50 years of strict, but gentle, guidance in hula
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| Puluelo Park is celebrating her 50th anniversary as hula teacher. Here she watches her students practice at Kainalu Elementary School for the Merrie Monarch Festival.
Jeff Widener • The Honolulu Advertiser Merrie Monarch Festival hula competition Edith Kanaka'ole Stadium, Hilo Sold out Airing live from 6 p.m. today and tomorrow on KITV-4 |
Even with all that teaching experience under her belt, she remembers how much she once dreaded even the few hours of hula lessons she took as a child growing up in Kalihi.
Her parents had paid for many more hours, but a few was all the time she really spent there. The kumu used to press painfully on her legs to make her bend lower, and Park was having none of that.
"I used to hide under the house," she confessed with a grin.
Her parents found out about her playing hooky, as parents always do. But it wasn't until much later, when she was 18 and returned to the family home in Kohala.
"I would dance in the garden, doing my thing," she said. "My auntie saw me. 'Huuuuu-iiii!' she called to me." Park felt a little embarrassed to be caught, but that feeling mixed with fascination when her auntie demonstrated how the dance is to be done.
"She had white hair, all the way to the ground," Park recalled. "'You watch tutu,' she said... 'That's the way to dance, baby,' she told me."
That image, the memory of the graceful lady with the flowing white hair, remained with her, and when she married and had her first daughter (four of the Parks' eight children are girls), she knew she wanted to teach her daughters hula.
She studied first with an aunt, and then with the famous hula master, the late Lokalia Montgomery, at her halau in Kapahulu.
The melodic part of hula came naturally to Park, who had been a singer since childhood. It was the mastery of drumming rhythms that drove her crazy. The beat of the classic chant, "Kaulilua," left her flummoxed.
"It took me almost a year to get the beat of the drum," the 77-year-old teacher recalled. "My teacher would tell me, 'Go home and try more hard.' "
Suddenly one night, after staying up until the wee hours rapping out the rhythm on a table, it came to her. And then every other chant she tried came to her, as well. It was a kind of epiphany, like Eliza Doolittle finally pronouncing "The rain in Spain" correctly.
"That was my start as a teacher," she said.
Park opened her own school in 1952, and it was "Auntie" Lokalia's style of teaching, strict but gentle, that she hoped to emulate.
"That's how Lokalia was: 'If you can't dance, then go home, and when you feel like dancing, come back,' " Park said. "But she always said it softly, like that."
One stern look from kumu was all she ever used to command her students' attention. Corporal punishment never seemed necessary, and Park never endorsed the practice in her own school, even when it was an accepted part of halau protocol.
"I've seen when they hit the child right in front of the parent," she said. "There's such a thing as respect for the kumu, and the kumu must respect the child."
Park does wish that students today would hold up their end of the bargain more often. Society increasingly has allowed children to question their elders, and she has had students challenge her in ways she'd never have dreamed of doing in her own day.
And although the rigors of competition preparation has winnowed her Merrie Monarch group from 21 to eight, Park is proud of the young women who did make the commitment. She's especially delighted to usher her longtime student Malia Bird to Hilo for the Miss Aloha Hula competition; Bird had come of age during Park's long hiatus from competition.
The group's Saturday performance will represent another trip home to Kohala for Park, who has choreographed a song, "Pali O Ka Moa," written by her grandmother and great-aunt about a trip to that cliff shaped like a chicken. The women will dress in skirts, blouses and lacy boots reminiscent of the traveling attire of the day, complete with an 'ipuwai for toting water.
But the greater physical challenge will come tonight, when the women perform a seated hula (hula noho), far more demanding than many dances done while standing.
"Most of these dancers are beginners," she said. "After this, I'm going to graduate them as 'olapa (dancers), already.
"And these are not teenagers," she added. "They're ladies."
Perhaps someday they can approach the grace of the loving tutu of Park's memory who danced for her, white hair rippling. At least, that can be their goal.
Here is the order of performance for tonight's kahiko (ancient hula) and Saturday's 'auana (modern hula) competition:
1. Puamana Hula Studio, wahine (Puluelo Park, Kailua)
2. Na Pua Me Kealoha, kane (Sissy Lilinoe Kaio, Carson, Calif.)
3. Halau Ke Kia'i A'o Hula, wahine (Kapi'olani Ha'o, Honolulu)
4. Kea lika'apunihonua Ke'ena A'o Hula, kane (Leimomi Ho, Honolulu)
5. Ka Pa Nani O Lilinoe, wahine (Lilinoe Lindsey, 'Aiea)
6. Ka Pa Hula O Kauanoe O Wa'ahila, wahine (Maelia Loebenstein-Carter)
7. Halau I Ka Wekiu, kane (Karl Veto Baker and Michael Casupang, Honolulu)
8. Halau Hula O Lilinoe, wahine (Sissy Lilinoe Kaio, Carson, Calif.)
9. Halau Hula O Kahikilaulani, wahine (Ray Fonseca, Hilo, Hawai'i)
10. Halau Ka Ua Kani Lehua, wahine (Johnny Lum Ho, Hilo)
11. Puka'ikapuaokalani Hula Halau, wahine (Ellen Castillo, Waimanalo)
12. Halau Na Mamo O Ka'ala, kane (Tiare Noelani Chang, Honolulu)
13. Halau O Ke 'Anuenue, wahine (Glenn Vasconcellos, Hilo)
14. Halau Keali'i O Nalani, kane (Keali'i Ceballos, Los Angeles)
15. Halau Hula O Hokulani, wahine (Hokulani De Rego, Central O'ahu)
16. Halau Mohala 'Ilima, wahine (Mapuana de Silva, Kailua)
17. Halau Hula O Kahikilaulani, kane (Ray Fonseca, Hilo)
18, Halau Hula 'O Kawaili'ula, wahine (Chinky Mahoe, Kailua)
19. Halau Ke Kia'i A'o Hula, kane (Kapi'olani Ha'o, Honolulu)
20. Ka Pa Hula O Kamehameha, wahine (Holoua Stender, Honolulu)
21. Keolalaulani Halau Olapa O Laka, kane (Aloha Dalire, Kane'ohe)
22. Moana's Hula Halau, wahine (Moana Dudoit, Kaunakakai, Moloka'i)
23. Ka Pa Hula O Kamehameha, wahine (Holoua Stender, Honolulu)
24. Keolalaulani Halau Olapa O Laka, wahine (Aloha Dalire, Kane'ohe)
25. Halau Ka Ua Kani Lehua, kane (Johnny Lum Ho, Hilo)
26. Halau Hula Olana, wahine (Howard and Olana Ai, 'Aiea)
27. Halau Hula 'O Kawaili'ula, kane (Chinky Mahoe, Kailua)
28. Hula Halau O Kamuela, wahine (Paleka Mattos, Waimanalo/Kalihi)
