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The Honolulu Advertiser

Posted on: Saturday, April 2, 2005

To evoke her soft side, dance came from heart

By Wanda A. Adams
Assistant Features Editor

When kumu hula Sonny Ching chose a chant for Maile Francisco to perform as Miss Aloha Hula candidate for Halau Na Mamo O Pu'uanahulu, he didn't know how the topic would touch Francisco's heart.

Kumu hula Sonny Ching congratulates Maile Francisco as she is named the winner of the Miss Aloha Hula competition of the Merrie Monarch Festival. At right is Natasha Akau, who won the title last year.

Rebecca Breyer • The Honolulu Advertiser

The rest, he says, was the work of "Ke Akua" — God. And the result was the third Miss Aloha Hula victory in a row for his halau, announced amid shouts and tears at Thursday's opening night of the Merrie Monarch Festival hula competition.

Ching thought he was giving his longtime student a challenge: a type of dance that would require her to develop her skills further — one that didn't work to her strengths or preferences, but to the potential he saw in her.

He had no idea how much of a challenge this chant — spoken by a woman who loves her faithless husband so much, she sets him free despite her own heartbreak — would be for Francisco, or how deeply she would have to dig to find her way to the core of the dance's story.

Ching has known Francisco, 23, since she was a member of his keiki hula troupe, performing in a Hula 'Oni E competition in a ridiculous high hairdo that forever earned that group of hula sisters the nickname "coneheads."

He and his principal assistant, Lopaka Igarta-De Vera, knew Francisco as the class clown, the pa'akiki (stubborn) one, the one who hid any hurts or tenderness under a tough exterior.

Both knew she loved explosive, gutsy kahiko (traditional) roles: the songs about the jealousies of imperious Pele or the sexy exploits of the pig-demigod Kamapua'a.

But Ching decided not to give the tough girl the in-your-face hula. He wanted to tease out her softer side.

What he didn't know was that Francisco had just ended a long-term relationship and was concealing an aching heart.

"It was meant to be for me to do that kahiko," Francisco said early yesterday morning as she sat at breakfast with her hula sisters and her teachers. All were bundled against the cold of a Volcano morning, since the Ching halau shuns the chaos of Hilo for a quiet retreat at the Kilauea military recreational camp.

But the warmth of victory shone in their eyes and easy laughter that flowed around the table. Every few minutes, someone would come up to congratulate Francisco with a hug and to wish Ching a happy "29 again" birthday.

Francisco said having to admit her pain, explore it, and then master it sufficiently to use it for the dance, taught her a lot about herself. "Before, the thing I didn't remember was to respect myself. I thought I should put up with whatever somebody did to me. This taught me that I am better than that; I can love someone but I can let them go. It took me a lot to realize that," she said.

Ching's eyes overflowed as Francisco spoke. "If Kumu had not chosen that mele for me, I probably would have kept it all inside me — but because of this, I kind of overflowed and I found out I could share my feelings and not have a total breakdown."

Well, there was the time that she started crying during rehearsal and spent an hour in the bathroom with hula sisters Jennifer Oyama (Miss Aloha Hula 2003) and Natasha Akau (Miss Aloha Hula 2004) while Ching and Igarta-De Vera drummed their fingers.

But that's just the stuff of a good laugh now.

Francisco credits Oyama and Akau with "defining" her — studying her every move and offering advice to refine each one. To Igarta-De Vera, she gives credit for conditioning — he helped her melt some puppy fat. And to Ching goes the credit for choosing the songs and teaching them to her.

"They were all four like my parents," she said.

"Yes," Oyama said. "Now I know what 'Paka and Kumu feel like when we go out on stage."

"I was ready to cry before she even started dancing," Igarta-De Vera said.

"I was holding her hand and I realized she's not shaking, I'm shaking," Ching recalled.

It isn't only Francisco who found the Miss Aloha Hula journey an enlightening one: Her brother Kapua, a 12-year veteran of the halau and longtime alaka'i (teaching assistant), said his life is forever changed by knowing more about their family's history. When it was decided to choose a medley of Kohala songs for her 'auana number, because both sides of her family have connections there, he learned that vague stories of ali'i blood have a basis in fact.

Wednesday, the Lim family of Kohala gave halau a tour of the area that made him prouder of his heritage than he's ever felt, he said. The trip also, he's convinced, "put that finishing touch on her performance."

"The finishing mana (spiritual power)," his sister added.

The two hugged, Kapua towering over her. The family joke is that she is so small because she always made it late to the table and her two elder brothers got the grinds before her.

Though the teachers kept the siblings apart during much of the rehearsal time — because family members can be the most critical of each otherÊ— Kapua Francisco was allowed to join Ching and Igarta-De Vera in the chant to accompany her kahiko performance.

And it was a good thing, too, because the other two were so mesmerized by Francisco's performance that they couldn't open their mouths when it was time to chant the ho'i (closing piece); Kapua sang out the first line alone until they got their feelings in check.

Francisco, who lives with her mother and and other family members in Kaimuki, had to drop out of business college to prepare for Miss Aloha Hula, and she won't be going back anytime soon. Miss Aloha Hula has become almost a franchise: Oyama and Akau traveled to Japan almost monthly last year. "Our phone was ringing all the time, but it wasn't for us," Ching said, cheerfully.

Yesterday and today, like her hula sisters before her, Francisco was expected to be in the line, stretching and running through basics, preparing to rehearse for the halau's ensemble performances.

"It still hasn't sunk in," she said. "I heard my name on the radio this morning as Miss Aloha Hula and I couldn't believe that was me."

• • •

Miss Aloha Hula 2005

Maile Emily Kau'ilaniona'opuaehi'i-
poiokeanuenueokeola
Francisco

Halau Na Mamo O Pu'uanahulu (kumu hula William Kahakuleilehua Haunu'u "Sonny" Ching)

Age: 23

Schooling: Proud Kaimuki "Bulldog"

Family: Damien Francisco Sr. and Ke'ano Francisco; brothers Damien Jr. and Kapua

Home: Kaimuki

Vocation: Student, Hawai'i Business College, medical assistant program