Miss Aloha Hula 2004 'was already a winner'
By Wanda A. Adams
Assistant Features Editor
HILO, Hawai'i — As kumu hula Sonny Ching was preparing Natasha Mahealani Akau to run for Miss Aloha Hula 2004, he worried about how to handle perhaps her biggest challenge in attempting to win the title: the fact that her childhood friend and hula sister, Jennifer Kehaulani Oyama, is Miss Aloha Hula 2003.
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He was keenly aware of the pressure this placed on "Tasha," as she's known in the halau — didn't she have to do at least as well as her buddy Jennifer in order not to let everyone down? Or would the fact that a member of Ching's Halau Na Mamo 'O Pu'uanahulu had won the award the previous year mean she had no chance with the judges? (It isn't supposed to, and there have been five back-to-back Miss Aloha Hula wins for halau in the 33 years since the title was invented.)
Natasha Mahealani Akau turns to her kumu hula, Sonny Ching, after learning that she won Miss Aloha Hula yesterday.
Ching was determined to free Akau of expectation while spurring her on: "I told her not to think she had to win in order to prove she is a good dancer. She is a good dancer, no matter what."
On competition day yesterday, after their last rehearsal together, he began to cry, telling her, "Tasha, you're ready." When Akau left the stage after her final performance, Ching met her with a kiss and embrace of pure pride. "She did everything we asked her to do. I felt she was already a winner."
• Miss Aloha Hula 2004: Natasha Mahealani Akau, Halau Na Mamo 'O Pu'uanahulu, 1,149 points • 1st Runner-up: Kellilynn Kanoelani Cockett Smith, Halau Hula Olana, 1,105 points • 2nd Runner-up: Natasha Lokelani Lopez, Halau Mohala 'Ilima, 1,104 points • 3rd Runner-up: Bianca Keopuolani Rapu Leitel, Halau I Ka Wekiu, 1,099 points • 4th Runner-up: Nicole Moani Taylor, Ke Kai O Kahiki, 1,089 points • Hawaiian language award, tie: Natasha Lokelani Lopez and Natasha Mahealani Akau
And Jennifer Oyama was convinced that her friend was a winner in fact, not just in the metaphoric sense. "I knew when she opened her mouth for her kahiko," said Oyama. "We were watching TV in the back and as soon as she began to chant, I knew she had it."
Miss Aloha Hula 2004 competition results
In fact, said Akau, having Jennifer to turn to for help and advice took the pressure off, rather than the other way around. And during last night's competition, she said, "I was actually more excited for Jenn than anything else." The entire halau was to sing a medley of Oyama's favorite songs during her farewell performance. "I think that helped me, it gave me something to look forward to and not just think of myself," Akau said.
Akau, 21, and Oyama, 22, have been friends since they met in hula class a decade or so ago. They lived near each other in Kaimuki and attended Kaimuki Intermediate together before Akau went off to the Kamehameha Schools.
Akau, the daughter of Lisa Reese and Vance Akau, didn't begin taking hula until she was 7 years old, but remembers watching dancers and longing to be among them. "I would just sit there in awe and I knew I wanted to do that," she recalled.
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From the first, she had a "great passion" to excel. At Kamehameha, she also began to appreciate the role hula plays in perpetuating Hawaiian culture. Doing hula properly means learning the language, researching one's own genealogy and the history of the 'oli and mele (chants and songs), she said.
Kellilynn Kanoelani Cockett Smith of Halau Hula Olana performs her 'auana number during the Miss Aloha Hula competition last night. She won 1st-runner-up honors.
Attempting to put together her own family tree helped her to understand and feel more deeply the 'auana (modern) hula song she performed, which was set on the Big Island, where her family comes from. "I wouldn't have known that if it wasn't for hula," she said.
Her kahiko chant about Hana, Maui, was chosen for her as a tribute to the Valley Island, where the halau performs several times a year. "The hula community there treats us so great, and they teach us things I would never have known," Akau said. Kumu hula and recording artist Keali'i Reichel gave permission for her to use the Hana chant, which he had adapted from one originally written for King William Liholiho and which is on Reichel's most recent CD.
Because Halau Na Mamo maintains a busy schedule of classes, performances, fund-raisers and such, they allow only three months of active preparation for Merrie Monarch, starting right after the New Year, a shorter period than most other hula schools. And they work right up to deadline. The chant for one segment of Akau's kahiko performance literally wasn't even written until a little more than a week ago.
In addition, said Ching, Akau had to learn an important lesson: how not to be a member of the anonymous group line, how to take center stage herself. Oyama advised her to really own her seven minutes on stage, and insist by her confident presence that all eyes be on her.
This was a lesson Akau learned so well that, even on what would become her big night, she was able to pay it back. As Oyama readied to go on stage for her aloha dance, Akau advised her not to be nervous. "Just do what you told me to do," she said.
