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Aloha
Halau O Na Hali'a recital is the real hula
Friday, Sept. 26, 2008
 Click here to enlarge this photo Submitted photo
Halau O Na Hali'a hula school was founded in Waldorf in 2003. Until this year, however, the group had always held its recitals in Virginia. Ho'ike will be held at 2 p.m. Sept. 27 at North Point High School in Waldorf.
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According to Makanui, educating people about the 50th state is the main thing she would like to accomplish with Ho'ike, a recital to be held Sept. 27. It has been five years since her hula halau (school), Halau O Na Hali'a, opened in Waldorf. And this is the first year the event has been held in Charles County as opposed to Fairfax, Va., where the group had access to a venue.
Halau O Na Hali'a has 30 students ranging in age from 4 to 70. "Very few have Hawaiian blood," Makanui said, although some have parents who grew up in Hawaii. The school meets on Saturdays in an extension to Makanui's house. She had it built after a gym space the school had been using closed down.
The term hula, for most, will conjure images from a luau party with leis and tiki torches and maybe a Jimmy Buffett CD in the stereo. One might even think of hula dancing — a woman dancing in a grass skirt and coconut bra.
"I have danced for 40 years." Makanui said, "Believe me, I have never worn a coconut bra and have only worn a grass skirt for Tahitian-style dancing."
Hula, as it happens, which revolves around dancing and chanting, is more about storytelling than purely escapist entertainment. Prior to the arrival of European missionaries in the early 19th century — when Hawaiian first became a written language — the dancing, rhythmic drumming and chants of hula served as the primary means of preserving Hawaii's history.
"In the hula, everything is choreographed," Makanui said. "Every movement has a meaning to it. We want to show people what it's really about."
Ho'ike will begin with a traditional form of hula called kahiko, which is accompanied by chanters using double-head gourds and drums. Traditionally in Hawaii, people prepare for a hula dance by going to the forest for ferns and kakui nuts to adorn their outfits. For Ho'ike, performers will wear a pahu, a "very simple, very unflattering outfit," Makanui said.
The kahiko portrays one of Hawaii's defining myths. It is the operatic, epic story of the fire goddess, Pele, and her rivalry with her sister, Hi‘iaka. According to Makanui, "It goes back to the beginning of time."
Pele wants to reunite with her lover Lohi'au and commands Hi'iaka to find him. Hi'iaka, in turn, is given the gift of hula and asks Pele to care for her groves.
During her journey, Hi'iaka confronts demons, death and lust.
"Poor thing," Makanui said, while explaining the story. "She has to fight, and with every fight, though, she's gaining strength." Hi'iaka eventually reaches the stature of a goddess … but then she falls in love with Lohi'au.
Pele, of course, discovers them. Enraged, she kills Lohi'au and destroys the groves. She and Hi'iaka then begin a never-ending struggle some Hawaiians believe is the eternal cycle of destruction and renewal which is central to Hawaiian cosmology.
"The land, the oceans, the mountains, the wind — everything has a life," Makanui said. While she is a Christian, Makanui said she acknowledges the importance and existence of Hawaiian gods and goddesses within the Hawaiian way of life.
The second part of the recital will consist of a contemporary style of hula referred to as auana, which emerged as a result of a 1970s renaissance in hula and what Makanui calls "Hawaiiana."
During this time the formerly-banned Hawaiian language began to be taught in immersion schools, where it's the only language spoken.
Kahiko and auana hula are now performed year-round in Hawaii. Thousands attend the Merrie Monarch Festival and hula competition, which Makanui describes as the "hula Olympics."
Makanui was introduced to hula by her relatives in Hawaii. She continued her study when she moved to the "mainland" with renowned teacher Wayne Kaho'onei Panoke, a kuma hula, or hula master.
While she does not consider herself to be a kuma hula, Makanui, who works for the U.S. Senate, nonetheless practices her own hula every day and imparts a similar discipline and focus to her Saturday classes, which sometimes run for most of the day.
"Hula requires that you live aloha," she explained.
Struggling to find the right words, Makanui started to read out of a book. Then she returned to her own words: "Aloha is just a feeling," she said, "a way of being."
