Introduction
Hula is everywhere in Hawaiʻi. The iconic Hawaiian dance is seen at a family lūʻauFootnote 1 of locals, in a museum space, at someone's garage, during tourist shows at luxury hotels, or on competition stages. Its hand gestures tracing the landscapes and meanings of the song, and rhythmical footsteps accompanied by hip sways are recognized as one of the most representative Hawaiian cultural arts today. As in many other spheres of Hawaiian Indigenous life, American colonialism and tourism have had a significant impact on the practice of hula. The public ban of the existing variant, now called hula kahiko, created a new genre called hula ʻauana, which was later commodified and sexualized by the tourism industry. On the other hand, the forced public discontinuity and the following resurgence of hula kahiko also diversified its expressions and contexts. The public ban and shaming of the Indigenous culture deprived many natives of access to their own language and tradition, which created different experiences of living hula kahiko. Today, in addition to native cultural practice and transmission in the private sphere, kahiko is also seen on competition stages and in tourist shows, political protests, and academic conventions. This article examines how hula practitioners, working within diverse expressions resulting from colonial oppression of the tradition, support contemporary constructions of Indigenous cultural heritage. I argue that the colonial powerFootnote 2 not only modifies the dance movement itself, but also diversifies the postcolonial cultural practice. This can be seen in the intergenerational conflict that has emerged among practitioners during the period between the prohibition of the practice and the following resurgence. As new choreographies and contexts of the genre emerged, they became the target of criticism by generations of dancers who underwent the severe cultural oppression before the 1970s.
This article primarily discusses the contemporary practice of hula kahiko, one of the two main genres of hula. When the colonial force imposed a prohibition of hula, it led to the creation of a new genre of hula called ʻauana. Westernized through its adaption to the tourism boom, ‘auana developed into a mutually exclusive genre to the original form of hula, now called kahiko. Once prohibited from being performed publicly as a symbol of “heathenism,” hula kahiko has been actively practiced again over the last forty years. The revival movements of ancient Hawaiian culture and traditions since the 1970s, also called the Hawaiian Cultural Renaissance,Footnote 3 have encouraged more public performance of kahiko. An increasing number of dancers learn and perform kahiko at their halau (hula schools), at competitions, at ceremonies, and even at political protests for Indigenous rights.
However, the resurgence of this genre has also created controversy and inconsistency in the discourse within the Hawaiian dance community. Compared to the dance handed down in private spheres through the colonial oppression, the forms and contexts of “modern” kahiko have drastically shifted through the cultural renaissance. Kumu hula (hula teachers)Footnote 4 that most publicly participate with hula kahiko in prestigious competitions are predominantly those who were born after the 1970s, and their creativity and improvisation brought stylistic and contextual changes to the ancient dance. However, some who lived the art of hula before the cultural renaissance would question the authenticity of the “modern” kahiko and reminisce about the lineage that was never broken from the ancient times.
Clearly, there is no such thing as a tradition that never changes. Marxist historians Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger (Reference Hobsbawm and Ranger2012) presented the well-known idea of the “invention of tradition” in revealing the rather recent origins of some European “traditions.” They suggest that those traditions were deliberately created in order to fulfill specific social and political agendas, such as heightening nationalism or legitimizing colonialism. The use of the word “invented,” however, still presumes that a static tradition exists aside from “invented” ones. Questioning such separation in dealing with cultural phenomena, Marie Mauzé (Reference Mauzé1997) claims that “invention” and “tradition” are not conceptually opposite, as a static view of the past itself is an invention of the present. Particularly anthropology, abandoning the model to view non-Western ethnic groups and their societies as static and homogenous, must consider the inescapable changes that occur in all social groups and therefore discard the concept of static tradition (Turner Reference Turner1979). In that task, articulation theory suggests viewing “tradition” as an analytical lens to examine its social formation rather than a solid category. Adopted by Stuart Hall (Hall et al. Reference Hall, Morley and Chen1996) and further developed by James Clifford (Reference Clifford2001) in discussing Indigenous cultures, this methodological framework embraces the concept of “tradition” beyond historical verification for it to be “invented” or “genuine.”
Especially for a transient phenomenon such as dance, it must be first acknowledged that it is ultimately impossible to document and recreate “the original,” for the product itself does not leave a trace. Dance inevitably involves a dancer's body and their subjectivity. It is “a performed art constituted through the embodied practices of the performers on each and every occasion of its performance” (Thomas Reference Thomas2003, 123). Unlike historical objects, intangible heritage is inevitably in the process of continual “invention,” or if not, “adjustment,” “modification,” or “improvisation.” In such fluidity, the modern reproduction of traditional dance often creates hybridity of ostensibly binary contexts, such as foreign and local (Ness Reference Ness1992), urban and rural (Mendoza Reference Mendoza2000), and traditional and modern (Wulff Reference Wulff2008). As inevitable as this hybridity is in the transmission of dance, it can also cause a divide in the dance community.
As for the practice of kahiko, the extreme colonial oppression and the following revival of this particular dance create an especially controversial sphere in which different experience of native traditions contest in both colonial and postcolonial contexts. The apparent rupture and unbroken continuity in the practice of kahiko have created this coexistence of different conventions in which colonial power, memory, and imagination intersect, harmonize, and disaccord. This diversity within the Indigenous dance community undermines not only the simplistic opposition between “tradition” and “invented” but also that of “the colonizer” and “the Indigenous.” In fact, it suggests that there is a multitude of Indigenous resistance in the contemporary scene of hula kahiko. Being far from a homogenous category, Indigenous resistance also demonstrates inner contestations and conflicts, which are generated in different colonial experiences and manifest themselves in various conventions.
I will demonstrate the hybridity in the Indigenous cultural representations through the debate of authenticity regarding kahiko in contemporary Hawaiʻi. In so doing, as Clifford suggests in the idea of “articulation theory,” I aim to highlight “the diversity of cultures and histories that currently make claims” within the Native Hawaiian dance community (Reference Clifford2001, 472). Particularly to present the legacy of the disappearing, underrepresented voice, I will primarily examine the accounts of older female Hawaiian dancers who are, overall, critical of post-renaissance kahiko practice. As successors who underwent the territorial period when “being Hawaiian was a racial and cultural disadvantage” (Trask Reference Trask1996, 907), they are more focused on the faithful transmission of the exact same choreography rather than the expression of creativity and originality. Their voice represents the underexposed Indigenous dance practice behind touristic dance stages and competitions. I will introduce their critical narratives and alternative perspectives to more innovative expressions in kahiko choreography. In doing so, I argue that the colonial rupture in Indigenous dance practices did not only hinder cultural transmission to newer generations of Indigenous peoples but also led to debates over values in Native Hawaiian communities today.
As someone who has no kinship tie to or long-term living experience in Hawai‘i, I do not consider myself a speaker for the Hawaiian culture. In this article, however, I attempt to honor the voice of some Native Hawaiian hula practitioners who gave me great support and shared their knowledge with me during my two-month visit to the island of Oahu in 2016. Considering the fact that their practice is rather private and not the most represented in media, my remarks in this article are suggestive of preliminary research at most, rather than concluding research. My in-depth interviews and casual conversations with Auntie K, Kumu T, and Kumu N, and participation in their practice, are supplemented with further transcribed interviews with different kumu hula by the Hula Preservation Society (Park Reference Park2001; Alama Reference Alama2012) and Shuzo Uemoto (Reference Uemoto1984). The Hula Preservation Society is a nonprofit organization that is dedicated to “preserving the past, sharing the future” of hula (Hula Preservation Society 2014). They have been documenting elderly kumu hula's oral stories as they consider that the hula practitioners in their seventies, eighties, and nineties are “the last direct link to their grandparents who lived during the time” when hula kahiko practice underwent severe oppression and unprecedented changes in the Hawaiian Kingdom in the 1800s.
The sources I activate in this article thus primarily focus on the elderly female kumu hula who are critical of the post-1970s practice of hula kahiko. I intend to highlight one of many layers that support the hybridity of the current Indigenous heritage construction in today's diversity in Hawaiian society as well as in the hula community. Therefore, this article also suggests other factors that potentially contribute to the hybridity of the practice, such as ethnicity, religion, gender, and education. Particularly, the discussion is to be supplemented with accounts of more creative, younger kumu hula who lead the competition scene today, as well as of male leaders on their male hula kahiko practice.
The Colonial Intervention and Two Modes of Hula
As much as hula is consumed as a Hawaiian cultural icon today, a brief history of the dance further reveals certain colonial contexts in which the practice has been situated. While the missionaries and colonial force labeled it as a heathen practice and prohibited performances in public spaces, it was secretly practiced at private Native Hawaiian gatherings. Along with the tourism boom, hula was exposed again, but in different stylistic form through exoticization and sexualization. Needless to say, the colonial power and Indigenous resilience played a crucial role in creating these diverse ways in which it has been viewed, modified, and represented. Probably most notably, the prolonged Western intervention, from the ChristianizationFootnote 5 to modern tourism, created the two main genres of hula practiced today: ʻauana and kahiko.
Hula ʻauana, originally born in the court of King Kalakaua (Uchiyama Reference Uchiyama2016), gained its popularity from the early to mid-twentieth century. It emerged during a period of severe restriction by the missionaries and the westernization of Hawai‘i, and it is associated with its modern and Western elements. The increasing interest in Hawai‘i as a tourist destination by Americans, its admission into the United States in 1959, and the growth of air travel in the 1960s contributed to the formation of hula ‘auana as the entertainment for haole (white) tourists. The music and costumes were influenced by modern American culture and arranged accordingly, and a large number of hula dancers were sent to the mainland as Hawaiian ambassadors (Silve Reference Silve2007). The popular image of the “hula girl,” often spotted in souvenir shops and travel brochures, is usually an ‘auana dancer because the growing tourist industry at the time played a significant role in popularizing the genre. Often danced for dinner shows at hotels on Waikiki Beach and shopping centers, ʻauana dominates the gaze of the tourists—and represents “the hula girl icon” that “still embodies and practices Hawaiʻi as inviting, alluring, charming, exotic, erotic, and available for consumption” (Soguk Reference Soguk2003, 44) and the “cultural prostitution” (Trask Reference Trask1999, 184) of Hawaiian islands.
On the contrary and mutually exclusive to its modern counterpart ‘auana, kahiko (also called ancient hulaFootnote 6) represents the precolonial formality of hula. Accompanied by Hawaiian traditional instruments and powerful chants, its vigorous expressions draw a stark contrast to ‘auana's soft and graceful movements. Before ‘auana emerged as hula's new genre in the 1830s, the converted Christian queen regent Kaʻahumanu issued an official ban on the public performance of hula at the urging of the missionaries. If hula was caught being performed, dancers would be subjected to heavy fines. Although King Kalakaua encouraged the performance of hula during his short reign (1874–1891), hula quickly turned to the target of the colonial oppression again (Barrere, Kelly, and Pukui Reference Barrere, Kelly and Pukui1980). After Kalakaua's death, his sister Liliʻuokalani succeeded the throne, yet the Hawaiian government was overthrown by a group of local, non-Indigenous, and mostly American businessmen. This is how the annexation of Hawaiʻi to the United States turned the Kingdom of Hawaiʻi into an American territory, which led to a virtual loss of political sovereignty for Native Hawaiians (Osorio Reference Osorio2002). After the end of the Hawaiian monarchy through the assimilationist politics of the new rule, the public performances of hula declined again. The new attempts at public performance were met with oppositions regarding its “paganistic” qualities such as licentiousness, and therefore hula was stigmatic for the Christian values (Barrere, Kelly, and Pukui Reference Barrere, Kelly and Pukui1980). Indeed, the public performance of standing hula on campus at the University of Hawaiʻi was forbidden until 1965, as it involved swaying hip movements (King and Roth Reference King and Roth2006).
Today, both hula ‘auana and hula kahiko are danced as the two mutually exclusive genres of hula. Dancers learn hula at their respective halau (or sometimes also called hula studio) a group of dancers under a leader called kumu hula. Unlike the origin of halau hula in which dancers were genealogically chosen to learn hula under a variety of strict kapu (restrictions and protocols concerning food, sexual behavior, clothing, etc.) (Galla et al. Reference Galla, Aquino Galla, Keawe and Kimura2015; Uchiyama Reference Uchiyama2016), today's halau operates in a drastically different manner. Because the genealogical restriction does not exist anymore, there are far more kumu hula that practice and teach hula today, and many of them operate their respective halau. Most Native Hawaiians, including hula practitioners, are of mixed ethnic heritage. The majority of kumu hula and hula practitioners build inclusive dance communities accepting all ethnicities, making hula dancers a racially diverse category.Footnote 7
The orientation of halau and the lesson structure, the process and method of learning, can also be highly dependent on each kumu hula and their hula genealogy. Some halau have relatively strict protocols concerning space and behavior, others can be more flexible. Some focus on research on places and others go on excursions to learn about the songs they dance. Some actively participate in hula competitions and therefore have rigorous technical training, while others are against the idea of competing with hula. Some focus on ‘auana more than kahiko, or vice versa. Some demonstrate more explicit Christian orientation, while others emphasize Hawaiian cosmological and religious traditions. Some focus on training male dancers, some have a large body of students of different experience and technical levels, and some maintain a relatively small and intimate community. All these differences contribute to the difficulty in making generalizations about the hula community. However, it simultaneously suggests that hula genealogy is a potent factor to characterize the practice, which can overweigh other components such as ethnicity (or skin color), religion, or gender.
Hula ʻauana danced at a gathering (lūʻau) of a hula community in a private home.
Rupture, Continuity, and Beyond in the Making of Indigeneity
The American colonization of the Islands and the following Hawaiian cultural renaissance since the 1970s are the most crucial factors for today's diversification of hula. Those events draw a fruitful, yet ungeneralizable, comparison of the practices of the new generation and the old. After such a long period of native cultural deprivation and discouragement, and the subsequent cultural revival, the collective discourse on hula is at stake. With both kahiko and ‘auana being performed in public and private spheres in different contexts by participants of various age, ethnicity, gender, and religious backgrounds, the contemporary consumption of hula demonstrates a visual and sensual field of contested values concerning what it means to be Hawaiian.
The Hawaiian cultural revival movement in the 1970s has created a dynamic field for the investigation of cultural transmission in contemporary Hawaiʻi. There have been publications that address Hawaiians’ material, psychological, and cultural struggles throughout the colonial oppression from various disciplinary perspectives such as political science (Halualani Reference Halualani2002; Kauanui Reference Kauanui2008; Okamura Reference Okamura2008; Soguk Reference Soguk2003; Trask Reference Trask1999) and history (Osorio Reference Osorio2002; Silva Reference Silva2004). However, anthropological works that solely address the revival movement of Hawaiian culture and identity are relatively limited. George S. Kanahele (Reference Kanahele1982), a Native Hawaiian author of Hawaiian culture and history, describes the then-still-developing movement as “a new political awareness which is gradually being transformed into an articulate, organized but unmonolithic [sic] movement” (1982, 1). Ty P. Kāwika Tengan (Reference Tengan and Ty P. Kāwika2008) specifically focuses on a male cultural movement on Maui island to revive Hawaiian men's deprived identity. Although it is highly questionable whether Hawaiʻi, currently a state of the United States, should be addressed as a “postcolonial” society, the movement undoubtedly has a postcolonial character. It started as an apolitical movement by Native Hawaiians against the continuing US military occupation and the proposed tourist and residential development on the land in the 1970s. The movement was concurrently supported by the enhanced traditional Hawaiian cultural elements such as language, religion, and values (Moulin Reference Moulin, Bithell and Hill2014; Trask Reference Trask1999). Above all, hula kahiko was one of the most significant motifs employed in this highly political movement, which certainly brought the practice into the visible public sphere again.
The employment of cultural practices is where the debate of “invention of tradition” (Hobsbawm and Ranger Reference Hobsbawm and Ranger2012) started in Hawaiian context. Concerning the cultural aspect of the movement in music and art, Jocelyn Linnekin (Reference Linnekin1983) shows a full constructionist position toward concepts such as authenticity and tradition. She regards tradition as the demonstration of the past that is tactically appropriated for the present conditions, which in this case refers to the political promotion of the Hawaiian identity. Similarly, Roger Keesing (Reference Keesing, Endicott and Welsch1989) points out the underlying Western influences for such constructions of indigeneity and what he calls “political mythology” observed in wider Melanesia and Polynesia.
However, such constructionist views of the native traditions by haole (white) anthropologists have been severely criticized by Haunani-Kay Trask (Reference Trask1991), a native political activist and scholar. The language of “invention of tradition” is potentially offensive for “its cavalier and sometimes dismissive regard for putative continuities, seeing these as a function of rhetorical gesture rather than empirical fact” (Johnson Reference Johnson2008, 252). Jonathan Friedman (Reference Friedman1993) also criticizes Linnekin for the contradiction of the constructionist claim itself. Linnekin defines tradition as a continually transforming product and claims that “all traditions—Western and Indigenous—are invented” (Reference Linnekin1991, 447). This shows that her theoretical approach differs from the “true or false” model of tradition by Hobsbawm and Ranger (Reference Hobsbawm and Ranger2012). However, according to Friedman, she does not recognize the continuity of Hawaiian culture and values when she talks about the examples of “invention.” As for the practice of kahiko, even the “novel” variant should have elements that “continue” from the past. It can also highlight the continuity of certain choreographies behind the focus on the “inventive.” Even in traditions that appear to be reconstructed, there can also be a significant continuity in the transformation of tradition, which tends to be overlooked.
Rejecting the dichotomy of invention and continuity itself, some scholars explored the articulation theory in order to address the expression of tradition in Hawaiʻi and of other Indigenous groups. Drawn from (Hall et al. Reference Hall, Morley and Chen1996), Clifford (Reference Clifford2001) develops the position as nonessentialist in cultural identity and tradition, without dismissing authenticity as a legitimate category, and views “tradition” as an analytical perspective. Greg Johnson (Reference Johnson2008), as well as Adam Mandelman (Reference Mandelman2014), suggest that articulation theory is helpful to analyze “the dynamic bricolage” (Mandelman Reference Mandelman2014, 192) of contemporary Hawaiian and other Indigenous traditions. It denies the dichotomy of rupture or continuity, but views Indigenous traditions as embracing “both modernity and tradition, autochthonous roots and cosmopolitan mobility” (2014, 179). Acknowledging multiple articulations of cultural dialogue, articulation theory can also shed light on the plurality of values within a group, and how multiple actors’ voices harmonize and conflict at different times (Johnson Reference Johnson2008). This openness to hybridity and fluidity in Indigenous cultural representations, especially with the impact of colonialism in the past and the present, enables a closer examination of the process of cultural construction.
As has been discussed, this aspect of articulation theory that focuses on collective yet various discourses seems particularly suitable to the great diversity in Hawaiian society, as there are different interpretations of Hawaiian identity and culture within the native community (Friedman Reference Friedman1993). In such diversity, the simple dualistic model of “locals” versus “colonial white” is not necessarily applicable, as has been already noted by Kanahele (Reference Kanahele1982) in his account. Since the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy, Hawaiʻi as the former territory and a current state of the United States demonstrates a great deal of influence from the mainland. This includes individualistic ideology, ethnic diversity, religion, economic backgrounds, and political orientations, due to the drastic industrial and migrational shifts of the last century. Although cultural revival movements have attracted attentions of scholars in wider Melanesia and Polynesia regions, I believe Hawaiʻi serves as a particularly dynamic example for its diversity and social complexity within the local community.
Being acutely aware of such diversity in the cultural transmission process, Tengan (Reference Tengan and Ty P. Kāwika2008) examines cultural arts and rituals performed by a male group, Hale Mua, as a negotiation of knowledge and power, and “the formation of masculine and indigenous subjectivities” (2008, 3). Although I mostly focus on female practitioners in this article, I regard bodily practices concerning hula as uniquely Hawaiian and thus an effective site for transmission of Indigenous knowledge, even though it is often reduced to the merely traditional dance. Hula, staging on the Indigenous bodies themselves, embodies the colonial rupture and Indigenous continuity in its most intimate form.
Cultural Renaissance and the New Generation of Kahiko Dancers
The types of dance called hula kahiko (ancient hula) today broadly refers to the style of hula danced before ‘auana appeared as a genre. Hula kahiko's most noticeable characteristic is the accompaniment of chants and the ancient Hawaiian drum instruments such as ipu heke (the variant made with two gourds) and pahu (the most sacred variant of drums, made of a log and a sharkskin). Chants are commonly to honor the gods and persons of high rank such as chiefs and chiefesses, yet there are also secular themes such as commemoration of events, places, milestones of life, and love affairs (Galla et al. Reference Galla, Aquino Galla, Keawe and Kimura2015). Hand movements are navigated in a rigorous and solid manner compared to ‘auana, and costumes commonly include wide flaring skirts called paʻu, ti-leaf skirts, simple elastic tops, or long sleeve nineteenth-century blouses (Silve Reference Silve2007). As long as the dance adheres to the above characteristics in its formality, newly composed and choreographed mele (lyrics) and dance in kahiko style are also called kahiko (or as some practitioners call it, “modern kahiko”).
Traditional dance practices in postcolonial context often involve political motives and instrumental employment of Indigenous tradition as a means of resistance. Dance, for its performative nature, is a “seductive way of embodying national or regional identities” (Neveu Kringelbach Reference Neveu Kringelbach2013, 10). Many dance studies have revealed that, when dance concerns one's or others’ identities, it is a particularly salient vehicle to politically demonstrate such identities (Neveu Kringelbach and Skinner Reference Neveu Kringelbach and Skinner2012; Royce Reference Royce2002; Wulff Reference Wulff2008; Weir Reference Weir2017; Spanos Reference Spanos2019). North American native communities, for instance, revive the traditional dance rituals to mark their distinct identities (Aplin Reference Aplin and Browner2009; Kelley Reference Kelley2012) or to protest for political rights (Harkin Reference Harkin and Mauzé1997; Weir Reference Weir2017). Hula, especially its precolonial variant, has often been employed as a symbol to demonstrate Hawaiian Indigenous identity and sovereignty since the 1970s.
In 1997, for example, several kumu hula gathered their dancers and carried out a protest demonstration of the ancient hula against bills that address the traditional and customary gathering rights of Native Hawaiians by the Hawaiʻi State Legislature. Twenty-eight pahu and approximately 250 dancers performed chants and ancient hula in front of the state capitol (Kaʻiama Reference Ka‘iama, Goodyear-Ka‘ōpua, Hussey and Wright2014). An activist of the Hawaiian political sovereignty movement Ku i ka Pono, Manu Kaʻiama describes the sound of pahu as “so ancient that they gave us ‘chicken skin’ and ‘a message from our ancestors’” (2014, 99). For this particular occasion, the efficacy of the performance is the evocation of the links with the past. Dancing kahiko, the sound of chants and drums embodies the social memory of the precolonial past that symbolizes Indigenous sovereignty. Hula kahiko, once prohibited from being performed in public, functions as an especially potent medium to claim that Hawaiians are native to the land.
The exact bodily movements and mele, however, do not necessarily have to be identical to the precolonial dance. It can, as well, be a freshly made choreography to evoke the dance's connection with the past. I once attended a rehearsal for the opening performance of an international academic conference for environmental sustainability, where their songs and choreography were newly created for this specific occasion to convey the political message. Dancers were strictly in lines, going through precise movements they coordinated in advance, and rigorous and vociferous chanting shook the conference room they used for the practice. Precise instructions were given for the choreography, the timings of the chant, and the formations of the dancers. During the break, the dancers were to ensure that the chants and movements were correctly complementing each other. The performance was overwhelmingly vigorous, as well as aesthetically polished. The rigorous and technically masterful performance was not only visually and auditorily impressive to the audience, but also expressed a strong attachment of Hawaiians to their land and nature. As Klein (Reference Klein, Kowal, Siegmund and Martin2017) also points out in her observation of a political protest, the aesthetic and the political are not only coexistent, but they can also mutually enhance each other (2017).
Hula kahiko performance, as an instrument to represent and promote the sovereignty of the Indigenous population, is one of the characteristics of hula practiced by the post-renaissance generations. Due to the resurgence of interest in learning and teaching the Hawaiian language that was once shamed and prohibited, many younger kumu hula are capable of composing their own mele in the style of kahiko. In addition to utilizing the choreography and mele that are handed down from the previous generations, they make the most of their ability to create new songs that relevantly ascribe the current Indigenous worlds and their political needs.
Along with the political climate of Indigenous cultural repatriation, another factor for the change in the formality of hula kahiko is the rise of competitions. At annual competition stages, individual creativity and inventiveness bring refreshing entertainment to the audience and the judges. Repetitiveness is to be avoided, and individuality in dance is encouraged to keep viewers entertained and eager to return every coming year. Hula kahiko, though more restrictive in changing its stylistic formality than hula ‘auana, is no exception for being a subject of artistic creativity. Robert Cazimero, a kumu hula who is widely known as the major influence in the rebirth of male hula, justifies creativity in ancient hula as the following:
My definition of kahiko changes every year but right now it's anything that was taught to me before I became a teacher. Now that I am a teacher what I teach is a modern kind of kahiko. I consider myself a contemporary kumu and I like being a teacher of today. To me hula includes the sound of jackhammers, cranes, buildings going up, traffic. I see hula in all of these things. The kumu of the past were not any different. They loved what they had but what they had is not what we have today. The question to me is not what is kahiko but what is tasteful. (Interview of Robert Cazimero in Uemoto Reference Uemoto1984, 33)
Merrie Monarch Festival, one of the most well-known competitions, is held as an annual event that seeks to perpetuate “the traditional culture of the Hawaiian people” (Merrie Monarch Festival Office 2015). Although it is certainly traditional, the choreographies and steps performed on the stage are often complex and different from the previous year in order to present the performance more dynamically and uniquely to the performing halau. By demonstrating complicated formations of the dancers, mixing different types of footsteps, or introducing a new step of a specific regional origin,Footnote 8 the performance of the ancient hula enables refreshing changes and aesthetic innovations. Indeed, it is primarily dramatic visual effects that competing halau hope to achieve, as the judging criteria of the Merrie Monarch Festival are primarily visual components, such as precision of movements and presentation of costumes (Collier Reference Collier2010). Gaining its place back in the public space, kahiko of the post-renaissance era can be characterized by its highly performative nature. The dramatic visual impacts of the performance demonstrate the agency to sensually affect natives and non-natives altogether.
Competitions, designed to leave a visual impact on the audience, also bring hula to the gaze of a wider public; and, as Jane Desmond argues, such instances of public consumption suggest that gazing possesses a power that can modify the practice itself—as has been exercised in the consumeristic presentation of ‘auana in the tourist boom (Desmond Reference Desmond1999). The gaze of the judges, too, polishes the stylistic presentations of hula. Especially in a migrational context, the dances shown at competitions constitute the forefront image of the practice's media representations. The large markets in Japan and in the mainland United States look up to the well-known halau that win the prizes.
Critical Narratives of “Modern” Kahiko
In these salient examples, we see how the gaze of outsiders supports the exposure of hula on competition stages, whereas the holistic scene of the practice receives far less attention in media portrayal. On one hand, the creative arrangement of hula kahiko choreography may be effective to promote Hawaiian sovereignty, or simply to impress the audience by the physical techniques and vigor of the dancers. On the other hand, this variant of hula kahiko is disapproved by some, typically the older generations who were less exposed to kahiko in the post-renaissance context. They consider that the revival of kahiko in the contemporary scenes has violated their “traditional” conventions of formality, and such negligence could cause intense emotional rejection.
The controversy appears to be especially fierce regarding hula pahu, the most sacred ritual hula among different variants of kahiko, which uses sacred pahu drums as the instrument. It is an evolved form of a part of the heiauFootnote 9 ritual haʻa, and its practitioners (kapu dancers) were brought up at the kuahu (altar) under the strict kapu restrictions such as eating only leaf-wrapped food and certain parts of cleansed pork. Kumu hula Pualani Alama, eighty-two years old at the point of the interview, refers to hula kahiko as a “practice form” that involves specific cultural protocols and restrictions, rather than simply a dance to be learned:
At that time, we never called it the hula kahiko. We called it the ancient hulas.… Because they practiced it. You have to understand, it was practiced. It wasn't where just you go there an—and learn your ancient hula, and you come out. No such a thing. It was a practiced form. You have to take the whole practice. In fact, you don't take the practice. They give you the practice. (Alama Reference Alama2012)
However, most of the remaining kapu dancers already passed away in the 1980s (Uemoto Reference Uemoto1984). Just as any ritual or cultural practice, hula kapu itself was also constantly subjected to stylistic changes before the cultural renaissance. Adrienne Kaeppler traces the stylistic evolution in the formality of hula pahu through several branches and generations of hula masters until the 1950s (Kaeppler, Zile, and Tatar Reference Kaeppler, Van Zile and Tatar1993). The combination of steps and choreography had evolved as different branches had been combined, even within a couple of generations.
However, according to Kaeppler, the practitioners were aware of the restrictions in the evolution of the dance (1993). This includes a certain mixture of rhythmic and movement motifs for each mele. On the contrary, the post-1970s performances of hula pahu do not usually follow the old choreographies. They display “intermixed inappropriate movement and rhythmic motifs into hula pahu” because “there are no longer any sanctions against change—indeed innovation and creativity are applauded” (Kaeppler, Zile, and Tatar Reference Kaeppler, Van Zile and Tatar1993, 229). For instance, kumu hula Kawai Aona Ueoka (in Uemoto Reference Uemoto1984) notes that ipu heke beats are put on pahu beats today, which is not supposed to be done in hula pahu. There used to be conventions for certain drumming styles combined with certain elements, which young kumu hula today often do not comply. Similarly, Thelma Cummings notes that kahiko steps used after the 1970s are more complicated compared to the past; when she was taught, there were only eight steps, whereas there seems to be “a million” possibilities for steps nowadays (Uemoto Reference Uemoto1984, 40). Although the steps themselves certainly manifest the continuity from the past, inappropriate combinations of elements such as footsteps and instruments is one issue that receives criticism.
Another “taboo” for some is the very performance of certain songs in an inappropriate context, as well as the alteration of them. Auntie K, who is in her seventies and spent her youth in territorial Hawaiʻi where the public performance of kahiko was discouraged, has expressed stark emotional disapproval for the performance of certain kahiko songs on stage. Although she did not practice kahiko, she was very aware of the religious significance of hula kapu since her childhood. She described it as powerful dance, and along with the increasing Americanization of the society, the fear and the respect to the power of such religious dance made her refrain from dancing it herself. When she sees religious dance (as she calls the kapu number, also called hula kapu) altered and performed as a dramatic piece at competitions by young dancers, it gives her “chicken skin” from fear and anxiety. Her kumu hula, who was a generation older, had an even more extreme reaction to hula kapu. She was horrified and completely lost her temper upon seeing it on television. While Auntie K was describing the religious significance of hula kapu, Auntie N, one of her hula sisters of a similar age, added:
They are kapuFootnote 10 songs. They are temple songs. Worship songs. They shouldn't be done on stage like that. Punishment for taboos exist, and young people nowadays don't respect that. Young people do kahiko, it might be good for them. But they don't understand protocols. They don't know what they are doing. Taboos are not talked about, it's hidden in information, so you have to be critical to dig deeper and see beyond. Some know what kapu really is, but they break it for competitions because they don't respect it. (Interview with Auntie N, 2016. pers. comm.)
Elderly kumu hula who were trained before the cultural renaissance tend to express skepticism toward such changes of performing contexts, as well as mixing of movements and instruments in then-unconventional manners. It is frustrating for some that the religious significance of certain dances are not understood the same way by the younger generations. Kumu hula Puluʻelo Park (1924–2004), seventy-seven years old at the time of the interview by the Hula Preservation Society, describes her kumu hula's stance toward the modern contexts of kahiko as the following:
These students, they take the old and they make it into their … way the people like. Which of course, the people like it. You know, the younger the age, they like that kinda more flashy. And [her kumu hula] was very upset… Don't you ever do that.… She said, creative in the ‘auana, but not in the kahiko. (Park Reference Park2001)
Altering stylistic conventions of existing mele and choreography is one shift that has happened since the cultural renaissance. Another shift is to create completely new mele and choreography original to its kumu hula. With the increasing number of Hawaiian immersion schools and cultural programs, there have been younger kumu who are fluent in Hawaiian language and are confident to create new “ancient” chants. The contents of the mele and bodily movements can be not only about gods, monarch members, or ancient mythology but also about contemporary narratives, such as stories of their homelands or environmental issues. This variant of hula kahiko does not entail the danger of possibly violating already existing combinations of elements that are handed down from the ancestors. However, there are objections to categorizing them as hula kahiko.
Kumu hula Ho'oulu Cambra, born in the 1930s and trained in the subsequent decades, states the following:
My kumu told me that contemporary chants and hula written in the kahiko style cannot be considered traditional. It must be handed down from generation to generation in its entirety. Kahiko is a convenient term used to define what is not modern hula rather than what is traditional hula. I don't know if students are learning the vast vocabulary of the hula and the chants that are essential to its perpetuation. Our young people are very impatient and very eager for the finished product. (Interview with Ho'oulu Cambra in Uemoto Reference Uemoto1984, 30)
Kumu T received hula training from two prominent kumu hula lines since her childhood. In her own teaching as a kumu hula, she displays a stance in which she perpetuates exactly what she was taught from her kumu hula—and expresses her concern that there would be no distinction between “ancient” and “modern” kahiko for the future practitioners.
I have nothing against [newly created ancient hula]. My only concern is that people understand the difference. Sometimes I notice that people don't clearly understand this is truly an ancient hula, that was passed on from this source, and goes way back hundreds of years. They don't understand that this is a very modern hula. It was created two years ago, by a young kumu, who's fluent in the language. And it's not something ancient. Sometimes it's not clear in students’ mind. They say oh, hula kahiko, and that's all mixed together. (Interview with Kumu T, 23rd August 2016. pers. comm.)
The “modern” kahiko is generally characterized by its dynamic formations and theatrical stage performance. On the contrary, old choreography would only consist of the basic combination of steps and gestures, which could look relatively plain in comparison to the flamboyant effect of stage performances. However, in the eyes of a nonpractitioner, or (especially non-Native Hawaiian) dancers without sufficient knowledge, the distinction between “ancient” and “modern” kahiko may not be evident. Only the Indigenous knowledge of the language and traditional protocols enables one to detect its origin, whether it be conventional or newly created choreography. This does not mean that younger kumu hula are less equipped with such knowledge,Footnote 11 but some are certainly more liberated from such boundaries.
As reviewed, the period of cultural deprivation and discontinuity of public performance of kahiko has created a whole new generation of kahiko dancers and their practices. Accordingly, there have been stylistic changes in the bodily movements, such as altering the combinations of the existing choreography, or creating entirely new mele and choreography. What is classified as kahiko today is broad enough to include dances that are believed to have unknown origins in the distant past yet have survived more than several generations, and those that are created in its entirety in the contemporary contexts.
Halau Genealogy and Community as Continuity
To a certain extent, it is self-evident that all traditions, especially those that are wholly intangible, gradually change their formalities as they are passed on to the next generations. However, the radical discrepancy of opinions and definitions in formalities of hula kahiko mostly results from the public discontinuity of the practice itself. The colonial oppression of hula kahiko and its damage on the transmission of the practice are indisputable; kahiko has disappeared, at least publicly, and there were no significant public platforms such as the competitions and conferences as seen today.
Precisely speaking, however, kahiko was not completely discontinued. The practice was privately preserved and transmitted as family traditions to some prominent hula genealogies throughout the public prohibition and general condemnation from the American assimilationist climate. Even today, while new types and contexts of kahiko dominate the competition stages, some kumu hula strictly control the formality of hula kahiko in order to protect the legacy of their hula genealogy. Their emphasis on genealogy functions as resistance against stylistic changes of the last forty years.
Kumu T, for instance, expresses her stance to maintain the formality of dance for responsibility and respect for her kumu:
I suppose I would be one who tries to share hula kahiko exactly as it was taught to me. That's all I try to do. I feel the responsibility to Uncle R and Auntie A [her kumu hula]. I received ancient hula from them, and I try to pass it on exactly as I was taught. I don't become creative with it. I teach exactly what I learnt, I try to keep the ancient traditional dancers, that were passed on, that goes back hundreds of years, I try to share it with the next generation as I learnt it. (Interview with Kumu T, 23rd August 2016. pers. comm.)
Not only with kahiko, but also with teaching hula ‘auana, she often mentions certain hand movements and choreography as the legacy from her kumu. She always carries photographs of the teachers with her and shows them to her students when she explains a certain dance she teaches as their legacy. Some people ask her why she does not have them on her phone, but she likes having the hard copy with her to feel the presence of the previous generation. She believes that the legacy and history rooting back to the past is the most primary thing in hula—namely, knowing your kumu hula and their unique style of dancing. The legacy that is perpetuated through vertical genealogy is important because, for her, hula is about telling stories and histories of the past. The embodied activity of hula makes the dancer trace back to the past through her own body and its movement.
Kumu T describes not only the formality of dance, per se, but also her teaching orientation based on the personality of her kumu:
Everyone is different, of course. And every school is different. Their training is different. But as for her, as an example, her kindness, is important. There are some halau where trainings are different, it's very rigorous and strict, and certain techniques are emphasized. It's a question of personality as well. It's not right or wrong, it's just a very different way of teaching. I think part of it is personality of the kumu. I was just very, very comfortable with my kumu and the way she taught, and feels comfortable for me; it's the way I teach. I'm very happy because her husband and her sister—when they see my students there, when they see me teach—they see my kumu in the way I teach. And that makes me happy because that's what I aspire to do. (Interview with Kumu T, August 2016. pers. comm.)
For some, recognizing the importance of their genealogy results in their striving to preserve and perpetuate their distinctive style, including the methods of cultural transmission. According to Kumu T, the composition of formal elements thus should not be altered but should be taught as they have always been. Similarly, others maintain that the one who carries the art of hula transmits their kumu hula's particular way of dancing, their choreography, and possibly a more holistic state of “being.” For example, Kumu N, who teaches her kumu's legacy in a small group, describes her attachment to the particular style that she inherited from her kumu:
I think I fell in love with her hula, as a particular style in the way of moving and the way of telling stories, and choreography is just … it just captured my heart and soul, just the way they tell stories, and you know, it's a particular way of moving, like every hula school has its own way of moving, so their style was lovely and I fell in love with them. Ways of telling stories and that was what really got me hooked on to her hula and I didn't want to go anywhere else, but when it came to Auntie [her kumu], it was sort of like hula became “life.” It wasn't something I did, when I went to class, you know, oh I've got to perform here, but it really was a way of being, a way of thinking, a way of interacting with people, something to bring us together. It was just more holistic, you know, so that was beautiful. (Interview with Kumu N, 25th August 2016. pers. comm.)
These accounts of current kumu hula about their kumu hula highlight the nature of hula as Hawaiians’ unique cultural property and methods of storytelling. Often being reduced to “traditional dance” by outsiders through more performative contexts such as competitions and shows (not to mention the impact of global tourism and its exploitations of Hawaiian culture), the native context of the practice involves a strong awareness of genealogy and community.
The relations between kumu hula and their students, and relations among students, manifest spaces where transmission of diverse intangible knowledge occurs, such as dance movements, cultural and political values, history, rituals, local vegetation, language, and identities. Their shared experience ranges from celebrating a student's birthday to gathering plant materials for their costumes in the valley. Thus, hula is a site where “immediacy of the indigenous body” is lived and experienced, not only through the dance movements but also in living moments of life together (Hokowhitu Reference Hokowhitu2011). According to Sharon Māhealani Rowe, hula is an experience of knowledge that is infused with “spirituality, utility, relationship, and reciprocity,” and halau is a space in which one learns such uniquely Indigenous knowledge through kumu hula (Reference Rowe2008, 38). To some, respect and love for kumu hula translate to the protection of the formality of the bodily movements they learn from them. The stylistic conventions do not exist only for their own sake, but are also significant components of storytelling, unique to respective hula genealogies.
Whereas “innovative” forms of tradition have attracted much scholarly attention, this persistence of continuity, too, is indispensable for “the mechanisms of creation or transformation involved in the process of building traditions” (Friedman Reference Friedman1993, 746). Indigenous resilience to the colonial disturbance can take multiple forms in the construction of tradition and identity. While some create new mele, others focus on the accurate transmission of bodily movements, teaching style or even the personality of their predecessor.
Indigenous Resistance: A Heterogeneous Category
Since the emergence of the “Indigenous” as a global category, Indigenous resistance has often been imagined or even romanticized as a somewhat homogeneous movement based on the simple dualistic model of “the colonial force” vs. “indigenous survival” (Kuper Reference Kuper2003). However, the Indigenous has never been a homogenous category, and “the colonial force” can even further diversify “the Indigenous.” There can be conflicting perspectives and significant diversity within an Indigenous community in representing itself—its cultural art, ethnicity, and performances—and that diversity is, at least partly, also a colonial legacy that hinders the cultural living of the Indigenous.
Although studies of resistance tend to focus on, namely, the resistance of the dominated (Abu-Lughod Reference Abu-Lughod1990; Scott Reference Scott1985), this case of Indigenous resistance illustrates that there is not always just a single vector of “resistance.” Instead, similar to what Sherry B. Ortner (Reference Ortner1995) called “internal politics,” there can also be an Indigenous resistance to the most observable form of “Indigenous resistance.” Whereas the Hawaiian cultural arts seen in political protests and competition stages today might be at the most visible forefront of the Indigenous articulations, some Hawaiians strive to perpetuate their cultural legacy by resisting to perform the dance in such contexts. As Trask points out, “the Indigenous” has never been a category without inner contestations and multiple realities (1991, 161). The focus on “the less visible” in the discourse of Indigenous resistance cannot only highlight the consequences of colonialism in the production of Indigenous knowledge, but also the social mechanism through which such knowledge is transmitted and represented.
Conclusion: Rupture and Continuity in Hula Kahiko
Resistance is never a homogenous category, but the severity of colonial oppression makes forms and vectors of Indigenous resistance even more diverse. In this article, I demonstrated the colonial legacy in causing the two trends in the contemporary practice of hula kahiko: the resurgence of the practice after the radical colonial obstruction, and the resistance to such a resurgence in performative contexts. Particularly, I have focused on the latter to highlight the underrepresented side of the Indigenous dance community. Many practitioners have been deprived of public access to Indigenous cultural practice, and they strive to perpetuate the Hawaiian knowledge while being critical of the most visible forms of the traditional dance. The colonial rupture in the Indigenous tradition played a crucial role in creating conflicting views on the conventions of hula as a uniquely Hawaiian practice, which collectively form today's Indigenous cultural articulations and transmission. If cultural revival is “a living tradition's combined and uneven process of continuity, rupture, transformation, and revival,” colonialism has certainly added historical dimensions and dynamics to such a process (Clifford Reference Clifford2001).
Innovation and continuity coexist in the present articulations and contemporary practice of kahiko. The colonial intervention of the practice divided generations of the Hawaiian community that experienced different contexts of the dance in their respective lives. The stigmatization of Indigenous culture shamed and discouraged the older generations from practicing hula kahiko in public, while the transmission continued privately. After the cultural renaissance in the 1970s, hula kahiko became publicly accessible and exposed as a symbol of Hawaiian Indigeneity, making some dancers pursue performative creativity with it. There are thus different norms regarding stylistic alteration and creativity depending on how practitioners appreciate hula kahiko. Once severely oppressed and hindered for its transmission, the ancient variant of hula offers a complex field for multiple agents to negotiate their cultural values in the contemporary scene of Indigenous cultural transmission. Yet, amidst the diversity in cultural conventions, there also manifests a power imbalance within the native community regarding their cultural representations. Younger generations who take part in more performative iterations of kahiko are likely to dominate venues of public consumption and therefore attain heightened visibility, whereas older generations who were deprived of the opportunities to learn Hawaiian language and cultural traditions tend not to have the same access to outward platforms and are less likely to be seen and known. Evidently, the voice of the elderly is fading out with more older kumu hula receding from the scene. Some of the interviews cited in this article date back to 1985, and some kumu hula quoted are now deceased. However, there are still kumu hula, old and young, who inherit their stance on hula kahiko as the genealogical heritage that should never be altered. For some of these kumu hula, the importance of and respect to hula genealogy function as a resisting force against the contemporary stylistic inventions. The current manifestations of kahiko in public and private spheres provide a space in which Indigenous cultural rupture and continuity coexist and cooperate to create the collective manifestation. Particularly, acknowledging the “less visible” in such postcolonial diversification of culture can highlight not only the plurality of Indigenous resistance, but also their continuity and resilience under the most severe colonial oppression.
