TRAVELING IN STYLE : HULA CITY : It’s Probably the Most Recognizable Dance on Earth, and Probably the Most Misunderstood

THE MOST POPULAR DANCE ONearth--at least the one that is most recognized, even if it isn’t the one most often performed--is quite possibly not the polka (danced mostly by large people from Pennsylvania, who bounce and whoop and whirl in circles until faint), nor hip-hop, nor even the venerable waltz; it’s the hula.

The hula--with its distinctive undulating arm, hand and foot movements and rotating hips--is a terpsichorean classic, a dance whose popularity has thus far lasted for, well, a thousand years. While in modern times it frequently has been called a “hoochie-koochie” dance, in ancient Hawaii, the hula was performed during religious ceremonies and was a way of offering thanksgiving for the harvest, marking the birth or death of a chief and encouraging fertility. Later, more secular mele (songs) were composed and choreographed, accompanied only by bamboo rattles and by drums made of coconut tree trunks and sharkskin, to celebrate the pleasures of special places, of fishing and hunting or of love and sex.

When Captain Cook “discovered” the islands in 1772, his surgeon wrote in his journal that the dancers they saw “wriggled their backsides and used many lascivious gestures.” Cook himself wrote that “no women I ever met were less reserved. Indeed it appeared to me that they visited us with no other view than to make a surrender of their persons.” When American missionaries arrived in 1820, the hula was banned. “It is a very great and public evil,” a panel of upright Protestants wrote.

The hula lived on, though, and its popularity spread. In the 1920s and 1930s, American vaudeville theaters and carnival side shows invariably boasted at least one “hula-hula dancer” on the program, and Hawaiian dance troupes, of varying authenticity, encircled the Earth. By the end of World War II, the hula had become, at least to Western man, one of the most potent and seductive symbols of “native” sensuality--a perception of the dance that persists to this day in the floor shows at Hawaiian hotels and in “Polynesian” entertainments around the world. At the same time, though, the hula has begun to reclaim some of its original purity and dignity, spurred by the Hawaiian cultural renaissance of the 1970s. In Japan, the hula has become so popular that it is now taught, in more or less authentic form, in more than 1,000 halau , or hula schools, in that country.

THE ACKNOWLEDGED CAPITAL OFthe hula is Hilo, the county seat of the so-called “Big Island” of Hawaii. Hilo is a small town of about 47,000 people scattered over an area of about 400 square miles. (In comparison, Los Angeles crams about 3 million inhabitants into its own 467 square miles.) The local chamber of commerce calls Hilo the Bay City (it is built around Hilo Bay), the Crescent City (for the black-sand beach that curves around the bay) and the City of Rainbows--which is clearly an attempt to look on the bright side of a place where the average rainfall ranges from 130 inches in town to 200 inches in the mountain suburbs. Although three-quarters of Hilo’s rain falls at night, it falls 280 days (or nights) a year. They say that in Hilo you don’t tan; you rust.

Not surprisingly, most of the tourism development on the Big Island is on its opposite side, along the sunnier Kona coast, which is fine with Hilo residents. But Hilo is still the island’s largest town, main port and central market for goods that provision the largely agricultural island economy, including its many cattle ranches. Hilo is also the center of one of the world’s largest tropical flower industries--something to do with all that rain.

Downtown Hilo has recently dressed itself up a bit. Dozens of turn-of-the-century wood and stucco buildings have been renovated under the federal government’s Main Street program, and now house a growing number of restaurants, boutiques and galleries. Walking along downtown Hilo’s uncrowded sidewalks, under handsome architectural overhangs designed to protect pedestrians from the rain, can be a very pleasant experience. Sometimes there’s even a soundtrack of live ancient Hawaiian chants wafting down from upstairs studios where classes in traditional Hawaiian song are conducted.

Hilo’s role as hula capital is a recent one, growing out of the popularity of the hula competition at the city’s annual Merrie Monarch Festival, held the week after Easter each year. The festival--named after Hawaii’s last king, David Kalakaua, who was something of a party animal and who launched an earlier revival of the hula in the 19th Century--was first held in 1963, in an attempt to draw tourists to Hilo after a tidal wave had wreaked economic havoc on the region. It is an energetic civic celebration, in which the whole town takes part, featuring everything from live music to parades to arts and crafts demonstrations. A hula contest--one program with just nine dancers--was added to the weeklong event in 1971.

By 1979, at the height of the Hawaiian cultural renaissance, the demand for tickets, and the number of halau that wanted to compete, had grown so great that the event was moved from its original home in Hilo’s 2,800-seat civic auditorium to the 5,000-seat municipal tennis stadium, soon renamed for the late Edith Kanaka’ole, one of the most revered teachers of Hawaiian culture.

The Merrie Monarch is already “ the hula contest, the one to be at,” says Nalani Kanaka’ole, Edith’s daughter, who, with her sister Pualani, operates the halau generally regarded as Hawaii’s most traditional, Hula Halau ‘o Kekuhi. (The troupe that went to Russia with the Smithsonian in 1991 came from this school.)

The Merrie Monarch competition now lasts three nights. The first night, a Thursday, is devoted to selection of Miss Aloha Hula. Contestants must perform two dances, one kahiko (ancient style), the other ‘auwana , or modern. George Na’ope, one of the founders of the festival, thought that Miss Aloha Hula should replace Miss Hawaii in the annual Miss America contest in Atlantic City. Though several Miss Hawaii winners have demonstrated the hula in the talent portion of the beauty pageant, no one has taken up his suggestion.

Contest rules have changed over the years. Children, for instance, are no longer permitted to participate. “Nobody can win over babies, because babies are cute,” said ‘Iolani Luaine, the state’s premier hula dancer in the late ‘70s. Today, dancers must be at least 13. Also, in an attempt to preserve traditional standards, cellophane skirts have recently been forbidden, as have artificial leis, the use of English-language songs and, in the kahiko competition, the use of any makeup other than eyeliner, base and blush.

THE MERRIE MONARCH HULA COMPEtition has helped revive the hula all over Hawaii. As the festival has gained prestige, a visible hula subculture has developed statewide and kumu hula (hula instructors) have become stars, in much the same way that movie directors can be stars in Hollywood.

But the Merrie Monarch isn’t Hilo’s only credential as hula capital. It is also the home of one of hula’s first families, the Beamers--descendants of an immigrant German merchant who married into a creative Hawaiian family that traces its musical genealogy back 12 centuries as chanters and dancers, and who opened a commercial hula studio in Honolulu in the 1950s.

“Aunty Nona” Beamer, who taught hula and Hawaiian music for 50 years at the Kamehameha Schools (which accept only students who are at least partly native Hawaiian), tells a story about her grandmother, Helen Desher “Sweetheart Grandma” Beamer. Sweetheart Grandma lived when the hula was banned, not only publicly throughout the islands but also privately, by her husband, in her own home. One day, the husband, who was Hilo’s postmaster, forgot his hat and returned home unexpectedly, where he found his wife chanting as a group of neighborhood women performed a graceful dance about a long-dead queen who had been deposed by territorialists. He first fell into a chair, and then under the hula’s spell, finally said, “It’s all right.” (Various members of the Beamer family still teach hula in Honolulu and elsewhere.)

Hilo is also the gateway to Volcanoes National Park, home of the fire goddess, Pele, revered as the creator of the Hawaiian Islands and subject of hundreds of hulas. Before dancers compete in the Merrie Monarch, nearly all make a pilgrimage to Pele’s home, 35 miles up the slope in the Kilauea caldera, the most active volcano on earth--tossing bananas, leis and bottles of gin into the steaming pit. Nearby, overlooking the crater, is a stone hula platform where many halau have performed, usually on Hawaiian holidays.

No discussion of Hilo and the hula can ignore Johnny Lum Ho, a teacher whose dramatic style and non-traditional arm, hand and foot movements have divided the hula community. Critics complain that he never received formal dance training from any recognized kuma hula . His years singing with the Kanaka’ole and Na’ope halau and the fact that his mother was a Hawaiian-language teacher soften the criticism, but his choreography is so radical that even Nalani Kanaka’ole said that his early performances and the effect they had on the Merrie Monarch epitomized “funk and flash.”

Ho told a writer for Honolulu magazine that all the schools “cook on the same stoves. They use the same pots and pans. But the thing that they’re mixing is different. You add your spices. Maybe you use salt or sugar. I use what I like. I use oyster sauce. They say, ‘Not supposed to use oyster sauce; that’s not Hawaiian.’ Too bad. I like the flavor I like.”

GUIDEBOOK

The Hula File

Prices: Hotel prices are for a double room for one night. Restaurant prices are for dinner for two, food only.

Getting there: There are no nonstop flights between Los Angeles and Hilo, but there are frequent nonstops between LAX and Honolulu (on Oahu) on United, Delta, American and Hawaiian airlines, with connecting flights on United, Hawaiian and Aloha.

Where to stay: Hawaii Naniloa Hotel, 93 Banyan Drive, (808) 969-3333, fax (808) 969-6622, reservations (800) 367-5360, Hawaii’s largest and most modern hotel. Rates: $96-$144. Hilo Hawaiian Hotel, 71 Banyan Drive, (808) 935-9361, fax (800) 477-2329, reservations (800) 367-5004, also large and modern in style. Rates: $99-$122.

Where to eat: Harrington’s, 135 Kalanianaole Ave., Reeds Bay, (808) 961-4966, a rustic-themed waterfront place popular with locals, serving steaks, fish and Italian-American dishes, $50-$60. Soontaree’s, Hilo Shopping Center, (808) 934-7426, Thai food made with natural ingredients and no MSG, $30-$40.

The Merrie Monarch: Tickets for the Merrie Monarch Festival, held the week following Easter each year, are issued on a first-come, first-served basis. Requests must be submitted by mail and postmarked after Dec. 25 of the preceding year. Only two tickets per event are issued to any individual; if you wish to attend with friends, put requests in separate envelopes, enclosed in a single, larger envelope. Reserved seats are $30-$40 (depending on how good the seats are) per person for all three nights of the hula competition, $11 for three nights’ general admission. Only money orders and cashier’s checks are accepted--no personal checks or cash. Mail orders, including a self-addressed stamped envelope, to the Merrie Monarch Festival, Waiakea Villas, 400 Hualani St., Hilo, Hawaii 96720. For details, call (808) 935-9168.

Hula Elsewhere: Performances on the hula platform in Volcanoes National Park are scheduled informally throughout the year; check with the park ranger’s office, (808) 967-7311. The King Kamehameha Traditional Chant and Hula Competition is held every June at the Neal Blaisdell Arena in Honolulu; call (808) 536-6540 for information. One of Hawaii’s premier hula dancers, Kanoe Kaumehe’iwa Miller, performs modern hula skillfully at the Halekulani Hotel in Waikiki, Monday through Saturday from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. For details, call (808) 923-2311. The Brothers Cazimero Show, at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel Tuesday through Saturday, with seatings at 6:30 and 8 p.m., is a taste of traditional hula. (The show is not performed in December.) For information, call (808) 923-7311.

For more information: Hawaii Visitors Bureau, 3440 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 502, Los Angeles 90010; (213) 385-5301.