Men’s modern hula (auana)

Costumes 46th Merrie Monarch

Often people only know about modern hula (auana) which is a bit softer and more graceful (in a diffferent way) than anicent hula (kahiko).  They are not aware of the depth of knowledge, skill, and symbolism involved in hula. Its more than just being a good dancer, dancers must emote the meaning of the dance.

The color of the costume and adornments should relate to the topic, location, person honored or meaning of the dance. Hawaiian history is passed down orally (not written) and through song. The islands are symbolized by specific colors, the ocean can be blue for the ocean, or green for the forest.  There are many more that those who study hula spend years studying and learning but this gives you a glimmer of what’s involved.

You may have noticed all of the leis, head wrist and ankle adornments are mae by the dancer, fresh flowers, ferns, leaves and vines. I believe there was only one  group that made the dried raffia adornments. Fabric was often hand stamped, all of this is included in the assessments of the judges as well as the actual dance.

Instruments at Merrie Monarch

I’ve had a few questions about some of the percussion instruments percussion seen at Merrie Monarch so I thought I’d provide a bit of information.

I’ve already mentioned in an earlier post the gourd drum, the single gourd (ipu) and double gouard (ipu heke). These are gourds that have the seeds removed; the insides sanded down, etc. When the bottom of the gourd hits the floor/pad you hear the base sound and then the other beats are made as the open palm hits the side of the gourd drum.  We also saw a smaller feather decorated gourd during Keali’i Ceballos’Halau Keali’i O Nalani’s ancient hula Friday night. The top of teh gouard is decorated with feathers on the top and extending over he top. There’s was very nice with brown and yellow gold feathers. The gourd drum is not very heavy because its is hollow.

The pahu is a large base drum (box/barrel drum). It is heavy and is quite large.

We also saw the knee drum during Kumu Ellen Castillow’s Halau Hula O Pukaipapuao Kalani’s ancient hula. Dancers chant as they tie this drum above their knee and use it for sound.

The ‘ili ‘ili are 4 smooth rocks held in the hands and rythmically tapped together make an impressive sound (not to mention that dancers are doing this, dancing, and often chanting at the same time).

Last night we saw the single bamboo stick pu’ili, hit the arm, hand or wrist. We often see two used together.  These are a piece of bamboo that has one end cut in kind of like a broom to make the noise.  I believe in this dance they were making the sound of rain.  Tapped sounds like it is soft but trust me being hit in the face with one of those is not pleasant.

Halau I Ka Weiku not only used the treadle board from Kaua’i in their kahiko hula Friday night but also the kala’au sticks. The teadle board is  is a board placed on another smaller piece that the dancer stands on and steps forward and back on to make the beat sound. The kala’au sticks are round branches that have been stripped. They can be small about a foot or as tall or taller than the dancer and they are struck together to make the sound. Often the dance is coreographed so that the dancers hit each other’s kala’au at some point which is very impressive and takes lots of precision, courage and trust.

We also heard some shells rattle as one of the wahine groups (Halau Hula o Hokulani) entered on Friday night that was very dramatic.

Of course dancers use their feet, hands and body also. We saw this many times and Halau Ke Kia’i a o Hula’s men’sancient hula showed this impressively.

Men’s hula kahiko

I’m glad everyone enjoyed the men’s hula kahiko vidoe below. I had questions about the dance so I thought I’d postmore information and the winner for 2009.  Originally the dancers were men. KITV.com has the full list of winners and their pionts.  Its important to know that dancers scores for both kahiko (ancient) and auana (modern) dance are combined for the overall score. So both types of dance must great not just one or the other.

O’Brian Eselu’s men’s hula kahiko (ancient hula) is a procreation dance.

Very well done, in fact, they won first place the kane (men’s) overall.

The first place overall wahine (women’s) group was Halau Na Mamo O Pu’uanahula.  First place Miss Aloha hula (solo woman’s hula) was Cherissa Henoheanapuaikawaokele Kane.

Winners 2009:

Overall Brian O’Eselu’s Ke Kai O Kahiki halau won.

Wetpaint Wiki

This is an informative site about the free Wetpaint Wiki.  I especially enjoyed the video.

Web 2.0 Aggregator

This is interesting information about RSS feeds, and web agregators.

Men’s Kahiko 2009

Wow! Great Kahiko hula

Wow – great kahiko hula (ancient Hawiian dance) tonight.  Its intermission and already we’ve seen several kinds of kahiko hula from the dance with knee drums and a sitting hula.

All the costumes are incredible and each relate to the dance’s topic or location.  I had  not seen a group color their hair (grey) to give meaning to the dance.

Watch live online at KITV

Watch Merrie Monarch live online  http://www.kitv.com/merrie-monarch-video/19192912/index.html

Auana

Eugene Jarrett has a nice write up on yesterday’s Miss Aloha hula’s winner.Gr

Great commentary.

http://eugenejarrett.wordpress.com/2009/04/17/mauian-wins-merrie-monarch-festival/