First, each dancer secures one ankle strand, followed by a chant, then its opposite, followed by a chant spiraling more steeply, one wrist, chanting, its opposite, chanting, neck and torso, chanting, head, chanting. We are hereby introduced to the hula dancer's essential purity of intent and focus, the strength and orderliness that will firmly brace each dance's sensuous beauty. What we witness looks and feels like the building of an altar because, in a sense, it is. The leaves are the visible bodies of the old Hawai'ian gods. The human body is the place of encounter with the sacred.
Dance is Hawai'ian liturgy and alchemy.
The twisting, circling, lunging movements reminds me of how, in the theatrical dance craft of India and Bali, each dancer embodies the intricate polyrhythms of the natural and supernatural world. Hula describes expansive visible and invisible worlds with hands and bodies that cut, carve, swerve, swoop, and ripple. The rhythmic repetition of gestures, the multiplication of image and sound from dancer to dancer can act upon the watcher with forceful authority. No' eau and Halau O'Kekuhi rise to the challenge, I'll be interested in watching.