Malia's Art, the Hula, Shares Spirit, Beauty and Culture
Published in the Ashland Tidings Revels, March 10, 2005
Aunty Malia's Hula Troupe is known for award-winning entries in Ashland, Oregon's Fourth of July parade, participation in the Ashland Festival of Lights, and performances at the Craterian, as well as other engagements in the community, from weddings to church services.
Raised in Honolulu, Malia first learned hula from her father's sisters (her father is half-Hawaiian), then in public school, and later in a Kona hula halau during visits with her grandmother on the Big Island.
While seven of her 82 students are performers, most join for fun and exercise, says Malia, adding, "They also learn how to be graceful and beautiful. They walk away with the aloha spirit. And the troupe becomes like ohana, family, to them. We encourage each other."
Malia enjoys dancing in Ashland, a town she calls "beautiful and very welcoming," unlike places where some audience members have wanted more of a kitschy, lounge show.
"I tell them, 'We are not lap dancers.' Hula is how the Hawaiians have always expressed themselves.
The Hawaiians are dying out … the hula is how they passed their stories down from generation to generation. When I came here there was nothing like that. It kind of broke my heart, but now, my dancers are sharing hula all over the world."
Malia moved to Ashland with her husband and children about 15 years ago. After devoting 18 years to home schooling her sons, she opened her halau about five years ago.
First, there's her Hawaiian greeting, a hug instead of a handshake. She's dressed in a tropical blue and green skirt, a flower tucked behind her ear.
The music of Bill Keale and just a hint of plumeria wafts through the room where everything is Hawaiian or Polynesian - from the tapa cloth that adorns one wall, to a large photograph of Duke Kahanamoku, Hawaii's champion surfer and first Olympic medalist (and an acquaintance of her grandmother, also an Olympic swimmer).
A pair of surfboards leans against another wall, seashells rest on an adjacent shelf. There's the feel of hardwood floors and soft rugs under bare feet, and the picture window view of the Ashland hills that invites nature into the home as the hula invites nature into the heart.
In her costume room, Malia picks up a pau skirt (the cloth skirt that the missionaries made hula dancers wear over their ti leaf skirts) with hand-painted tapa designs, one of 30 she created. Feathers for a Tahitian dance are laid out on another shelf next to Malia's sewing machine.
In her dance room, ipo (calabash drums) rest in front of a studio mirror. Another beautiful view of the outdoors is enjoyed here by Malia's dance students, ages 12 to 72.
The hula instructor welcomes all students, regardless of faith, ethnicity - or the possession of two left feet.
Gracefulness, notes Malia, is not a requirement, but rather a result of dancing hula. Malia seems to enjoy being part of this transformation as much as she enjoys dancing, and through hula, sharing aloha.
"Hula for me is spiritual," Malia says once again. "The Lord uses me to love other women through dance. Some walk away crying because it is so beautiful and they can be part of this beauty."
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