Group competition is underway tonight with kahiko, or traditional hula, at the 61st Annual Merrie Monarch Hula Festival in Hilo.
The festival wraps up on Saturday and as they say in the hula world — that’s when the “kapu is off.”
The traditional practice of “going on kapu” allows hula practitioners to cleanse their bodies, their minds and their lives of the unnecessary to really focus on hula.
Kumu Hula Micah Kamohoaliʻi of Waimea’s Hālau Nā Kīpuʻupuʻu said his hālau goes on kapu when they do something big.
“So mainly it’s for ceremonial purposes, and it depends on what we’re doing how long the kapu lasts,” Kamohoali’i said.
“I know for some hālau for Merrie Monarch, it may last nine months because they don’t want someone to get hāpai during the training process,” he said.
Every hālau does it differently, said Kumu Hula Vicky Holt Takamine of Hālau Pua Aliʻi ʻIlima.
“Twelve hours of fasting, so that allows them to cleanse and focus,” Holt-Takamine said. “Also, you know, if they have a significant other then they are supposed to abstain from extracurricular activities.”
Kapu could mean dietary constraints and even social media restrictions, said Kamohoaliʻi.
“My hālau is like on kapu from social media because your brain kind of gets carried away,” Kamohoaliʻi said. “When you start to read other people’s thoughts and then they put all of their everything on social media, when you read em, you leave the ceremony.”
“All of the things we’ve been dealing with getting to Hilo, so you know as you were packing your bags and you’re frustrated, the kids are crying, or whatever, you’re yelling at your husband, you have to put away all those things,” explained Holt-Takamine.
It’s a reset and it's necessary, said Kamohoaliʻi.
“It shouldn’t just be learn a dance and go and enter it into a competition like it’s a cheerleading routine kind of thing. It should be more spiritual,” Kamohoaliʻi said.
“If it's Hawaiian, there has to be a spiritual aspect to it.”
But once the Merrie Monarch competition is over and the kapu is off, the pāʻina, or party, begins.
Kamohoaliʻi recalled what it's like for hula practitioners to break kapu.
“As soon as they were finished on Saturday we were all in Keaukaha in the ocean, 10 o’clock, 11 o’clock at night everybody’s in the ocean just releasing their kapu, all their leis, crying everything,” Kamohoaliʻ said.
“And only because they were all just ready to party.”
Related coverage of Merrie Monarch Festival:
Want to watch Merrie Monarch live? Click here to learn more on the festival's official website.
