Hula

Mar 15, 2023

The Catalina Museum of Art and History’s  new exhibition “Skirting Issues: Hula Moves Stateside,” opens March 18 with the aim of exploring the Hawaiian dance using mainly historical photographs as well as postcards and other ephemera to document the history of the island dance. (Photo courtesy Catalina Museum of Art) PUBLISHED: | UPDATED: March 15, 2023 at 8:02 a.m. While hula is typically associated with a vacation getaway to the Hawaiian islands, Southern Californians can take the much shorter trip over to Catalina Island to discover more about the culturally rich dance. The Catalina Museum of Art and History is taking a deeper look at hula in its new exhibition, “Skirting Issues: Hula Moves Stateside,” which opens March 18. The exhibition explores Hawaiian dance using mainly historical photographs, as well as postcards and other ephemera to document the history of the island dance. “It’s an entire cultural system of practices around the creation of teaching and transmitting and preserving of skills in dance choreography and vocal performance,” Amy Kuʻuleialoha Stillman, guest curator of the exhibition and a professor of American Culture and Music at the University of Michigan, said during an interview. “People think it’s dance, but there’s this whole system of protocols around how it’s taught and preserved.” The Catalina Museum of Art and History’s  new exhibition “Skirting Issues: Hula Moves Stateside,” opens March 18 with the aim of exploring the Hawaiian dance using mainly historical photographs as well as postcards and other ephemera to document the history of the island dance. Amy Kuʻuleialoha Stillman is the guest curator of the exhibition and a professor of American Culture and Music at the University of Michigan. (Photo courtesy Catalina Museum of Art) The Catalina Museum of Art and History’s new exhibition “Skirting Issues: Hula Moves Stateside,” opens March 18 with the aim of exploring the Hawaiian dance using mainly historical photographs as well as postcards and other ephemera to document the history of the island dance. (Photo courtesy Catalina Museum of Art) Show Caption Hula is a rhythmic dance defined by movement of the hips and hand gestures accompanied by chants and drumming that are meant to tell a story. It has been a part of indigenous Hawaiian culture for hundreds of years and has been used as a way of passing knowledge from generation to generation. Among the items on display at the exhibition are historic black and white photographs dating back as early as the 1880s showing hula dancers on the islands, as well as sheet music published at the turn of the 20th Century that are meant to show the significance of the dance before it became a familiar site for tourists visiting the islands. The exhibition also touches on the more stereotypical images of hula, with postcards showing dancers under palm trees and performing for tourists. “This exhibit was a rare opportunity to be able to address, head on, the kinds of stereotypes that have become associated with hula by people who all they see are pretty smiling dancers that continue this idea that putting on a hula skirt is a recreational act,” she said. “There’s a really important question here about where is the line between respect and disrespect.” But Stillman was also quick to point out that this exhibition isn’t a lecture, it’s a discussion. “The interesting thing about this exhibit is that we are not telling people what is respectful and disrespectful, we’re juxtaposing images and artifacts in a way that encourages people to ask themselves where is that line for them? Where would they draw that line,” she said. “Skirting Issues: Hula Moves Stateside” When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays March 18 through fall 2023 Where: Catalina Museum for Art & History,  217 Metropole Ave., Avalon Tickets: General admission $18; $25 for seniors, $12 for Catalina Island residents; free for children ages 15 and under. Tickets can be purchased at catalinamuseum.org . Related Articles