A Hula Competition

by AOKI Kaya

by AOKI Kaya

My Summer Break

In the long summer break, I had a huge event on August 29th. The College Hula Dance Competition is for many college hula dancers in Japan. It is a competition for hula dance which is a traditional dance of Hawaii. For this competition my team had been practiced for about 6 months. From February, we started to think about our mele which means “song” for our performance and practiced. There are two types of hula dances which are “kahiko” and “auana”. “Kahiko” is a classical hula, and “auana” is a modern hula. For this competition we performed “auana”. In hula, every mele and move has meaning and tells story about Hawaii, so we must think about the meaning of the mele while performing hula. Until the summer break starts, we practiced hard to memorize the move, the formation, and the meaning of the mele. Thorough this summer break, practicing hula made me stronger in various ways.

First one is about my hula skill. I practiced almost every day in August, and my hula teacher was more strict than usual, of course my hula skill gets better. Secondly, stronger bond of my teammates. Overcame this competition, I feel my team connects stronger. My hula team’s name is Lokahi which means cooperative and harmony, so we could express our team though our dance. Thirdly, I could grow mentally as well. I had to dance the hula under pressure from my teachers and peers, and overcoming tension in the team. There were dietary restrictions, so it mentally trained me.

This year, we spent a lot of effort on the costumes. We made our own skirts made of fresh leaves. The leaf is called Ti Leaf. It is a beautiful green color, and changing the color into yellow is also beautiful. I couldn’t imagine that I would make skirts and use fresh leaves. We had to take care of leaf skirts every day. knitting a skirt was more difficult than I expected. At first, taking care of skirts was very annoying for me, and I didn’t want to do it, but now I have very good memories of them. Though this experience I felt I must thank to the nature, because without leaves we couldn’t make our skirts. It is important to protect the nature around us in our everyday lives. For it was a once in a lifetime experience that made me feel grateful for nature.

The best memory though this hula competition was the experience of supporting each other with my peers and satisfied with our performance. I still remember that all my teammates shed tears just before the performance with the feeling of accomplishment that we have put in so much effort. The performance was over in a flash, and I don’t remember much of what it was like. The only thing I can say is scented our Ti Leaf skirt, a view of Hawaii comes to mind, and I really thought that I was in Hawaii. After the performance ended, I heard many voices from the audience and realized that my team had given a great performance. I didn’t think that I could grow so much after spending so much time practicing for just one competition.