The first evening showcase of Hawaiian hula for 2015, HUA NUI – To Be Fruitful, To Be Productive, is a very colourful event, replete with traditional food before the dancing, allowing plenty of time for friends and family to catch up with one another’s lives. Presented in the capacious Shed 1 of Corban Estate, there is a capacity audience who express pride and delight in the dancers’ achievements, with applause and whistles and whoops at the end of each dance.

Eighteen dancers perform during the showcase, collectively presenting both ancient and modern hula dances, with an introduction to each dance – its title, provenance and cultural significance –  from kumu hula Blaine Kamalani Kia. During the course of the show, the dancers also demonstrate how hula skills develop from early childhood through to adulthood, with a charming beginning steps performance by six little girls aged about 4 – 7 years old, a more demanding series of dances from a trio of newly proficient teenagers, and with rich complexities from the professional adult dancers of Pasifika Sway.  All performers respond to the audience encouragement and recognition with increasing verve.

The programme opens with a bracket of extremely complex and detailed hula kahiko (“ancient”) dances, which I find fascinating – this is my first experience of them. The performers wear greenery at throat, wrist and ankle, and around their heads, and richly detailed linear-patterned gold and white striped red or blue skirts gathered at the waist, and loose, off the shoulder red or blue tops with elastic gathers to hold them in place. Kumu Blaine accompanies the dances by beating his hand against a gourd drum, and chanting – it is traditional for the various gestures of the dancers’ arms and hands to echo the words of the chants or songs.

There is considerable gravitas and grace to the dancing of these ancient dances, a reverence and demureness which is quite different from that seen in modern hula. There is rapid stepping and swaying and pointing of feet, ankle shimmies, the occasional sudden bouncing plie sending knees angling outwards. Arms are raised, stretched up and down again, elbows crooked at breast level, hands floating, resting, gesturing, always moving. Bodies dip, shimmy, sway and seem to float on the air, and at times bobble as if immersed in deep ocen water. The eyes and heads are likewise always moving. The rhythms are complex, and at times hands and feet are in counterpoint. Movement seems to be organised into modular blocks – certainly there is repetition and variation in the choreography.

The dances have titles – translated – such as The Budding of the Earth, or tell stories of real people such as King David, the last king of Hawaii, and legendary figures such as Hi’aka and her sister Pele, Goddess of Fire. In a brief interlude, Kumu Blaine demonstrates an ancient dance of the warriors and its stomping step, much to the delight of the audience.

The second half of the show opens with a bracket of Hawaiian popular songs played and sung by the two man Kamanawa Band – Kumu Blaine on lead guitar and Kalei Kahalewai on bass, and continues with a dance of procreation, dedicated to a specific family in the audience, followed by  a series of modern hula dances accompanied by the band. This series of dances tell about the now extinct O O bird, reflect on love, and (with more than a little innuendo) refer to surfing the waves in Oahu, and riding in canoes on the Big Island.These are slower, more languorous and less detailed dances than the ancient examples, though share similar vocabulary, with the dancers expressively using their faces to communicate particular emotions. The greenery is replaced by a flower in the hair, and coral or wooden jewellery at neck and wrist, and the dancers wear beautifully cut and embellished long dresses featuring draped and gathered sections, often combining a plain top with a patterned skirt. The teenage trio are resplendent in elegant red dresses which make them seem very grown up. 

The adult dancers are led by confident, serene and stellar kumu hula Aruna Po-Ching, who is also out in front of the littlies modelling the moves they are still learning. She is a much respected dance artist, hula performer and choreographer, and the primary force in hula performance in Auckland. After returning to New Zealand in 2006, she began developing what has now become the Pasifika Sway Trust and dance company, and the first officially sanctioned hula halau (school) in Aotearoa, Halau Ka Waikahe Lani Maile (Peaceful Heavenly Flowing Waters Hula School). These activities comprise her community service, and she says she could not have achieved anything without support from her family and the community, Hawaii and mainland USA.  The ripples of her achievements – both fruitful and productive – now extend well beyond the Hawaiian community. 

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