This performance will showcase hula kiʻi, a critically endangered Hawaiian practice of the ritual dance of carved puppetry images. The hula kiʻi survived through the intelligence of the early loea hula (hula experts) and tell the story of Hawai‘i’s great chiefs and chiefesses. While little was ever written about the art of Hawaiian puppetry, there remain limited references and evidence in museums today, including early documented eyewitness accounts of hula kiʻi performances. Kumu  Aulii’s hula kiʻi tradition is the only one of three known living traditions that performs the dance using hand-carved wooden images. This special engagement will feature him and members of Hālau ʻo Kahiwahiwa as they share the stories and  dances of this art form.


 

Aulii Mitchell – Kumu Aulii is a third generation kumu hula of hula ki‘i, a dance that was passed

down to him through oral tradition by his grandfather and mother. He has practiced and shared

this cultural tradition and art form for nearly five decades and is determined to share this

practice with younger generations. He has been recognized with a Luce Indigenous Knowledge

Fellowship 2021 by the First Nations to continue the research, creation, preservation,

perpetuation, and dissemination of the critically endangered genre of this ancient dance.