Hui O Hula

Hui O Hula, the LW Hawaiian dance club, welcomes all residents to join its weekly hula classes taught by instructor Jojo Weingart.

Classes are casual and fun with a mix of review and new choreography that supports memory, coordination, and expressive storytelling through movement.

Hula dance lesson are held twice a week on Tuesdays upstairs in the mirror room at Clubhouse 6 and Thursdays outdoors at Veterans Plaza (next to the library). Both classes meet at 1 p.m.

Wear something comfortable. Hula is traditionally danced barefoot, so no shoes, but wearing socks and soft booties/ballet slippers during practice is fine.

In July, with guidance from fellow dancer Libby Bond, dancers had an opportunity to follow Hawaiian tradition by creating their own hula musical implement called na ipu/the gourd drums. To make an ipu, one usually starts with a dried gourd, scrubs it clean with sand and seawater at the beach to remove the outer skin (while connecting spiritually with the implement). Once cleaned and dried, its top is cut open to hollow out the insides. After it is fully dried, the ipu can be polished, stained, or oiled; and is then ready to be used for chanting or hula dancing. Bonding with na ipu is part of the tradition as each ipu becomes unique to its dancer.

These lovingly prepared ipu by the Hui O Hula dancers will be used in hula He‘eia, a lively dance about King Kalākaua surfing at the famous bay in Honolulu.

Hui O Hula dancers are also getting ready to debut “He’eia” at the nearby Seal Beach Rehabilitation Center when they entertain there on Aug. 22.

Dancer Libby Bond (not pictured) took her fellow dancers to a gourd farm so that they could make their own ipu— musical drums for hula chant and dance. Here, Helen Wu, Susan Saraf, Lori Chamberlin and Lanny Chen enjoy an ipu cleaning day at the beach.

Francie Stevens