Like much of Hawaiian culture, hula survived decades of suppression. Now, despite the pandemic discouraging in-person gatherings, hula is not only surviving, it appears to be thriving, thanks to kumu hula and hula performers who have gone online to keep their art form alive for their students.
For these teachers, using Zoom to reach out to students has been, for the most part, richly and surprisingly rewarding, with many expecting to continue the practice after the pandemic restrictions have been lifted.
Kau‘i Dalire, the 1992 Miss Aloha Hula and now kumu to Halau Ka Lihilihilehua ‘O Hopoe Kuikanani, got a bit of a head start on the pandemic when she started teaching online a few years ago.
“I thought it was important because hula is so loved around the world, and people were dancing what they thought was hula,” she said. “There was like ‘hot hula,’ and there was ‘Tahitian’ that people thought was hula. … I felt it was important to provide them the opportunity to learn authentic hula.”
Going online required some soul-searching, Dalire said, because of traditional taboos against filming lessons. “We weren’t allowed to record in halau,” she said. “I struggled with it for a good three years before I started because I was struggling between the old and the new.”
She got the approval of several kumu, many of whom appear on her website, ikumuhula.com, but then ran into a number of technical hurdles — like how to record and post videos on Vimeo and livestream lessons on Facebook. Even choosing a time to hold classes was tricky.
“I have students in Ukraine, in Germany, in Michigan, all over the world so I ran into a lot of obstacles in doing things live,” said Dalire.
Dalire has since built up what is essentially a franchising operation around her halau. Prior to the pandemic, she was on the road as much as two weeks a month teaching and performing.
While her Vimeo and Facebook lessons were strictly one-way — students could see her, but she couldn’t see them — the advent of Zoom has given her the advantage of being able to see her students. But Zoom presents other challenges, since she is seen in reverse of what students should be doing — right becomes left and left becomes right. Experienced students can compensate, Dalire said, while beginners are encouraged to send her videos of them dancing, which allows her to give more personal direction until they get it right.
Dalire has seen steady growth in interest in hula during the pandemic, with several beginners signing on. She has 13 teachers in training in Central Europe, Asia and the mainland, preparing to start giving in-person classes once it is safe to do so.
“Each of those locations already have groups that are interested in hula and Hawaiian stuff,” she said. “They’d go to concerts when the musicians used to come, so there’s a big draw towards hula. … People enjoy hula. They find it very healing.”
‘Having a good time’
Kumu hula Pattye Wright has been teaching in her Kailua home since 1973, and when the pandemic first hit, her first thought was “no more of that.” But her husband, Rusty, is tech-savvy, having recorded instruction videos for her for several years, so together they set about offering free hula lessons online.
“I was overwhelmed with the response,” she said, with about 90 people signing up for one of her first sessions, about 50 of whom have stayed on. Wright now gives beginning and intermediate classes on Wednesdays and Saturdays. “It has given me a whole new way to teach, and I have loved it,” she said. “It has been a most positive experience.”
Her studio now consists of a dance floor where an alaka‘i (leader) performs in front of a mirror, with a camera recording her from behind. Wright, who at age 86 doesn’t “dance the way I like anymore,” sits at nearby workstations observing students performing remotely. She uses up to three flat-screens at a time, while her husband sits at another workstation in a side room helping with technical issues.
“I would call it a near professional setup,” said Wright, who’s lessons are streamed from her website realhula.com.
She has several students overseas, including one in Italy and several in Japan. Wright herself trained as a kumu hula in Kailua with Lani Kalama. “They’ve been so supportive,” she said. “I’ve received letters of thanks, emails, three to four every week. They send gifts and everything. I don’t charge anything, but they send me monetary gifts all the time.”
In addition to providing dance instruction, Wright also provides historical and cultural background to hula and Hawaiian history, finding illustrations to go with her presentations, with a book in Japanese based on her research in the offing. “It’s all a bonus to me, I’m having a good time,” she said.
Streaming challenges
Hula performer Kanoe Miller remembers it clearly when her 43-year-plus gig at the Halekulani Hotel came to a screeching halt. “When the hotel closed down on March 17, I was left with nothing,” she said. “I had some other gigs lined up and some other shows in Japan. … I was totally at a loss as to what to do.”
A performer and producer here and overseas, she had starting teaching in Japan six years ago and in Hawaii in 2019, all of it in-person. When the pandemic hit, one of her students suggested going to Zoom, and she made a major commitment to “just do it, because we felt like there was nothing else we could do.”
She and her husband, John, cleared out their living room, installed a dance mirror on the wall, upgraded their connectivity, bought cameras, lights, microphones and a “humongous, 70-inch TV screen” to watch her students. “I’d always thought a TV was an ugly piece of furniture, but now I have one in my living room,” she said with a laugh.
Miller, who earned the title of Miss Hawaii in 1973, advertised on social media and “much to my surprise, I got a great response from girls all over the mainland,” she said. Students from New York, Texas, North Carolina, Tennessee, Chicago, Cincinnati, Nevada and California, as well as locally have joined up, and while she’s lost some students from Japan — connectivity is inconsistent in Japan and most homes are too small for dancing — she’s been able to maintain ties with about 60% of them.
The main challenge is the delay caused by streaming over such a long distance. She remembers her first Zoom class and being alarmed to see her 15 students “moving, all differently, and apparently not to the music,” she said with a laugh. “Stepping to the beat is super important, and when you see people not doing that, or appearing to not be doing that, it just sends you into a twit. … When the class finished, I flew onto the couch and started crying. I thought I’d made a terrible mistake.”
Her husband helped her realize that there was a time delay — both sending and receiving signals — accounting for the disjointed dancing. Although she admits that “I’m really afraid if we gather together what it will look like,” she said she’s learned to “let that go” and focus on specific techniques, rather than on keeping to the beat.
“I can see what they’re doing with their feet, I can see expression and movement of the head, and I can make corrections based on that,” she said. “I really enjoy these classes now and look forward to it.”
Missing connections
Not all hula instructors are enthralled with online teaching. Although he’s been giving twice monthly hula lessons online, kumu hula Robert Cazimero confesses to “hating” teaching on Zoom, because it deprives him of the close connection to students. “The way I teach, and the way I like to teach, it has to be done face-to-face,” he said. “I don’t want to put anyone else down, but I need to be able to interact with them.”
Cazimero has given talk-stories on various subjects, appearing on panel discussions on hula or ukulele, which he finds “very rewarding.” But teaching hula is a different matter.
“I feel bad that I’m not giving them something that they might need,” Cazimero said, “and I can’t possibly see what I need to know.”
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Hula lessons online
>> Kau’i Dalire, kumu hula
Memberships from $75 a month, includes tutorial videos and live weekly classes at at 5 p.m. Tuesdays, Saturdays at 3 p.m.
Info: 627-2942, ikumuhula.com
>> Pattye Wright, kumu hula
Beginners 6 p.m. Wednesdays and 11 a.m. Saturdays; Intermediates 10 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. Wednesdays; all classes free. Click on “Virtual Zoom Classes” to sign up for a Zoom link to a class.
Info: realhula.com
>> Kanoe Miller, hula instructor
Old Style Hula Studio Lessons
Five-week sessions, two hours a week. $150.
Info: Call 225-6599 or email johnboy19@mac.com for information.
>> Robert Cazimero, kumu hula
Pa‘i Foundation
Workshops and discussions.
Upcoming: “Haole Hula,” 10 a.m. Friday; “Aloha Aku, Aloha Mai,” 3:30 p.m. Feb. 26. $40 per class.
Info: paifoundation.org
>> Kuana Torres Kahele, award-winning composer
Kuana Zoom Hula
Hula workshops on specific songs, 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. Fridays. $40.
Info: kuanatorreskahele.com
Correction: An earlier version of this story mistakenly said Pattye Wright became a kumu hula in Japan. Wright herself trained as a kumu hula in Kailua with Lani Kalama.
