HAWAII - HULA : A Hip Tradition

After years of Western imperialism—under which hula was first discouraged by Christian missionaries in the early 1800s and later marketed as kitsch in the mid-1900s—the dance, in many Hawaiians' eyes, was losing any real sense of history or culture.

"Outside influences were making it obsolete," says Rae Fonseca, a kumu hula, or hula master, in Hilo on the Big Island. As a result, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, a renewed interest in hula's traditional roots began to sweep across the state. Adrienne Kaeppler, curator of oceanic ethnology at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. and an expert in hula, helped form the State Council on Hawaiian Dance in 1969. "During its meetings," she says, "we brought in some of the older hula masters who were willing to share their dances in a variety of workshops." The classes filled quickly, signaling the beginning of hula's renaissance. "It just went on from there," Kaeppler says.

Today, serious hula is everywhere in Hawaii. The dance can also be found among the mainland diaspora and other places such as Japan, Europe and Mexico. Even Hollywood has joined in—Hula Girls, this year's Japanese entry in the Academy Award's foreign language category, tells a charming tale of rural Japanese girls learning the dance.

Halaus, or schools of hula, have cropped up in most Hawaiian towns, and men and women of all ages study the dance diligently. "I have my classes twice a week for each age group," Fonseca says. "It entails a lot of dedication."