King Kalakaua Dance Analysis

1857 Words8 Pages

The Stories Within

We travel fifty two years ago to where it all began, the start of the merrie monarch festival. Known by his nickname as "The Merrie Monarch," King David Kalakaua lived up to it. He had a passion for music, parties, food, drinks, and dancing. He specifically loved hula. King Kalakaua believed, "Hula is the language of the heart, therefore the heartbeat of the Hawaiian people.” The art of hula is more than a form of dance, it also has a deeper meaning. With this art we are able to manipulate the stories within us and project it out through movements that the eyes can see, and melodies of nature through instruments or olies (chants) that the ears can hear. The eyes and ears of the people are not the only parts affected but their hearts. The heart feels what is presented and triggers emotions within oneself sparking the deeper meaning of the dance we have all come to love, hula. King …show more content…

We have our traditional style of hula called kahiko, and our modern day hula is called auana. Dr.Tangaro is a hula kumu and teaches hawaiian studies at Honolulu Community College. In a short video of Dr.Tangaro, we learn from him the difference of the two dance styles. We learn Kahiko was very traditional. Kahiko was a the oldest form of dance, when dancing kahiko at most times there would be only one move throughout the whole chant. The movement would be a basic clap at times. The chants would also be the sense of music with kahiko. As to auana a modern day hula, We see big differences between the two. When you go to Waikiki and see performers dancing to welcome tourist that form of dance that they do is auana. Auana was a form of hula that consist of more american instruments and lovely melodies. Auana showed more dance like movements and arms showing graceful gestures. Just by the description we can already see the different use of song choices and movement. From so many years to now we can see how evolved hula has