Before Hawaiians had a written language, they shared their histories, genealogies, their honor for kings and queens, their love for the ocean, for the land and for love itself through the chants and dance of hula.
During the Merrie Monarch Festival, hula’s most prestigious competition held each year in Hilo on the Big Island of Hawaii, the world’s best hula dancers come together to celebrate hula and share their stories with a global audience in this by-invitation-only event.
This year, Kauai’s own hula school Halau Ka Lei Mokihana O Leina‘ala, based in Kalaheo and led by Kumu Hula (hula instructor) Leina‘ala Pavao Jardin, is the only halau (hula school) representing the Garden Island.
Tribute to two Hawaiian queens
Each year in the solo portion of the Merrie Monarch Festival, the Miss Aloha Hula competition showcases young ladies who represent the pinnacle of individual talent in hula.
This year, Nicole “Nikki” Nalani Ishibashi, 23, will represent Halau Ka Lei Mokihana O Leina‘ala and Kauai. She will be the third of 13 contestants on Thursday evening April 24.
“Nicole has been dancing with me since I first became a kumu 18 years ago,” Leina‘ala says. “She was 5 years old when she started. We have footage of her at our first show at St. Theresa’s carnival, she’s chanting and she’s hitting her kala‘au (wooden sticks for dancing) – it’s so cute. It’s been amazing to see her grow. She’s been very dedicated to the hula.”
Nikki, who is a first-time Miss Aloha Hula contestant and who will also dance with the full halau on Friday and Saturday nights, is performing both her hula kahiko (ancient) and hula auana (modern) in honor of two Hawaiian queens.
“My hula kahiko speaks of Queen Kapi‘olani and my hula auana speaks of Queen Emma in tribute to these two queens who cared so deeply for the Hawaiian people’s health,” she says.
In the mid-1800s, after missionaries arrived from the Mainland, inadvertently exposing Hawaiian people to viruses for which their bodies had no immunity, a series of deadly epidemics swept through the Hawaiian islands, swiftly killing more than one-tenth of the Hawaiian population.
“Queen Kapi‘olani traveled all through the islands educating Hawaiians to take care of themselves and introducing them into the benefits of Western medicine like vaccines,” Nikki says. “She also received monies to start what is now called Kapi’olani Children’s Hospital on Oahu,” in 1890, originally named Kapi’olani Maternity Home.
Similarly, Queen Emma and her husband had gone door-to-door collecting money to establish The Queens Hospital on Oahu in 1859, now called The Queen’s Medical Center, Leina‘ala explains.
When she learned about the two queens’ contributions to the health of Hawaiians, Nikki felt it personally, as two years ago, her father, an active, athletic 50-year-old man, was diagnosed with leukemia.
“With him going through all of that it gave me greater appreciation for these ali‘i wahine (royal women) who cared deeply for the Hawaiian people’s health,” Nikki says. Her father is a survivor; he is in remission now and doing well. He and his wife will attend the Merrie Monarch Festival to watch their daughter perform.
Leina‘ala chose for Nikki to dance in the color yellow. “For a cancer patient, the yellow glow of the sunrise represents the end of treatment as they see the light at the end of the tunnel and know that life will go on,” Leina’ala says.
Rebirth of a heiau
When the ladies of the halau perform together in the group segment of the competition, their kahiko dance will celebrate the rebirth of a heiau (traditional Hawaiian place of worship) within Kaneiolouma, an ancient Hawaiian village that was revealed only recently in Poipu after decades of being concealed by vegetation.
Kahua O Kaneiolouma (the Kaneiolouma complex), currently undergoing renovation, is a more than 500-year-old Hawaiian village that sits on 13 acres in Poipu and includes an intricate system of walls and terraces with remnants of house sites, fishponds, taro fields, above-ground irrigation channels, shrines and idols.
The mele (song) about the heiau that the halau is dancing to was written by Kauai son Keaoopuaokalani NeSmith, who is an instructor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
“Keao says that it is his personal preference when composing mele not to mention the specific names of sacred places such as Kaneiolouma,” Leina‘ala says. “He writes about everything that’s around it or protects it.” So her dancers will dance about Keolewa Peak in the Haupu mountain range overlooking Kaneiolouma, to the lyrics, “as I look down on this most sacred spot.”
Known for her exquisite costuming of her award-winning dancers, Leina‘ala envisioned the look her halau will wear to represent the historical significance of the heiau.
With blouses that look similar to kapa cloth, tree bark beaten until it is soft enough to wear as clothing, “it’s a very ancient style of hula attire,” Leina’ala says. The dancers dyed their skirts with Kauai’s red dirt and stamped them with petroglyphs representing aspects of the heiau and surrounding village.
“The girls all carved their own ‘ohe kapala (bamboo printing sticks) and hand-stamped their skirts with them,” Leina’ala says. “The petroglyphs represent the mountains, the four Hawaiian gods on carved ki‘i (tiki) that have been placed on the site, an owl that perched itself on a branch during construction of the stone walls that border the village, a fish-man and a sea urchin (both petroglyphs of the Poipu area), and the ocean.”
The halau will perform their dance of Kaneiolouma on Friday April 25, the second day of the Merrie Monarch Festival.
The following evening for the hula auana competition, the ladies will dance a tribute to Kauai’s Auntie Ku’uleialoha Punua, a kumu hula since the mid-1950s, who died last year. Auntie Ku‘ulei’s sons, Wallis and Eddie Punua, will accompany the halau on vocals.
Quite an honor
This year will be Halau Ka Lei Mokihana O Leina‘ala’s third appearance at the Merrie Monarch Festival. When she was a hula student, Leina‘ala danced at Merrie Monarch seven times, once in the Miss Aloha Hula competition and was awarded the coveted Hawaiian Language Award.
But for Leina‘ala and all of her dancers, the true gift of dancing at Merrie Monarch is being allowed to share their passion for hula, the stories they are dancing and the privilege of keeping alive a beautiful tradition that is an integral part of Hawaiian culture.
“You feel hula alive in the stadium,” Leina’ala says. “There is huge, huge appreciation for hula with this audience. To be in front of the judges and many, many hula greats who are there and everyone at home watching on TV, is quite an honor.”
• The Merrie Monarch Festival will be televised on KFVE and streamed live on www.k5thehometeam.com. Nikki Ishibashi will perform third of 13 contestants on Thursday night; the entire halau will perform 23rd of 28 groups on both Friday and Saturday evenings. For more information about the ancient Hawaiian village Kaneiolouma in Po’ipu, visit www.kaneiolouma.org.
