Ka‘ehu calling

I missed my connection at LAX last night. The mechanical and weather delays at JFK screwed up my plans, so I had to spend the night at the nearby Hilton. As I lugged my luggage through the bright lobby with dozens of the inconvenienced, I was reminded of the pilgrims that I saw recently in Spain. On foot, staff, bike and boat, these backpackers journeyed from all directions to the western city and cathedral of Santiago de Campostela, Christendomʻs third holiest city after Jerusalem and Rome, where the bones of St. James, aka Santiago, have been held, where the encounter with this site and its relics has miraculously inspired illnesses to be healed, hopes restored, and limbos in purgatory halved. (So I’ve read. I touched the marble column and hugged Christ’s robed statue from behind, but my foot fungus remained. What my itchy toes needed was a trip to the pharmacy rather than Spain.) While the gleaming, air-conditioned LAX Hilton is nowhere reminiscent of the reverent, rustic inns that dotted the long dirt paths to Santiago, I thought of pilgrimages and imagined the purposes of these harried, modern travelers, especially the young backpackers. Were any of them traveling long distances in some form of a spiritual search, as in the journey to the banks of Varanasi’s Ganga, where pilgrims bathe in the blessed water that flows from heaven? Were any of the Hilton guests escaping from some irreconcilable thing, like the Separatists Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth, communed with Native Americans and taught us about Gratitude? Were any of them seekers of understanding...truth? Is my trip a pilgrimage? Pilgrimages, I believe, are a physical response—a pathway ventured—to a higher command.

I suppose in my case, a Voice has always said, “Dance,” and while I am more than delighted to obey, I nonetheless have always wondered, “Why?” My path has often been a physical response to the whys of dance. I feel like the kid who responds to every command—“Eat your veggies,” “Put away your toys,” “Brush your teeth,” “Stop crying”—with the incessant “Why?” I won’t get into the why I ask, “Why dance?” except to say there’ve always been insecure, skeptical feelings about dance both in me and our world. I’ve always felt the urge to justify and advocate for it. So, here I am, again, trying to defend and advocate for why one dances. I have my practiced, studied responses—stock versions of ideas borrowed from the philosophies of people way smarter than me—but even these I wonder about and question. I can claim my experience, but these declarations only form more questions. For example, is it true that through dance, one learns about the self and his or her environment? What can a dance—in this case, a hula—disclose to me and you, about our connections, our separateness, our history, our world, our future? What’s the significance? Okay, perhaps it’s just not that deep and disconcerting. Just move...groove. Why not?

I started this entry in LA and continued writing on the flight over, but now I am on O’ahu. I’m staying with my sister, Christina, and her husband, Alapaki, and son, Kamuela, in Kane’ohe beneath those majestic cliffs, a lush, serrated wall crowning the coast that gives soaring elevation to the hula gesture for mountain, kuahiwi. 5-year old Kamuela, boisterous and solid, is my godson; Christina’s hāpai, pregnant, and self-conscious; she and Paki just bought this charming mid-century Hawaiian home in a typical local neighborhood with crowing roosters, barking guard dogs and nosy and nice neighbors. I am so stoked to be with them.

As soon as I arrived I drove to the Bureau of Conveyances to do some research. My being at this conference, the pilgrimage, has much to do research for my MFA in Dance Performance thesis for the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee. More than a year ago, my kumu hula, June Tanoue, taught the halau Kaulana Nā Pua. It’s a famous mele in Hawai’i that was written in 1893, soon after politicians with American ties and economic interests overthrew the Hawaiian monarchy, then led by Queen Lili‘ūokalani. Members of the Royal Hawaiian Band were asked to sign an oath of allegiance to this new government. They refused and were threatened to lose their salary and instead be paid in “stones.” The band members approached Ellen Kekoaohiwaikalani Wright Prendergast, a friend of the Queen, who wrote these lyrics, which immediately became and has remained the rallying cry for the Native Hawaiians who wish to restore their sovereignty. Years laters, just before the time my sister’s house was built, “Aunty” Maiki Aiu Lake, a famous kumu hula who is known to be one of the primary instigators of the current Hawaiian renaissance, would choreograph a hula to this mele. She would teach it to her student, Kealoha Wong, who would teach it to her student, Michael Pili Pang, who would teach it to his student, June Tanoue. Get the tradition of hula? Like much of dance, it’s oral and kinesthetic. I, a non-Hawaiian speaker, never got the political message of the mele, the song, the words, until I had to embody it in hula. I just thought the music was gorgeously longing. So I’ve been exploring the political intentions of this hula, which have implications for looking at hula and dance in general as a political declaration and galvanizer (a response to the perennial question, why dance?). Today, Kaulana is still a presence in the sovereignty movement. I just heard a new version of the song on the radio with men shouting lines in the background that truly emphasize the call for resistance. But I’m also fascinated by the solemn prayer of some interpretations of the mele. If one were to read the lyrics, no “god” is explicitly identified in the English translation. But many Hawaiians would observe the dieties and ancestral spirits referenced throughout the mele and in the hula. They would feel the mana coursing through this song, just as they believe that It emanates from the iconic stones, pōhaku, for example, and the invaluable land, ‘āina, which are recurrent images in the art.

This curiosity brought me to the Bureau of Conveyances, which possesses the tax records and maps of all Hawaiian property. Kaulana has raised my curiosity about my family’s ‘āina on Maui. To honor a Native Hawaiian philosophy of the land I’m interested in acknowledging this ‘āina in its historical and cultural context. My parents bought it in 1953. I have only a few folkloric histories that I’d like to trace and revive. Interestingly, the tax records go back to only 1933. The information fills in just a few gaps, so many remain. It’s both fascinating and depressing to observe how cultural amnesia can be institutionalized. Why?