The Hula

At the health club I attend in Tokyo, the fitness schedule includes hula dancing. Only recently it dawned on me how frequently mention of the hula appears. As an example, a hula group was featured on the nightly news the evening of Obama‘s victory. In Hawaii we learned, originally only men danced a spirutual hula and women were forbidden. As the hula evolved to include a celebratory or entertainment function, women were included. In Hawaii we saw both. In Tokyo, I’m quite certain all the participants in the class at my health club were female. I can easily understand why the aesthetic and feminine beauty of the hula appeals to the Japanese. What’s harder to connect is the athletic or tribal. I suspect the soft aspects of the art form make it an attractive alternative for exercise. More so than say, sweating it out on the elliptical machine. I did some reading to better understand the hula’s popularity in Japan. Amidst the health craze of the 1980’s, marketers encouraged the dance as a way to remain trim. A Japanized form of the dance was created and flourished. The economic bubble and strong yen of the 1990’s spawned the influx of Japanese tourists to Hawaii. Amongst the tourists were Japanese hula dancers whose minds were opened to the authentic hula, both the ancient and contemporary forms. The two styles, Japanized and Hawaiian, continue to flourish in Japan with the first attracting women in their fifties and sixties, and the later attracting twentysomethings. In the future, maybe I’ll try a class, with the youngsters of course.

Photos of a happy boy at play. Punching, stomping, and playing catch in the water.