Hula dancing

“The beat drew me in. I put the skirt on, over my shorts. I walked over to the group and found a place in line, in the back. The linoleum floor felt like ice under my bare feet. A woman dancing next to me smiled and nodded. I would try to follow what she did with my feet and arms at the same time. I looked back at the kids. Their eyes were eager, as if to say, Way to go, Mom! My 11-year-old son, Silas, gave me a thumbs-up. I turned my attention forward. Boom, tap, boom, tap, tap. I bent my knees. I stepped to the right, remembering to keep my shoulders steady, not moving, so that my hips would sway. I kept my head level. One important secret to dancing hula is that you must dance with bent knees to get that hip movement. When you bend your knees halfway, it forces your hips to move from side to side when you step, making it look like you’re swinging your hips when you’re really stepping. But as I sank into my hips, I could feel them creak.”

“Week by week, I was mentally preparing myself. What had I gotten us into? On one hand, I told myself it was just a high-school auditorium. But on the other, this could be really bad if I botched it. On the day of our performance, the kids and I were all excited and nervous. As we got ready backstage with our hālau, the room was electric. Our kumu gathered the entire hālau onto the stage with the thick curtains drawn. The room was quiet, and he began to chant. The chant was one that we’d said together at the beginning of every gathering of our hālau as a way to enter the space and be seen by our ancestors. As our voices joined together, I felt myself grounded in that generational line again, sharing the stories of those who’d come before and holding my children’s hands on either side of me. Once the performance began, everything went by fast. With each song, our hālau got into a groove.”

“I’m dancing hula because I’m finally getting out of my own head and touching the ground with my feet, to the beat. You know how many years I thought dancing was leaping around to crazy Irish music, with fiddles, flutes, uilleann pipes and goatskin bodhran? Skiddledy doo die doh die day. Man, I was free form, with the help of the Guinness, of course. O mysterious dance! Okay Uncle Mike, we’re gonna learn the hands. The mist. The eyelashes. The smell. The throat. The slippery ground. Watch out! Learning Ka Ua O Nu‘uanu was a good first dance for me to learn start to finish, because each verse talks about one of the senses and that’s what hula’s about, expressing everything we see, hear, smell, taste, touch—Kumu Kaui adds a sixth sense—and feel. But move your hands and arms one way and your feet another? Once again, I’m an air head in an air sign learning to pay attention. I’m embarrassed. I’m uncoordinated. I’m totally lost.”