First Hula Lesson

BURIED DEEP in our family archives is a photo of a young dad and magazine publisher attempting, with limited success, to dance hula.

Our family of five happened onto the start of a hula demonstration at Lāhainā Cannery Mall, where we eagerly sat in the front row as the show was about to begin.

We watched, all amazed, for 30 minutes as young hula dancers moved gracefully across the stage. Their motions mimicked the waves of the ocean and the mountains of the land. As they rhythmically swayed with the music, we began to realize they were telling us stories.

My emotional investment in the performance must have been obvious, because before I could say “mahalo,” I was being ushered on stage to receive my first hula lesson.

Looking back, I can’t imagine I did it well, nor did I bring honor to the art of hula. But what I did sense at that time was hula is more than a dance: Hula is a way of life.

Or so I thought.

“Hula is life,” Aunty Wendy Tuivaioge told me during our interview for this issue’s “Ambassadors of Aloha” (p. 82).

Now the director of Hawaiian Programs at Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea, “Aunty Mopsie,” as her hula friends call her, started taking hula lessons as a little girl, at the insistence of her mother.

Some children, like Wendy, who begin dance or music at a young age, might not understand why. They might even resist a little. But Wendy’s mother persisted, as did her loving kumu hula (hula teacher).

Five decades and many kumu later, Wendy is not only an ambassador of aloha, she is an ambassador of hula – sharing with anyone interested in learning how entwined hula is with the very breath of Hawaiian life.

MANY MOTHERS and fathers across Maui today feel as passionately about hula as Wendy’s mother did. They send their sons and daughters to any of 20 hālau (hula schools) where they learn the language, culture and mo’ōlelo (stories) of Hawai‘i’s past and present through music and dance.

Some of them go on to perform at lū‘au across the island, including at the ‘Aipono Award-winning Old Lāhainā Lū‘au, which we feature in this issue (p. 26).

Schools across the Hawaiian Islands now teach ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i (Hawaiian language), alongside traditional Western education. Maui’s George Kahumoku Jr. has been a leader in the rebirth of Hawaiian culture through education, farming, art and music. We sat down with George at breakfast on his lānai for this issue’s cover story, “Slack Key: Maui's Renaissance Man for the Hawaiian Renaissance.” (p. 42).

Like Aunty Wendy, Uncle George is generous with his time – ready to share a story or nugget of Hawaiian wisdom with locals and visitors alike.

Some of us may have given up hope of ever becoming an elegant hula dancer, but the world will be a better place when we strive to live with more of the aloha spirit that radiates from deep in the Hawaiian culture.