HXC Hula! (Huntington ho'ike)

When I come home from a Hula show bruised all over and bloody, then either it was an awful show and something terrible happened, or it was a great show and I did O Pana Ewa and got a little carried away.

I got lost on the way to Camille's parents' house, I mean badly lost, like driving around for about twenty minutes going "Why am I on the wrong frigging road?" Which, duh, I was actually on the correct road, but I dind't realize that the name of it changed about a mile into it. I hate when roads to that, it's so stupid. I had left late, too, because I somehow lost all my kupe'e and my haku (the head-fern for kahiko.) Anyway, Camille was running late, too. Also, she forgot to bring her CDs. Me, I brought my iPod. I know Olivia, the woman who was putting on the show, uses iPods for shows almost exclusively now, but I also wanted to be prepared just in case she wasn't using it this time, or something happened to it, or, you know, any of the usual things that can go wrong during a show. Camille had said she was going to bring extra CDs, but I brought extra extras anyway, cause you never know. And actually, Camille did forget to bring her extra CDs. So I popped mine into her CD player in the car to test it, only to find that the song we needed didn't burn onto the CD. WTF? Thanks a bunch, iTunes, you tool.

So we were getting there, and it was really chaotic. I knew I wasn't getting into my zen, that place I need to go in my head in order to do a show. I was all over the place, but I wasn't there. I have to be in a specific zone in my head. I have to be this other person before I go onstage, I can't go onstage as myself, never could. And in the car on the way there, I just wasn't feeling it and I started to get nervous.

When we got there and I saw the place, I felt a little better. It was informal, a performing arts center, sure, but mainly just a ho'ike, a show for friends and family and other dancers. And we were performing in basically a dance studio with some chairs set up. They hadn't started the show yet, so Camille and I went to get changed into kahiko outfits (nice dressing room, I have to say. We've gotten some crappy dressing rooms, but this one was really nice.)

I like shows that are informal, where you don't necessarily have to stick to a set pattern, where everything doesn't have to be just so. Camille, on the other hand, needs everything to be just so. Olivia is a little bit chaotic. Like me, she likes to do whatever comes to her at the time, especially for an informal ho'ike. This is why I like to know enough Hulas off the top of my head to just bust one out if I need to: because at shows like this, I know I'll need to.

So we watched a few dancers, and the keikis got up and did their thing (and they were awesome, too,) and then it was time for Camille and I. We had decided to do A Kona Hema for kahiko, and Ipo Lei Momi for 'auana. So we did A Kona Hema and we nailed it, it was awesome. Olivia had some problems with the iPod (accidentally shutting it off during one of her dancer's performance! O_O ) She changed the order of songs and dancers around a bit. We weren't supposed to go on just then, but she couldn't find the song she was looking for and asked us to go on with our 'auana just then. We still had to change, so we went charging back there to get back into 'auana outfits. I had warned Camille earlier that Olivia's shows were a little, uhh, informal, and I said then, "See, it gets a little chaotic. But I'm okay with that. I do okay in chaos."

"Do okay in it?" Camille said to me. "You thrive in chaos. You perform better in it."

Truth? I think I do.

Anyway, then we did Ipo Lei Momi, and we nailed that one, too. I mean, it went beautifully, not a hitch. Right after it, an old Hula friend of mine that I met a few years ago and who just hooked up with Olivia's halau, asked me if I remembered A Million Moons Over Hawai'i, because she could have sworn she watched our halau perform it a few years ago. She was right, I told her, we had performed it at a ho'ike in New Jersey about four years ago. She wanted to perform it but didn't want to go alone. I told her I was pretty sure I remembered most of it, and even if I didn't, I could follow along. It's in English, so that makes it a little easier. I told her I'd dance it with her, and I asked Camille if she wanted to, also. Camille said no, because we hadn't rehearsed it. She said, "I can only do what I planned to do." So Maria (that's the other girl there) and I danced it, kinda spur of the moment. It went okay, and here's a video fo the ending of it:
( Clicky for vid... )

So that went kind of nicely, actually. (Yes, I am huge and she is tiny. I realize this.)

(Oh, and that song is a really pretty one. It's hapa, it's in English, but is what I like to think of as a Hawaiian torch song. It's, well, torchy, you know?)

Then Olivia asked me if I would do O Pana Ewa. I asked Camille if she wanted to do it, too, and once again she said that she couldn't do anything she hadn't planned on doing. But I said, what the hell, and I went to get changed back into Kahiko once again. Olivia said that while I was changing, everyone should come to the floor and dance Mahana Mahana together. Welp, I got changes so quickly (I am the mistress of the backstage quick change) that I was back on the floor even before the song started. Olivia had changed the choreography to Mahana Mahana and done her own thing, and I caught onto it pretty quickly, which is always easier if you're familiar with the song. So we did that really crazily for a while and then she said that I would close the show with O Pana Ewa.

For those who don't know, O Pana Ewa is a Hula Noho, which means it's a dance done on your knees. These are often done out of respect or admiration. O Pana Ewa is the story of the battle between Hi'iaka and a "fire lizard", which, dude, could only be a dragon, and how weird is it that every culture has dragon legends without having had any contact with each other? Seriously.

So I set up my iPod and started it, then realized I only had about a fraction of a second to get to the center of the floor and on my knees before I had to start dancing. So I decided that I would just slide and maybe my pa'u (the Hula skirt) would kind of fold under my knees and slide me along, except it didn't and I went down onto the dance floor on my knees and the tops of my feet really hard, and kind of slid anyway. I peeled off like the first five layers of skin. But I still did the rest of the dance, and the audience was riled, and so I was riled, and I was just beating the everloving Christ out of myself with the pu'ili. (That's the split bamboo stick.) Anyway, a few people taped it, and here's the ending of it:

( Clickitywhee for video! )

(Some thoughts on O Pana Ewa: It is a battle song. Sometimes when I perform it in front of a certain type of people, I get remarks about how it looks sexual in some places. It is definitely not sexual, and that's a very Western way of seeing it. Much of Hula is not sexual, it's just that mainlander Americans tend to associate any kind of movement below the waist as being a reference to banging. This just in: Other things aside from doing it happen sometimes, okay?

Which is also not to say that we don't do some sexual songs at all. Because Ipo Lei Momi, the other one we did last night, and the awesome kahiko O Pao'o, are blatantly sexual, and O Pao'o borders on vulgar. But good vulgar, fun and healthy vulgar. :D And is also one of my favorites ever.

Also, I love that you can hear people in the audience chanting along with the song. It's a popular one among Sonny's fans.)

I am ashamed to admit how much applause means to me. I kind of live for it. Isn't that ridiculous? The people watching went nuts, and I was a little peeved that the rest of the applause got cut off. O_o I'm so terrible. Afterwards some random guy came up to me and stuck his camera in my face, showing me that he had taped the entire performance up close. I was like, "Uhhh, okay. Wow." Then it got me a little weirded out, because that's not my choreography, it's Kumu Sonny's, and maybe people shouldn't be videotaping the entire performance. But there was nothing I could do about it.

Then we all went out walking around town (I should mention that we were all still in our Hula clothes,) to look for a place to have dinner. A little girl with her Mom was fascinated by the clothes and her Mom said, "Those are Hula dancers, like in Hawai'i!" And the little girl said, "How did they get all the way here?" It was kind of precious. Anyway, we ended up at a Tex Mex, where this really attractive Mexican guy leaned out the door and asked us to come in and eat. I asked him if they had vegetarian and he said most of it was vegetarian, and would we please come inside? (It was raining by then.) One of the girls though (the girl I danced with) said she would rather go to Renaissance Cafe across the street. We went over there and waited about 20 minutes to get seated, and no one seated us (though some guy took a picture of the group of us.) So we went back to Tex Mex. The attractive guy was really flirty, and the girls were trying to say that he was flirting with me, but in all honesty, his attention was on Olivia the whole time. It was pretty cute.

So, anyway we had a really nice dinner and a walk around town (back to our cars) in the rain.

Drove back to Camille's folks' house where my car was, then I drove the loooong haul back home, just totally exhausted, bloody, bruised, yet still mellow. I love doing Hula shows, especially really good ones, but there's nothing better than being really tired after a good show, taking a hot shower, and getting into bed knowing you can sleep late the next day. That effing rules. ^_^

World's most HxC aloha Hula Kung Fu chick!!! Nah, not really. :D

HXC Hula! (Huntington ho'ike)

When I come home from a Hula show bruised all over and bloody, then either it was an awful show and something terrible happened, or it was a great show and I did O Pana Ewa and got a little carried away.

I got lost on the way to Camille's parents' house, I mean badly lost, like driving around for about twenty minutes going "Why am I on the wrong frigging road?" Which, duh, I was actually on the correct road, but I dind't realize that the name of it changed about a mile into it. I hate when roads to that, it's so stupid. I had left late, too, because I somehow lost all my kupe'e and my haku (the head-fern for kahiko.) Anyway, Camille was running late, too. Also, she forgot to bring her CDs. Me, I brought my iPod. I know Olivia, the woman who was putting on the show, uses iPods for shows almost exclusively now, but I also wanted to be prepared just in case she wasn't using it this time, or something happened to it, or, you know, any of the usual things that can go wrong during a show. Camille had said she was going to bring extra CDs, but I brought extra extras anyway, cause you never know. And actually, Camille did forget to bring her extra CDs. So I popped mine into her CD player in the car to test it, only to find that the song we needed didn't burn onto the CD. WTF? Thanks a bunch, iTunes, you tool.

So we were getting there, and it was really chaotic. I knew I wasn't getting into my zen, that place I need to go in my head in order to do a show. I was all over the place, but I wasn't there. I have to be in a specific zone in my head. I have to be this other person before I go onstage, I can't go onstage as myself, never could. And in the car on the way there, I just wasn't feeling it and I started to get nervous.

When we got there and I saw the place, I felt a little better. It was informal, a performing arts center, sure, but mainly just a ho'ike, a show for friends and family and other dancers. And we were performing in basically a dance studio with some chairs set up. They hadn't started the show yet, so Camille and I went to get changed into kahiko outfits (nice dressing room, I have to say. We've gotten some crappy dressing rooms, but this one was really nice.)

I like shows that are informal, where you don't necessarily have to stick to a set pattern, where everything doesn't have to be just so. Camille, on the other hand, needs everything to be just so. Olivia is a little bit chaotic. Like me, she likes to do whatever comes to her at the time, especially for an informal ho'ike. This is why I like to know enough Hulas off the top of my head to just bust one out if I need to: because at shows like this, I know I'll need to.

So we watched a few dancers, and the keikis got up and did their thing (and they were awesome, too,) and then it was time for Camille and I. We had decided to do A Kona Hema for kahiko, and Ipo Lei Momi for 'auana. So we did A Kona Hema and we nailed it, it was awesome. Olivia had some problems with the iPod (accidentally shutting it off during one of her dancer's performance! O_O ) She changed the order of songs and dancers around a bit. We weren't supposed to go on just then, but she couldn't find the song she was looking for and asked us to go on with our 'auana just then. We still had to change, so we went charging back there to get back into 'auana outfits. I had warned Camille earlier that Olivia's shows were a little, uhh, informal, and I said then, "See, it gets a little chaotic. But I'm okay with that. I do okay in chaos."

"Do okay in it?" Camille said to me. "You thrive in chaos. You perform better in it."

Truth? I think I do.

Anyway, then we did Ipo Lei Momi, and we nailed that one, too. I mean, it went beautifully, not a hitch. Right after it, an old Hula friend of mine that I met a few years ago and who just hooked up with Olivia's halau, asked me if I remembered A Million Moons Over Hawai'i, because she could have sworn she watched our halau perform it a few years ago. She was right, I told her, we had performed it at a ho'ike in New Jersey about four years ago. She wanted to perform it but didn't want to go alone. I told her I was pretty sure I remembered most of it, and even if I didn't, I could follow along. It's in English, so that makes it a little easier. I told her I'd dance it with her, and I asked Camille if she wanted to, also. Camille said no, because we hadn't rehearsed it. She said, "I can only do what I planned to do." So Maria (that's the other girl there) and I danced it, kinda spur of the moment. It went okay, and here's a video fo the ending of it:
( Clicky for vid... )

So that went kind of nicely, actually. (Yes, I am huge and she is tiny. I realize this.)

(Oh, and that song is a really pretty one. It's hapa, it's in English, but is what I like to think of as a Hawaiian torch song. It's, well, torchy, you know?)

Then Olivia asked me if I would do O Pana Ewa. I asked Camille if she wanted to do it, too, and once again she said that she couldn't do anything she hadn't planned on doing. But I said, what the hell, and I went to get changed back into Kahiko once again. Olivia said that while I was changing, everyone should come to the floor and dance Mahana Mahana together. Welp, I got changes so quickly (I am the mistress of the backstage quick change) that I was back on the floor even before the song started. Olivia had changed the choreography to Mahana Mahana and done her own thing, and I caught onto it pretty quickly, which is always easier if you're familiar with the song. So we did that really crazily for a while and then she said that I would close the show with O Pana Ewa.

For those who don't know, O Pana Ewa is a Hula Noho, which means it's a dance done on your knees. These are often done out of respect or admiration. O Pana Ewa is the story of the battle between Hi'iaka and a "fire lizard", which, dude, could only be a dragon, and how weird is it that every culture has dragon legends without having had any contact with each other? Seriously.

So I set up my iPod and started it, then realized I only had about a fraction of a second to get to the center of the floor and on my knees before I had to start dancing. So I decided that I would just slide and maybe my pa'u (the Hula skirt) would kind of fold under my knees and slide me along, except it didn't and I went down onto the dance floor on my knees and the tops of my feet really hard, and kind of slid anyway. I peeled off like the first five layers of skin. But I still did the rest of the dance, and the audience was riled, and so I was riled, and I was just beating the everloving Christ out of myself with the pu'ili. (That's the split bamboo stick.) Anyway, a few people taped it, and here's the ending of it:

( Clickitywhee for video! )

(Some thoughts on O Pana Ewa: It is a battle song. Sometimes when I perform it in front of a certain type of people, I get remarks about how it looks sexual in some places. It is definitely not sexual, and that's a very Western way of seeing it. Much of Hula is not sexual, it's just that mainlander Americans tend to associate any kind of movement below the waist as being a reference to banging. This just in: Other things aside from doing it happen sometimes, okay?

Which is also not to say that we don't do some sexual songs at all. Because Ipo Lei Momi, the other one we did last night, and the awesome kahiko O Pao'o, are blatantly sexual, and O Pao'o borders on vulgar. But good vulgar, fun and healthy vulgar. :D And is also one of my favorites ever.

Also, I love that you can hear people in the audience chanting along with the song. It's a popular one among Sonny's fans.)

I am ashamed to admit how much applause means to me. I kind of live for it. Isn't that ridiculous? The people watching went nuts, and I was a little peeved that the rest of the applause got cut off. O_o I'm so terrible. Afterwards some random guy came up to me and stuck his camera in my face, showing me that he had taped the entire performance up close. I was like, "Uhhh, okay. Wow." Then it got me a little weirded out, because that's not my choreography, it's Kumu Sonny's, and maybe people shouldn't be videotaping the entire performance. But there was nothing I could do about it.

Then we all went out walking around town (I should mention that we were all still in our Hula clothes,) to look for a place to have dinner. A little girl with her Mom was fascinated by the clothes and her Mom said, "Those are Hula dancers, like in Hawai'i!" And the little girl said, "How did they get all the way here?" It was kind of precious. Anyway, we ended up at a Tex Mex, where this really attractive Mexican guy leaned out the door and asked us to come in and eat. I asked him if they had vegetarian and he said most of it was vegetarian, and would we please come inside? (It was raining by then.) One of the girls though (the girl I danced with) said she would rather go to Renaissance Cafe across the street. We went over there and waited about 20 minutes to get seated, and no one seated us (though some guy took a picture of the group of us.) So we went back to Tex Mex. The attractive guy was really flirty, and the girls were trying to say that he was flirting with me, but in all honesty, his attention was on Olivia the whole time. It was pretty cute.

So, anyway we had a really nice dinner and a walk around town (back to our cars) in the rain.

Drove back to Camille's folks' house where my car was, then I drove the loooong haul back home, just totally exhausted, bloody, bruised, yet still mellow. I love doing Hula shows, especially really good ones, but there's nothing better than being really tired after a good show, taking a hot shower, and getting into bed knowing you can sleep late the next day. That effing rules. ^_^

World's most HxC aloha Hula Kung Fu chick!!! Nah, not really. :D