Posted on: Wednesday, August 1, 2001

Conference explores threads of culture bound up in hula

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

HILO, Hawai'i — Lots of hula classes begin with drills in the basic steps, so when 1,000 hula people get together to discuss their favorite subject, they naturally fall into debating the most basic question of all.

"What is hula?" asked Pualani Kanaka'ole Kanahele, kumu hula for one of Hilo's best known schools, Halau O Kekuhi.

Kanahele planted that seed as Ka 'Aha Hula 'O Halauaola, the first World Conference on Hula, got under way Monday in the stadium that's named for her mother, the late hula master Edith Kanaka'ole.

The hall fell silent as each scribbled his or her top 10 ideas. Some were called to read them aloud.

"It's my life force and blood," said one.

"The breath of my mother," said another.

"A way of staying in touch with ancestors," said a third.

There may be people scratching their heads and muttering, "Isn't it just a dance?" But none of them sat in this stadium.

Classes will continue through Friday in venues around Hilo, on field trips to sites of native reforestation projects, on various explorations of the myriad threads of culture that are bound up in hula.

Today crew members of the Polynesian Voyaging Society will give another in an ongoing series of talks about canoeing which, like hula, has been a Noah's Ark, carrying the essence of the old Hawai'i through a cultural renaissance that began 25 years ago.

But hula is the best known of these vessels worldwide, and people have traveled here from across the Mainland, and even from Europe and Asia, to touch the places where it all began.

Each evening they are gathering in Edith Kanaka'ole Stadium for performances that celebrate the different styles of dance; these are occasions for pure enjoyment.

And there are others. Monday's talk-story session, "Voices of Our Kupuna," featured Puluelo Park, George Naope and Nona Beamer sharing stories of their encounters with Pele, the fire goddess who is such a presence in Big Island hula.

Naope recounted how a hala lei thrown into the Halema'uma'u Crater kept being blown back out, rejected. Park told of feeling welcomed at Pele's home by the sight of birds flying in the crater and soaring above. Beamer remembered feeling unwelcomed once when her skirt refused to move with her when she danced. These are stories hula people love to tell and to hear.

But when moderator Maile Beamer Loo asked whether there was anything about today's hula they would change, she was met with an initial silence.

"I would not change anything," Park said. "Hula is creative."

Being the elders, however, the kupuna did have a message to share. Beamer thought some of the younger kumu should avoid arrogance and anger in teaching.

"I am very grateful for the resurgence in hula," Beamer said. "I remember when nobody had an interest.

"But I would admonish the younger kumu hula to be a little mindful of humility," she added. "They need to be a little more mindful of the aloha way of doing things."

Up at Hawai'i Community College, Heidi Bornhorst, native plants authority (and Advertiser gardening columnist), showed slides of plants essential to hula and shared tips on how to propagate them.

Down by Hilo Bay, voyaging society member Chad Paishon stood before a class, talking about the common concerns of hula and canoeing, including the shortage of native trees needed for both cultural practices. Behind him, the Makali'i, the traditionally constructed voyaging canoe dedicated to Big Island practitioners, rocked in the gently lapping surf.

In another conference room, dancers listened to an explanation of the chant series that tells the story of the legendary figure Kawelo.

All of this, Kanahele said, is part of hula, which is a blending of movement, kumu-student bonds, spirituality and, perhaps most definitively, the art of composition.

"Chant allows us to transform," she said. "At the moment we see through the eyes of the composer, we become the composer. That's what we want to work up to, and that's why we're at this conference."