It doesn't take a fancy studio
By Betty Shimabukuro
or lots of money to compete
Star-BulletinSerious hula is a serious commitment of time, cash and personal devotion. It begins with a childhood bond to a halau, and culminates in glorious competitions such as the Merrie Monarch Festival.
But there are other levels of hula, filled with dancers who started only in their teens, who can't make it into hula studios, who are learning the ways of the dance from volunteer instructors after school.
They may never see the Merrie Monarch stage, but this weekend many of them will compete on a genuine hula mound, surrounded by all the trappings of the art, at the Hawaii Secondary Schools Hula Kahiko Competition.
"This is probably the closest they'll come to a hula competition like Merrie Monarch," says Shannon Waiho'ikahea Eberhart, the student director of Campbell High School's hula troupe.Dancers compete through their intermediate or high school halau or hula clubs, rather than established hula studios.
For many it is their first time on a competitive stage, says Jan Itagaki, executive director of the Kalihi-Palama Culture & Arts Society, which sponsors the event. "That's what we want, that they have a taste of it."
Not that it's exactly a level playing field. Renowned kumu hula shepherd the dancers at several private schools Ed Collier at Iolani, Michael Casupang at Mid-Pacific Institute, Mapuana de Silva at Kamehameha Schools. If you were putting money on the results, you'd probably aim in that direction.
Campbell, the public high school in Ewa Beach, lost its hula instructor last year, leaving Eberhart and her boyfriend, Campbell grad Kama Mossman, as the volunteers in charge. Eberhart has eight years of hula training and dances with the halau Hula Olana. Mossman has three years of experience.
"We're like a bunch of nobodies," Eberhart laughs.
But the way they work at it is first class. Every day after school, the Campbell dancers drill with their volunteer instructors. They sell pizza coupons to pay for costumes, draft their parents to help with the ti leaf skirts. They will comb the mountains of Waianae for palapalai fern and Leeward beaches for the bright yellow-orange kaunaoa flower for their lei.They'll perform "Malua Kii Wai Ke Aloha," a love song chosen by Eberhart and Mossman to mark their own relationship.
Peter Kawaimaka Lonae'a, the Hawaiian studies teacher who serves as advisor to the group, says hula opens a real cultural window for many of his students who come from Filipino backgrounds. "It gives them a chance to go into a different culture and feel good about themselves," he says.
Most had never danced before high school, he says. "Because they enjoy it so much they stick with it."
And that's the point, organizer Itagaki says. "It's just giving them an opportunity to learn."
The secondary schools competition is 20 years old and will include 17 participating groups this year. The audience usually numbers 1,500 to 2,000, with 75 percent of ticket prices going back to the schools.
The Top 3 groups are chosen for kane, wahine and combined performances in both intermediate and high school divisions. Prizes are Hawaiian cultural books that are donated to the winning schools' libraries.For the groups that don't really expect to place, the competition is a time to compare notes with dancers from other schools and basically share in the spirit, Itagaki says.
They'll perform on the hula mound at King Intermediate, with Kaneohe Bay in the background. "Competition brings out the best," she says. "Everyone has the juices to be the best."
Eberhart and Mossman are hoping not so much for a top spot as for solid scores that they can learn from and build on.
"I hope that we have a good time there," Eberhart says. "It would be nice to place, but mostly I hope we get what we deserve."
Hawaii Secondary Schools
Hula Kahiko CompetitionDate: 10 a.m. Saturday
