Like most who are competing in the Merrie Monarch Festival hula competition this week, the dancers of Ka La 'Onohi Mai O Ha'eha'e rehearse in a space a fraction of the size of the stage at Edith Kanaka'ole Stadium in Hilo, where the annual event takes place before a sold-out house, TV cameras, Internet hookups and the eyes of every true hula lover on the planet.

When the choreography moves them forward in this second-floor office building in Kalihi, the women's hands almost brush against the musicians crowded into a corner of the room.

Na kumu hula Tracie and Keawe Lopes roam the perimeter, watching the dancers closely, calling out direction. Occasionally Tracie performs a sort of pas de deux with dancers who are lagging behind or not performing to standard, moving up from behind to put her hands on a woman's hips, deepening her hip sway, or taking hold of the dancer's hands and urging her into greater coordination with her hula sisters. Keawe, at the opposite end of the room, offers direction to the musicians, concerned about pacing the music to the dance. But he, too, demonstrates dance movements, the exact arc of an arm describing the donning of a lei.

It is a Sunday afternoon and this young halau, which will make its first appearance at Merrie Monarch this year, has been reviewing videos of a previous practice and, for the first time, all the musicians who will play for them in competition are together. Musicians and dancers are getting to know each other with each repetition of their 'auana (modern) number, "Ni'ihau," which honors that island and its people, who, by their very existence and isolation, have done much to preserve Hawaiian culture and language.

HAWAIIAN ROOTS

The Lopeses, who have been married 10 years and operating a hula school for four, represent the new generation of hula masters, though they would never call themselves so.

These two don't recall a time before the Hawaiian Renaissance.

They are so fluent in Hawaiian that they move seamlessly between that tongue and English without even seeming to realize which language they are speaking.

Their knowledge is so layered that a discussion of the meaning of the name of the halau is almost an essay, it's so replete with meaning. The name has to do with new beginnings, birth, the strength of the sun, desire and longing, and has a connection, too, to Tracie's Hawaiian name. "People always want ... one-to-one translation but ... cannot," said Keawe.

They both grew up surrounded by Hawaiian music and poetry.

Keawe was raised on Hawaiian homestead land in a Nanakuli household, where his grandmother and uncle spoke Hawaiian and weekends were spent "lawai holoholo" (going out to fish) and kanikapila (playing music). It was natural for him to study hula and Hawaiian in high school and then college. This path would lead him to meet Tracie in college when they were practicing for an exam in chanting.

Tracie is the daughter of famed Hawaiian entertainer Karen Keawehawai'i; she was dancing hula by age 4. Later, when she began studying with O'Brian Eselu on the Leeward Coast, every Saturday morning began at dawn in order to be at 8 a.m. class on time. "I had no weekends to myself," she recalled, without regret. She won Merrie Monarch's coveted Miss Aloha Hula title in 1994, despite having spent most of her hula years with kumu hula Eselu, who never took his women to the competition, entering only the kane (men's) side. He changed his mind when she was 15. "I think I cried for about three days, just to think I'm really going to put my feet on that stage," she recalled.

Now her feet, and her husband's, will be on that rustic wooden stage again. They've been aiming for this from Day 1 of deciding to form the halau; both have attended, assisting various other halau every year for the past 20.

Finally, this year, the invitation came. (Hula schools only attend the competition by invitation.)

"The Merrie Monarch stage is 100 times more important than any other stage. There's more accountability. Everybody will see it," said Keawe.

FOR THE KUPUNA

The Lopeses complement each other in a rare way, finishing each other's sentences, honoring each other's kuleana (responsibilities). "If I have a choice," said Keawe, "I'll pick up an 'ukulele, and if she has a choice, she'll dance. So it works well." They will share singing and chanting duties during the competition.

Modest and self-deprecating, they strive to name everyone who has contributed to their success (the halau has won numerous awards in various competitions and the headquarters' walls are lined with plaques and trophies).

Yes, they say, they are going to compete and they hope to place or win. But the real reward will be how many of the kupuna (elders) who have helped them will be present, or watching on TV — na kumu hula Ed Collier and Eselu, cultural specialist Pat Bacon, Tracie's singer mom Karen Keawehawai'i and the auntie who first taught her hula in informal after-school classes, Johnette Keawehawai'i, plus so many others. Theirs is a complex hula genealogy.

For both, the reward is passing down cultural knowledge.

"All the same faces are there as when I was 16, but now they're not watching me, they're watching our students," said Tracie.

"If the teachers are happy," Keawe said, "that's better than any award."