Every 10 years, Yucaipa, Calif., gets snow, the U.S. Census Bureau conducts its annual census, healthy individuals are given their next tetanus immunizations and Beverly Apana Muraoka opens up her Healani’s Hula Halau & Music academy graduate performances to the
Every 10 years, Yucaipa, Calif., gets snow, the U.S. Census Bureau conducts its annual census, healthy individuals are given their next tetanus immunizations and Beverly Apana Muraoka opens up her Healani’s Hula Halau & Music academy graduate performances to the public.
On Dec. 14, be prepared not for answering questions about how many relatives are living in your household, not for a painful prick of the arm, and not for caring about a few snowflakes on the Mainland. Instead, prepare for a night of 65 dancers, musicians, plate lunch service and special guest performances.
The halau is run by Beverly Apana Muraoka, a kind musical soul perhaps better known as Auntie Bev, whose family has been immersed in hula for more than a century; her great grandmother was a court dancer for King David Kalakaua.
Muraoka’s been teaching hula since 1987 but has been involved in hula all her life and has entertained for over 50 years.
Many might remember the Apana Sisters who played at the Coco Palms on Kaua’i from 1965 to 1983. Muraoka’s sister, Lovey Apana, was the first in the family to be a kumu hula; she was also named a “Living Treasure” in 1993 by the Kaua‘i Museum. Muraoka returned with niece and anchor girl as The Apana Sisters a few years after Hurricane Iniki from 1995 to 2005 at Duke’s restaurant.
Since April, in addition to running the halau four days a week, Muraoka has been performing every Wednesday at the Harbor Mall in a solo act show called the “Harbor Mall Hula Hour” where she sings, plays music as well as gives the tourists some lessons on Hawaiian culture, language and the art of the hula.
“Hula is the power to remember,” said Muraoka. “It is from the mind and from the heart. The more you learn, the more is required of you,” she said, referring to the challenges a dancer encounters as he or she advances further in the halau. “You as a hula dancer have to remember all the movements for every song and no two songs are alike.”
You can’t rely on a book to look up all of the movements and your mind must become like a data bank, Muraoka said.
Muraoka runs her school from February to December, with students registering in January. There are no mid-session starts because “if you come in late, you frustrate the student who started on time while they wait for you to catch up.”
The culmination of the dancers’ hard work is their graduation and celebration ceremony, which takes place Dec. 14 at the Kaua‘i War Memorial Convention Hall.
The event is already drawing family and guests all the way from Nevada, Muraoka’s “entourage from Tahiti, and friends from Tonga,” and a woman from Idaho who hosted Muraoka and her travel performers from the halau on a past trip to the Mainland.
Graduates dancing in the ceremony vary in age from 5 to about 78 years old. The show will start off with the hula kahiko (ancient traditional hula), followed by hula falling in the categories of contemporary modern hula, (hula au‘ana), New Zealand (Maori), Samoa, Tonga (tau lunga), Tahiti, Tai Chi hula, and a finale musical performance by Na Hoku Hanohano award-winner Genoa Keawe. Winner of the 1980 Na Hoku Hanohano Sidney Grayson Award, later, the Anthology Award and the 1995 Female Vocalist Award, Keawe has performed every Thursday evening for almost 20 years at the Marriott Waikiki Beach Resort.
All of the clothing is being created by Vicky Masuoka who has been sewing for Muraoka, students and others for 40-plus years. Dress wear greenery will come from Koke‘e.
The ceremony is indeed a celebration but more importantly it’s a recognition of the students.
“We have to embrace the students that take up the hula. We’re showing off their talents, their accomplishments,” said Muraoka. “And sometimes it’s not the ones who get it right the first time that make the biggest impression” — though all students are in Muraoka’s heart.
“Your students make it worthwhile. They are the reason why you keep going. As the ugly duckling fable goes, some students you know right away are going to be great, but it’s the struggling ones that catch on and turn from two left feet into a beautiful dancer that are really amazing,” she said.
The 20-year celebration of Healani’s Hula Halau & Music Academy’s annual Ho‘ike, “A Journey thru Polynesia,” begins Dec. 14, at 6:30 p.m. at the Kaua‘i War Memorial Convention Hall.
Tickets for the Hawaiian plate service beginning at 4:30 p.m. are sold out; however you can still purchase tickets for the “show only” for $10 ($15 at the door). Tickets can be purchased by calling Mary at 652-2111, Beverly at 822-1451, Vicky’s Fabric at 822-1746 or through Healani’s Hula Halau members.
“What’s so heartening is when you hear someone say ‘I want to be like her’ and you say ‘She’s been dancing all of her life.’ You have to put in the time and practice,” Muraoka said.
But the art of hula is not limited to all of the struggle, hard work, preparation and practice of the dancers. It’s about the audience too. For like Muraoka said, “If we can make other people happy, then isn’t our job done?”
