annual contest | Maui: Experience authentic Hawaii in hula shows,
The low-fat, low-salt Native Hawaiian Diet dinner plate first drew me years ago to the Tiki Terrace in Kaanapali Beach Hotel, a modest, low-rise inn in West Maui that proclaims itself “Hawaii’s Most Hawaiian Hotel.”
While the steamed fish with grilled banana and sweet potato tasted fine in that good-for-you way, the most memorable part of the meal was the everchanging lineup of hula dancers on the nearby stage, from wobbling kids to graceful grandmas. It was a Friday night, when an entire hula halau (school) performs onstage in the Tiki Courtyard.
The hotel’s free hula shows, an hour every Tuesday through Sunday night, followed by more live music, have kept me coming back ever since — and go a long way to justifying its chosen sobriquet.
“I’m sorry to say, you can go down to other hotels on the strip and not find Hawaiian entertainment; if their restaurants are doing well, they’re not doing entertainment,” explains Dee Coyle, a director of training at Kaanapali Beach Hotel. “Here that doesn’t matter. Here entertainment means a sharing of our culture. This is our way of sharing who we are and what we’re all about. You can dine in the Tiki Terrace and watch the show, you can have drinks in the courtyard and watch the show, or you can just watch the show.”
The hotel’s annual children’s hula competition, Hula O Na Keiki, is helping new generations of dancers train for the Tiki Courtyard, the hotel’s year-old Monday night luau and other venues. The 25th annual event, Nov. 13-15 this year, features solo performances in kahiko (ancient) and
(modern) hula by boys and girls ages 5 to 17 on Friday and Saturday night. During the daytime, the hotel hosts a cultural festival with arts and crafts, demonstrations and live entertainment; a celebratory reunion brunch on Sunday with previous winners will cap the festivities.
“We have some guests that come every year at this time,” says Coyle, who’s also the competition administrator. “They love to see the children dance — it’s such a novel thing to see — and then throughout the years, they see the children growing up, they might remember somebody from back then. They also come because it’s fun.
“They’ll sit through a whole night of kahiko hula, which they might not understand since it’s in Hawaiian, because our emcee makes it fun, teaching them Hawaiian words and telling jokes.”
The English-only songs of auana night — this year limited to hapa haole songs written between 1929 and 1959 — make it easier for visitors to match gestures with lyrics. But malihini are actually the smallest percentage of the spectators in the hotel’s 400-seat Kanahele Room, according to Coyle: “It’s full of local people who are halau supporters and the aunties and uncles and tutus (grandparents).”
This year’s 16 entrants come from Oahu, Maui and Japan, vying in various categories for cash and prizes, including traditional pahu drums, worth more than $13,000 in total — another way the hotel helps perpetuate the native culture.
“This competition was a way to reach out to the hula community,” says Coyle, who has been with Hula O Na Keiki since its start in 1990. “We provide cash prizes because it costs a halau so much money to compete — paying for costumes, transportation, food — and we’ve taken that into account. ”
Some of the most venerated names in hula judge the young dancers’ language (all have to perform a traditional chant), movements and costume, among other categories. At least three of the previous Hula O Na Keiki winners have gone on to become kumu hula (expert hula teachers) on Maui and returned to the competition with their proteges, Coyle says.
Over the years, Hula O Na Keiki has employed judges and other songwriters to write songs about Maui for the competition, with more than 50 new mele about the Valley Isle as a result. You may not necessarily be able to pick the original tunes out during one of the six free hula shows a week at Kaanapali Beach Hotel, but you won’t lack for possibilities to enjoy Hawaiian music, or dance, at this most Hawaiian of Hawaiian hotels.
“Here entertainment means a sharing of our culture.” Dee Coyle, Kaanapali Beach Hotel