Hula The Family Way

Every June, I fly to Hawaii to participate in an Educational Technology Conference and I stay at a small family run hotel.

The hotel isn't fancy.  They only have internet in the lobby but there are regulars who come at the same time and you get to know them.

The hotel has a musical night scheduled every Monday night but this week it was on Wednesday due to a prior commitment.  The group for this show is comprised of whoever makes it.

So you never know which musicians will be there.  The show has both local music and hula dancers but the hula dancers are people who stop by and get up to dance.

This show is not polished.  It is not flashy.  Sometimes there is one person dancing while other times you have a row of dancers going from the lobby door to the swimming pool.

The audience sits in deck chairs and in folding chairs that have been set up for the show.  

The lady in the middle is Japanese and comes over every summer during the month of June.  She and her husband study hula and come to dance at the show.

The lady on the right is leaving today to go back home to Japan after a short visit.

The lady on the right is local and an elder who comes to play and dance.  Her son brings her over to the show, dances, and plays his ukulele.  Even the leader of the group, Leonard, brings his wife and mother-in-law to the show.  His mother-in-law is about 96.

The lady in the black and white dress to the right used to live in Hawaii but moved to Corvallis Oregon.  She comes back to visit and participate in the show.

This week, she shared a song she arranged about the owner of the hotel who is about 96 years old.  She took one song and changed the words.  When she did this, she was nervous but we all had fun singing along with her on the chorus.

One of the Ukulele players came up out of the audience for several songs.  They never have a set playlist, its what ever they feel like playing.  

I see this Japanese couple every year.  They are known for performing a dance in which she ends up kicking him in the rear end.

I think she plays the part of a stubborn donkey who reminds its owner that she does not like to obey.  Either that or she's reminding her husband of who is in charge.

They are a delightful couple and she is often up dancing with the others.  Her husband tends to get up for the all male dances.

Here is another dance where everyone is up doing the same dance.

The neat thing about watching this type of dancing is everyone has a slightly different version depending on where they learned the dance.

Each school teaches the version their Kumu learned so each school has a slightly different one.  This makes it fun to watch because some move more than others and sometimes, the dancers almost run into each other.

This is like a family gathering because the numbers are not choreographed and there is the variation.

At the end of the show, they brought everyone up to teach a song. Caroline who lead this, did a great job of showing us the movements so we could follow.  I felt extremely successful and graceful by the end of the number.

The band immediately went into another number and Caroline showed us the movements.  No one got a chance to sit down but then again, no one wanted to. Everyone stayed up to enjoy it.

I am in the second row, all in black, next to the Japanese lady. At the end, we all congratulated each other for the great job.

At 9:00, after two hours of fun, the show was over and everyone headed home.  I took time to talk to a few people I know.  This weekend is going to be the Pan-Pacific Festival and King Kamehameha's parade.  I'll share pictures with you on Monday and Tuesday.  Tomorrow, look for pictures of the fireworks over Waikiki.

Let me know what you think, I'd love to hear.  Have a great day.