Ka Lei Aloha with Kumu Hula Lori Lei By Nancy S. Kahalewai
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KeOlaMagazine.com | January - February 2022
’m going to dance with them!” Lori Lei Shirakawa Katahara announced to her mom when she was only four years old, They were watching their family friends at a hula recital, and she started to get up to join them. Her mom literally held her back, explaining that these girls had been practicing for years. “Mom later sent me to Dot’s Dance Studio in Hilo in the mid60s. I danced with Kumu Hula Dorothy Horita for 13 years up until my high school graduation. Aunty Dot learned from Kumu Hula Rose Kuamo‘o,” Lori Lei recalls.
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Hilo Harbor. “For ‘auana [modern dances] we picked yellow plumeria flowers to put in our hair and make a lei. For kahiko [ancient dances] we made lei po‘o, ‘ā‘ī and kūpe‘e from mock orange leaves for our head, neck, wrist, and ankles,” Lori Lei remembers. Kumu Hula George Naope, considered an expert in traditional Hawaiian chants and the oral history of the Hawaiian culture, co-founded Hilo’s famous Merrie Monarch Festival. Later, he moved to Kona, where he founded the Hawai‘i Kūpuna Learning from the Hula Festival. Masters After dancing for Lori Lei later joined Uncle George in hula master George the 1980s, and Lanakilakeikiahialii after decades of Naope’s hula studio. watching her teach, “We had weekly he honored Lori hula lessons under Lei with a formal the Hilo Hawaiian palapala (certificate Hotel. The floor was of hula excellence) concrete and boy did in 2007. He died Uncle George work in 2009 at the age us! We went home of 81. with ‘strawberries’ on While modeling our knees and feet for a local artist’s from learning hula fashion show, Lori noho [sitting hula]. Lei met Kumu Part of our training Hula Glenn Kelena was performing at Vasconcellos, who the weekly boat at the time was shows. We were creating fabulous compensated with hairstyles on the fruit punch and models right on the Lori Lei’s first childhood mentor, Kumu Hula Dorothy Horita. photo courtesy of Lori Lei Katahara cookies, the joy runway stage while of dancing to a live audience, and the invaluable knowledge the show was going on. She joined his hālau and danced in shared by Uncle George.” her very first Merrie Monarch hula competition with Halau ‘O Not only did they experience the depth and discipline of Ke ‘Anuenue in 1983. being taught in a coveted hula hālau under strict “old-school” Lori Lei later joined Kumu Hula Rae Kahikilaulani Fonseca’s style, but they also learned how to create traditional foliage Halau Hula ‘O Kahikilaulani. She was surprised and honored to adornments. They had to make fresh lei every week and new be chosen as one of his dancers for the 1989 Merrie Monarch ti leaf skirts about every three weeks for their performances hula competition in which they were awarded second place in on the SS Independence cruise ship that was docked in both the wahine kahiko and ‘auana divisions.
