Hula via the internet?

Aloha! E hulakukakuka!  Let's talk Hula!
I got asked recently if I taught hula via the internet because people live across the Pacific and can't get over to Hawai'i to learn good hula.  PA'I Arts & Culture may be connecting to a distance learning program in a future experiment so stay tuned...but not right now... www.paifoundation.org

And after our last email, because I posted a video of one of my students, Char, dancing Honolulu at our monthly Kanikapila, which is tonight, if it was ok if they learned the motions from the video.....uh....no!

Choreography is intellectual property rights.  Its not cool to take someone else's choreography and use it if you never learned it from them directly.  I know its happening but thought maybe we should start putting it out there that's not the way to learn mele hula.  I have students in New York City and I am travelling back and forth from Hawai'i to teach them.   They practice on their own, email questions and sometimes send me video of their practices... the Video is a refresher tool and one that can be used to fine tune level, hand positions, body positions etc...its not perfect, you don't get to see everything on a flat screen, and its hard to teach about the emotional passion that comes from dancing if its not in person.

Halau is different somewhat from most dance schools.  In halau you make a commitment to the kumu hula, the master teacher that's very difficult to break.  You become a family and have kuleana, responsibilities and priveleges that come with being in the family.  You are connected to a genealogy of teachers that you are responsible to that have come before you and will come after you and a family of kumu hula, brother and sister halau that will hold you responsible for your choices and actions.

It is this relationship, that can not be connected via the internet or video.  We will in the future, experiment with teaching hula through distance learning.  This however, is not halau.

Christian Hula

I thought I'd respond to a hula teacher who teaches hula on the mainlaind on Hulakukakuka...I've had several chats related to this issue and I know its a controversy for some....Here's her question.

On Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 8:02 AM, 

"Aloha,

Mahalo for your newsletter!  I have a small hula studio in California and have a question about students dancing kahiko chants.  It concerns students that are Jehovah Witness and their reluctance to dance to songs about Pele.  How do you handle students with those concerns?  I want them to learn the dances but not to go against their beliefs.  I’d appreciate whatever light you can shed as to this troubling situation."

Aloha,

Its a great question and for some hula teachers a problem...

Its not a question or problem for me...Its a problem for the student.  

I have had students who refuse to dance Pele dances.  They are no longer part of our halau.  

If a student comes to me with that dilemma, I show them the door. and if they continue to come to class, every mele will be about Pele.

I refuse to not teach the dances of our ancestors and push our students to find a way to accept that part of our cultural heritage.  I find it strange and disrespectful to our Hawaiian culture that some churches have included "christian hula" in their worship services.  Hula was the first thing that the churches banned when they came to Hawai'i in 1820, then they went about banning our Hawaiian language in the schools.  and now, its ok for them to take that part of our cultural heritage and appropriate it for the promotion of their own agenda.

You don't get to appropriate parts of our cultural practices and adapt and change it to serve your own needs...

I have also been confronted by some people about this.  I was Hawaiian when I was conceived, before I became an American when I was born, and before I was baptized at the age of 8 and became Christian.  I don't have a problem and if god wanted everyone to worship and speak and be raised the same way then you would all be Hawaiians...

So let's embrace our cultural diversity, and religious choices, because it is a choice and create a better world for our future generations who are kind to each other, malama one another, the earth and the natural and cultural resources that we all need to survive as a people.