under the Hau‘oli name and this is how I came to dance under Leilani Mendez. In ancient Hawai‘i people lived the hula, but the hula today is entertainment and a leisure-time activity. What Leilani taught me was that I really had to work hard at the hula to be good. She disciplined my attitude toward work and hula. We had to be good because we had to do shows and there wasn’t a margin for sloppiness on stage. I went on to train under Uncle Henry Pa at a class he opened at Kamehameha Schools for the Kamehameha Hawaiian Civic Club. I admired Uncle Henry because there was such a joy in all of his hula and even in his kahiko. What he gave me was the essence to create. He would sit us down and say this is the mele in Hawaiian, this is the mele in English, now create your own motions and we will pick the best motions from the class. …

Pearl Keawe
description: Pearl Keawe Pearl Keawe has taught the hula in Hawaiʻi for thirty-three years and her hula studio is presently located in the Kalihi Valley area of O‘ahu. I became interested in the hula through my late sister-in-law Caroline Tuck, a renown Hawaiian entertainer and hula instructor. She performed throughout Hawai‘i with Alice Keawekāne Garner and Frances Palama. Carolines studio was located on Pu‘uhale Street and I began to train under her in 1927 when I was twenty-three years old. I was taught modern hula by Caroline and her style of hula was to always bend low in your motion and dance from your heart. I also received private instruction in the art of ancient hula from Mrs. Lily Polani, a student of Mr. Ka‘ō‘ō. Her classes were held at her home in Kāne‘ohe and lasted approximately three hours. The first thing I learned from Mama Lily was that you should never walk over a hula implement that had been placed on the ground. Everything in the hula world has a certain dignity to it and this world must be respected. She would pah and teach us the lyrics of the mele pausing occasionally to talk and tell us the story relating to the mele. After three or four days we began to learn the dance itself. This is how I learned the traditional dances of the grand hula master Mr. Ka‘ō‘ō. He would sometimes accompany Mama Lily to the practice sessions which were held once a week. When I met him, he was a tall, thin, dark man and he was very distinctive because he always wore a beautiful red sash. I studied under Mama Lily for two years and then I was graduated in a traditional ‘uniki ceremony. I started teaching in 1948 when I moved to Kalihi. I had six children and I was working at Pearl Harbor. To supplement our income, I started teaching hula at the military posts because after the war that seemed to be the only marketplace for entertainment. There are fifteen basic steps to the traditional hula and the young kumu should stick to them and channel their energy into the expressivene…