And she spent 2.5 hours sharing with me! Oh. My. Goodness.<\/p>\n
Yep, I\u2019m a lucky gal, huh? In more ways than you know!<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s the story:<\/em><\/p>\n If you know hula, you know of Kanoe. And even if you\u2019re not a hula aficionado, you know Kanoe if you\u2019ve ever enjoyed a tropical sunset at the epitome of Waikiki sunset spots: the Halekulani\u2019s “House Without a Key” outdoor lounge. Almost every night, for year upon year, Kanoe (Miss Hawai\u2019i in 1973) danced the sunset to its sea resting place\u2014to the delight of tourists from around the world. Kanoe\u2019s special joy is sharing the beauty of the type of hula visitors to the 50th<\/sup> state saw from 1915 through the mid-1960s. She terms this \u201cromantic Waikiki hula\u201d and even has a DVD featuring herself dancing 10 such hulas as well as telling more about how she learned to dance and how she prepares for hula\u2014including costuming as well as a visit to her favorite lei shop in Honolulu\u2019s Chinatown. Yes, of course I have the DVD\u2014and you can get it too (click here)<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n But Kanoe and her husband, John, wanted to spread the story of hula even further and, in spring 2014 staged a Kickstarter campaign to develop a multi-media, interactive hula \u201cmagazine\u201d for the iPad. Early backers of Hula Studio Magazine<\/a><\/strong> could choose from \u201crewards\u201d\u2014and Mark surprised me by kicking in to the campaign at a level that provided a private hula lesson from Kanoe. For me. Not him.<\/p>\n The magazine is top-drawer\u2014and at $4.99 for each issue ($24.99 for subscription) it\u2019s more than a bargain. Here\u2019s an excerpt from my review on iTunes: \u2026\u201dthere are articles to read, photos to spend time with, music and videos.\u201d The issues have vintage songs to listen to, some short video interviews, historical articles, lessons in Hawaiian language and more\u2014including very detailed hula \u201clessons\u201d from Kanoe.<\/p>\n I love this iPad magazine and “re-read” each issue, discovering something new, it seems, every time. The lady across the aisle from me on the plane as we flew to Honolulu last week from the mainland liked it, too; she tapped me on the elbow: \u201cI have to ask, what\u2019s that video or whatever it is you\u2019re reading and watching on your iPad? It looks great!\u201d<\/p>\n It took almost 18 months for me to \u201credeem\u201d my hula lesson, but this November 2015 trip to Hawai\u2019i was the chance. Mark and I headed to Oahu strictly for \u201cmy\u201d hula lesson and then would wing our way to Hawai\u2019i Island where we\u2019d continue our vacation.<\/p>\n I was nervous; admittedly. I told Kanoe in email that I\u2019d taken a couple of hula workshops at various ukulele festivals, but didn\u2019t really have a solid foundation to do anything hula-like on my own. And besides, I\u2019ve not exercised a lot (ha!) lately\u2014so feeling graceful, lithe and athletically hula girl-ish didn\u2019t seem as if it\u2019d come to me naturally.<\/p>\n Kanoe greeted me warmly and assuaged my fears. We got right to work. And from my minimal exposure that morning, let me tell you the beauty of hula lies on a foundation involving lots of hard work\u2014and sweat (or \u201cperspiration\u201d or even “glow,” if you want to be a little more feminine). At least it did for me!<\/p>\n Kanoe\u2019s warmth, authenticity and great teaching made the morning fly by. I learned to stand tall, to koholo, to uwehe, to hela, to ka\u2019o\u2014and to keep my hands \u201csoft\u201d and my smile \u201creal\u201d through them all. Frankly, it wasn\u2019t hard to do the smile part\u2014I was having a blast; I couldn\u2019t stop<\/strong> smiling. In every picture Mark took of the session, I simply look delighted. As in, over-the-top happy. Spending time with Kanoe just does that to a person. To conclude our session, Kanoe taught me a hula, \u201cMy Pretty Red Hibiscus.\u201d I\u2019d not heard the song before but, as performed by the Hiram Olsen Trio (the group that backed Kanoe for hundreds of evenings at the Halekulani), I fell in love with it right away and bought the entire MP3 CD (Hula Island Style Vol. 2<\/strong><\/a>) from Amazon when we returned to our Waikiki hotel.<\/p>\n My \u201chibiscus hula\u201d was especially meaningful because my dad, who died in 2013, loved the showy flowers and always enjoyed the looks he’d get when tucking one behind his ear when he came upon a hibiscus in Hawai\u2019i (yep, that was Dad).<\/p>\n The red hibiscus theme became additionally significant within a week\u2026but that story comes later!<\/p>\n \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWant to learn more about hula or Hawaiian culture? Buy an issue (or six!) of the iPad app, \u201cHula Studio Magazine.\u201d<\/strong><\/a> Then you can koholo with Kanoe, too!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n And here\u2019s the ukulele tie-in: At the end of our time together, Kanoe shared that, while she plays ukulele \u201cterribly,\u201d she\u2019d recently choreographed a fun, showy little piece to the hapa haole tune, \u201cUkulele Lady,\u201d and the hula involved her actually dancing and strumming an ukulele. Here\u2019s the link (but don\u2019t expect me<\/strong> to ever give this a try; I just know I\u2019d drop the ukulele on a koholo and bye-bye gracefulness!): Ukulele Lady danced by Kanoe Miller. <\/a><\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Picture a woman who dances. Dances hula, specifically. Graceful, yes. Expressive, yes. Skilled, of course. Now add to that the ability to share a true sense of aloha, a reverence for her Hawaiian heritage and enough beauty, class and style to fill a Tiffany store and you have Kanoelehua Miller. And she spent 2.5 hours […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10,5,4,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-781","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hawaii_travels","category-learning","category-performers","category-personal"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/UT_hula_studio1.jpg?fit=4000%2C2664","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Wqkt-cB","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=781"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":795,"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/781\/revisions\/795"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=781"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=781"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=781"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"kanoe-dancing-halekulani1-300x196\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ukuleletonya.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/kanoe-dancing-halekulani1-300x196-300x196.jpg?resize=300%2C196\")
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