Pukana!

KA MATE! June 11th 2005, was my Halau's 14th annual Ho'ike. It was my first show for my halau to be in. I was nervous but extremely excited to be a part of such an affair! The evening seemed to have gone on without any problems.

We started the day at approximately 8:30am. The event took place at the El Camino College in Torrance, Marsee Auditorium. We practiced 'til about 1pm or so and then started getting ready for the 3pm show. It was a little weird because I thought for sure I would get some kind of stage fright, but I guess we had rehearsed quite a bit that I was ready for this. The only thing that was different from this and practice was the costumes. The first section of the show was the Kahiko section. For those of you who are Hawaiian illiterate, kahiko in Hawaiian means ancient, and in terms of hula it's the early form of Hula. Now I performed in the first number, Owaka Ka Lani, and the attire called for the men, kane, to wear malos. A Malo is basically just one long piece of fabric, about 5 yards long, that you drape a piece in front of your member, the rest of the cloth goes under the legs, tucking the "jewels", then up the fanny, around the waist, doubling in the back and the back 'round again, completing th e malo with a flap in the back. I'll post pics of what a malo is later. The ladies were fortunate, they just had to wear ther pa'u, a skirt, and a top. Because I was performing in the kahiko section, i was to wear one of those malos. I was a little nervous. Especially having to trounce around backstage where the rest of my halau could catch a close eye on what was NOT being covered, namely my ass. When we lined up back stage, there were a large numbe of women standing by. You see there are only something like 10 men in this halau, and a plethora of women. Snickering and whistling aside, it wasn't all that bad.

After intermission was the Maori section. I was apart of that. I had a costume change into something a little more covering of my backside. The cool part of it was th facial decoration, Maori tattoos. Of course it wasn't a real tattoo, it was water-soluable ink that was stamped on. It was really cool! You can see in the picture above what it looked like. I have to say, I was especially charged to have done this piece. It started off with women performing with their poi-balls, then lead into the men coming forward to perform a couple of hakas, Mata Rawa E and Ka Mate. We were psyched to do this! I'll have to post some video in the future of this, it was intense, and the audience loved it!

After the Maori was tahitian and then the finale section. I did two more numbers there, Hilo Medley and Ka Nohona Pili Kai. That last number, i was in the audience down the aisles. It was cool. The whole halau performed that number and we got a standing ovation from the audience. I was in awe at what was accomplished that evening, and what I was able to do for myself, come that far and be apart of something like that.

Stay tuned, i'll hopefully be gathering pictures from friends, and I'll provide links to pics from Ho'ike!

Malama pono!