SAMANTHA BLONS
Assistant A&E Editor
The Pepperdine Hawaii Club will inspire aloha spirit and teach island culture on campus when the annual lu’au returns to Firestone Fieldhouse on Saturday. Club members will serve a traditional Hawaiian dinner before performing an array of hula, Tahitian and New Zealand dances.
This year’s lu’au theme is “One Foot on Sand,” an appropriate adage for a club that brings the spirit of the islands to the mainland.
“We try to create cultural awareness and understanding, with a party atmosphere,” said senior Stacie Keliinoi, vice president of the Hawaii Club. Keliinoi choreographed several songs for the lu’au, including two hulas: one modern and one traditional.
Fieldhouse doors open at 5 p.m. Ihzzhi, a Hawaiian reggae band based in Santa Barbara, will play island music while audience members eat a meal of kalua pig, teriyaki chicken, rice, salad, pineapples and cakes, said senior Cassie-Ann Ching, Hawaii Club president. Ching and junior Kapua Kauhane will join the band in song during dinner.
The dance show, which starts at 6:30, includes 26 student dancers who have been practicing for three weeks. Although some of the Hawaiian performers have been dancing hula for many years, for others this has been their first experience with hula.
Freshman Tiffany Enciso-Williams is not Hawaiian, but said she joined the club to learn an interesting new type of cultural dance.
“I saw them perform a Tahitian dance in Dance in Flight. I said I want to learn how to do that,” she said.
Senior Leinani Tolentino choreographed the three Tahitian dances in the show. Each dance tells a story that is significant to the island culture.
“In Polynesian shows, they open up with something that signifies how the journey of the islands started,” Tolentino said.
The upcoming lu’au will be junior Jason Burris’ third as a dancer on the Fieldhouse stage. His favorite dance is the Haka, an all-male warrior dance and chant.
“It’s really manly,” he said. “What guy doesn’t want to run around chanting and screaming, inciting fear into the hearts of others?”
Another crowd favorite is the Samoan slap dance, during which dancers sit on the stage, rhythmically slapping the ground to island beats.
“It’s the Polynesian version of the step team,” Ching said.
Freshman Jenna Williams, a first-time performer in the lu’au, has been dancing hula since she was 4 years old. When she describes hula for her friends on the mainland, she explains that it started off as storytelling.
“Each hula tells a story —usually about the land and a way of life,” Williams said.
Students who have attended past lu’aus may recognize many of the tropical costumes that the dancers will be wearing.
“A lot of our costumes are mixed, matched and recycled from previous years to save money,” Keliinoi said. “We try to be creative with what we have.”
For example, she said the club members are making their leis out of a frayed type of yarn, crocheting the material so it looks similar to those made from genuine Hawaiian flowers and leaves.
The Hawaii club finances the lu’au with money from Interclub Council, through fundraisers they do throughout the year and with ticket sales. However, the club has had trouble selling tickets for the event.
Though Hawaii club members had been selling tickets in the Waves Café for almost a week, they had sold only about 50 tickets as of Monday, according to Ching.
“We started [selling them] late though,” she said.
Heather Hirata, public relations director for the Hawaii Club, attributes the low ticket sales to some students’ reluctance to attend after dining issues plagued last year’s lu’au.
“Last year was kind of a fiasco,” she said. “Last year, we decided to cook the food ourselves, and we didn’t have enough. So this year we’re trying to convince people that yes, we will have enough food.”
The club has hired a caterer to cook for this event.
Ching added that the event date, scheduled during Easter weekend, may leave some students unable to attend.
Tickets cost $10 for students with ID, and can be purchased in the Caf all week during lunch. Children ages 5 and under attend free, tickets for up to age 10 cost $5, and adult tickets cost $15.
04-05-2007
