"We're trying so hard to teach proper Hawaiian values, so that the Hawaiian culture has the respect it deserves worldwide, not that hootchie-cootchie thing," Jennings says.

Each year the World Invitational Hula Festival draws close to 400 dancers who travel with dressers, assistants, friends and supporters. They come to Hawai'i to "e ho'i mai i ka piko hula," return to the source of hula. There are exhibitions and dance competitions, and more than 100 workshops on topics such as Hawaiian culture, history, art and biota.

The visiting halau get to know local dancers, who take them into the mountains to gather plants for traditional lei. The local halau get to see how the Hawaiian culture exists across the globe.

"Our culture is so rich and has so much to teach the world," Jennings says, "even more than we realize."

There is a black halau that comes from Chicago to dance. There's a group of senior citizens from Canada who made their first trip to Hawai'i a few years ago. There is a kane hula dancer from Iran. All these diverse people feel a soulful connection to the hula. And they want more.

Which is, of course, a good thing in the right hands, and a dangerous thing in the wrong hands.

Anecdotes abound in the hula community about unscrupulous foreign hula "promoters" who charge their eager students exorbitant prices for inauthentic dance lessons, fake ceremonies and gold "Hawaiian" bracelets. Jennings says that in Japan hula is a multimillion-dollar business.

The World Invitational Hula Festival strives to be an international resource for people searching for the right way into the culture and the dance. Jennings has some of the most respected authorities on Hawaiian culture serving as advisers for the festival: Nona Beamer, Nalani Olds, Frank Hewett, Karen Keawehawai'i, Momi Cazimero, Kahu Kaleo Patterson. These people help to anchor the international halau that might otherwise be out there without a strong connection to the heart of hula.

Kumu hula Michael Pili Pang penned an essay in the program notes about the "globalization of hula." He wrote: "We as keepers of the art must take a second look at ourselves and realize that what we value is becoming mainstreamed. We cannot fight it, but we can rise to the challenge and ask ourselves who will assure that the identity markers characteristic of hula are perpetuated. One of the conclusions is to continue teaching everyone hula and not hulas."

But while the emphasis is on authenticity and education, the hard truth is that everything, even perpetuating art and culture, costs money.

"I don't have the money to put on the festival this year," Jennings says, "but this is the 13th year, and I've never had the money."

Still, it's going to be tight. The three-day festival has a budget of $86,000. The bulk of the cost is for facility rental, sound and lighting equipment and crew, printing of the program books and advertising. The event won't be televised this year — Jennings can't afford it. The festival has no paid staff; judges volunteer their time. There isn't even an administrative assistant to do all the running around; Jennings does the best she can.

Grants? State money for arts and culture? City money for "Hula on the Beach?" 'A'ole.

Jennings is, of course, hoping that a sponsor will step forward, someone who appreciates the festival's mission.

"This is so important to Hawai'i and the world," she says, "but sometimes I think people here just don't get it."