If your image of the hula is that of graceful hips and cellophane skirts, you are missing what is the best of Hawaii.  To me it is the Kane, the men of the Hula that make it amazing.  Their power and strength, speed and perfection that keep people coming back, year after year, to the Merrie Monarch.

One of my favorite stories is how the image “Mana” came about.  I was doing a photo shoot with the Lim family, as I was illustrating a book about Hawaiian hula movements.  Nani is the Kumu, but for some reason she had to leave the beach and run back up to the car for something.  Lorna and I were talking and I said that while we had been doing some pretty straightforward thing like woman, ocean, palm tree and bay… how would one translate something without form…  for example the word “mana”, which mean more or less, “Heavenly Power”?  

This was a spine chilling dance where the warriors depicted dogs of war.  They are wearing boar tusk wristlets that were used in war to protect their wrists and dog tooth shin guards.  The dog tooth guards have also been used a musical instruments in kahiko hula.  This took place at Puukohola.  

The image "Chant in the Forest" is from a performance held in 1988 at Volcano National Park on the Big Island of Hawaii. The unusual site is the traditional hula platform built in the young grove of rare native koa trees near the caldera's edge. Depicted are two of Hawaii's living treasures, Nalani and Pua Kanaka'ole.

At the foot of the Kohala mountains, on the shores of Kawaihai, stands the “Temple of the Lonely One”, Pu’ukohola.  This huge stone edifice stands today as a monument to the might and power of King Kamehameha the First.

Many places in the world have sand and sun, but nowhere else will you find the Hawaiian culture. In this piece I have done my best to accurately record several dancers of Halau O Kekuhi who earn the respect of all Hawaii for preserving this unique and beautiful part of their heritage.