Product Description

12″ h x 8.5″ w

While most people who visit Hawaii experience some form of hula (some of it very good)in their evenings of Polynesian Luau shows, in reality, hula exists casually at real family and community gatherings all over the Hawaiian islands.  It is also performed with intense perfection at hula competitions, such as the Merrie Monarch Festival, where planning and practice for performing two dances, one ancient and one modern, can take a year.   Pau Hula represents that final moment when that year culminates to thunderous applause, as thousands of hours, exhausted muscles, bloody knees, and tired feet all come together in a perfect performance.Pa’i Ipu

Hawaiian musical instruments tend to be for rhythm.  Only the nose flute, which is used for love songs and the ukulele and steel guitar, all three of which originate in Hawaii, are not.  Most people recognize the drum, but less known are the ipu and the ipu heke.  These are made out of gourds, which have been scoured clean, rinsed in the ocean and then dried.  They had a beautiful deep sound that can be made to sound hollow or sharp and high.  Each hula dancer is expected to make his or her own instrument and take care of it.