Māhealani Uchiyama / photo by Eric Mindling
photo courtesy of Māhea Uchiyama Center for International Dance
SB: Given that experience of homecoming in the Caribbean forms, and that sense of alienation from at least the social context of hula, what kept you going in hula? MU: Hula was always been my core and it remains my core. I love the form. There was a spiritual connection that made sense to me. My heart was telling me that this is a beautiful dance form and I just followed that. At the same time, I began to understand that when you’ve had something taken from you, or almost taken from you, you get very possessive about what you have of it left. So, I get why some Hawaiians are quick to express caution toward people of other back- grounds who say they want to explore (but also possibly appropriate and exploit) that which is sacred to them. Encountering that attitude before I had developed an under- standing of it was very rough and painful for me, but I get it now. Certainly we too, as black people, have had much taken from us. SB: So your own history plus the knowl- edge you gained of Hawaiian history gave you a compassionate perspective on those that might have made you feel like you don’t belong. And it seems this made it possible for you to have felt a sense of homecoming in the Caribbean forms without it having to mean you had to live there. Your story inspires trust in the body’s intuitive sense of home, one that may or may not correspond to one’s geographic, cultural, ethnic, or social origins. What do you hope your work can do to inter- vene into those nefarious global efforts to confine individuals to a narrow sense of home based on nationalist and racist borders? MU: It is more urgent than ever that we find ways to recognize each other’s human- ity. Dance and music are good ways to start to get a sense of a people. What I see as my contribution is to help us as a community to get to know each other, and to be willing to see ourselves in each other. SB: How specifically does hula help us recognize each other’s humanity? MU: Hula is a reminder that we are part of something big, and a spiritual recognition of
our place in the world. The extent to which our environment is healthy is the extent to which we ourselves are healthy. Hula gives us this awareness, and it helps us to see ourselves in each other, in the trees, and in the ocean. Spirit is everywhere and we are a part of that. The realization that we are connected to each other and to everything in the environment leads to a greater sense of the importance of caring for each other and for the world. In June we participated in the 5th World Conference on Hawaiian Hula, Ka ‘Aha Hula ‘O Halauaola. This event began 17 years ago and was created by three wise and powerful kumu hula who realized that people were dancing hula all over the world without necessarily understanding the full depth and meaning of the tradition. The event occurred every four years, each time on a different island. As each island hosted the conference, there would be a hula ceremony for which we would learn ceremonial dances that related to the place. The first conference was on Hawai'i Island. We went from there to Maui, to Oahu, to Kaua'i, and then finally, back to Hilo on Hawai'i Island. Much of the hula tradition is based on the epic story of the volcano Goddess Pele and her siblings, particularly her youngest sis- ter Hi'iakaikapoliopele, who was sent on a journey from the Hawai'i Island to Kaua'i to find Pele’s dream lover and bring him back to Pele. She had many obstacles along the way, and it took time for her to complete her jour- ney. However, overcoming the various chal- lenges on each island, Hi'iaka became aware of who she was as a healer, as a priestess, and as a goddess. She returned in full realization of who she is. Those of us who participated in each of the conferences over the years essentially traced the same path as did Hi'iaka. The dances that we were given to learn for the recent cere- mony spoke of all those events, including the eruption and destruction of Hi'iaka's sacred
they’re wearing, if any, what kind of lei they wear, how the lei are made, and how the component parts of the lei are collected. Hula is a lifestyle, it’s not just something one does in the studio. When we’re in Hawai’i, getting ready to create our regalia for our ceremonies, we ask permission before we enter a forest and again when we approach the item that we want to gather. We only take what is needed. While crafting the lei, it is important to focus on positive intention, as what is on your mind can go into what you are creating. Once we are done with the ceremony or the performance, the lei is respectfully returned to nature. This is our way. This is how we try to work with our students so that they understand how they relate to the world around them. The point is understanding who you are in relation to your community, and that community is understood to be not just your people but the plants and the air and the mountains. The performance aspect is the outward expression of this training, but it is not the most important thing. SB: Your center is home to so many differ- ent cultural forms, and you studied multiple forms in college. What has it meant to your embodied identity to have been inside these different forms? MU: When I first came to Oakland, I noticed that there was a huge tradition of Afri- can based forms, and I got very interested in learning them. For a number of years I danced with the Orinoco Caribbean Dancers and Drummers. We performed the regional dances of the Caribbean. In those years I also started learning Middle Eastern dance. In the 1990s, the late Pandit Chitresh Das started teaching at my studio, and I had the extreme good fortune to study with him as well. I love movement, I love to see and feel what it is to really immerse myself in different ways of being and I also think it’s really healthy for my teaching to be reminded how it feels to be a beginning student. Each form meant different things to me. When I was doing the regional Caribbean dances, for example, it felt like a bit of a homecoming because for the first time in my life, I sensed that everyone within a particu- lar dance community considered my body type acceptable for a form that I loved. I had walked into a situation where I was cele- brated and recognized for those very features that in my youth and naivete I had grown to feel badly about. That’s a lot of what I got from that experience, that grounding, and that understanding that there are different ways of seeing.
garden. As hula practitioners from all over the world were working on the ceremonial dances, the latest eruption occurred with fis- sures opening up throughout an area known traditionally as Keahialaka . (The name trans- lates to the fire of Laka, the hula Goddess. This is an area known in ancient times as the site of frequent volcanic activity.) In the 1960s, this area was renamed as Leilani Estates. Just as Hi'iaka, after her circuit, arrived back to this eruption, so did all of us. Pele is about giving birth. Pele's womb is the earth and from it she creates new land. Hi'iaka follows her, and brings new life to this gift of new land. Such metaphors and archetypes from Hawaiian spirituality explain a lot of what we experience in the environ- ment. If one is sensitive and open, the hula can reveal quite a bit about what to expect and how to respond. 1. There is currently one dance ethnology course offered at the University of Hawai’i, Mānoa, according to the 2018-19 course catalog. The dance department’s cur- rent foci include choreography, kinesiology, movement analysis, heritage, globalization, technology, ethnogra- phy, education, corporeality, visual media, and embodi- ment, with a unique focus on Asian and Pacific dance. 2. The National Conference of State Societies (NCSS) began as informal gatherings of State society officers in the 1930s and is currently best known for its annual National Cherry Blossom Festival. Uchiyama had her first introduction to hula at a Hawai’i State Society of Washington DC event. Learn more about the Hawai’i State Society at https://Hawaiistatesociety. wildapricot.org. SIMA BELMAR , Ph.D., is a Lecturer in the Department of Theater, Dance, & Performance Studies at the Uni- versity of California, Berkeley, and writing fellow at the National Center for Choreography in Akron, Ohio. Her scholarly articles and book reviews have appeared in TDR , the Journal of Dance & Somatic Practices , Performance Matters , Contemporary Theatre Review , and The Oxford Handbook of Screendance Studies .
Māhea Uchiyama Center for International Dance presents its 25th Anniversary Gala Concert: Sep 29, Valley Center of Performing Arts at Holy Names University, Oakland. centerforinternationaldance.org
Located in the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area, Mills College offers BA, MA, and MFA degrees in dance. Expand every dimension of your art through: • Choreography • Theory • Pedagogy • Technology • Performance GRADUATE FACULTY Kara Davis Ann Murphy Sonya Delwaide Sheldon Smith Molissa Fenley Victor Talmadge thinking bodies moving minds
MAKE A STATEMENT.
www.mills.edu/dance
in dance SEP 2018
Made with FlippingBook - professional solution for displaying marketing and sales documents online