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On stage in their grass skirts and colorful shirts, the hula dancers look like a traditional island group. But when the music starts, it’s obvious this performance is anything but traditional. With their stylized, lively movements, the dance seems closer to Broadway than to the ancient dance developed in Hawaii by the Polynesians. But for those familiar with Patrick Makuakane’s style, it is another opportunity to enjoy his interpretation of hula mua, or progressive hula.

‘The Natives Are Restless’

Kumu Hula (Master) Patrick Makuakane and his innovative form of hula are the subject of a new book, The Natives Are Restless: A San Francisco Dance Master Takes Hula Into The 21st Century, by journalist and writer Constance Hale.

Hale, who was born in Hawaii, but is not ethnically Hawaiian, started dancing hula at the age of 7, and wanted to explore the long history and rich tradition of the art.

She says that to many people, hula is all about pretty girls in traditional costumes waving their arms. But hula is not about movement at all. In its traditional form, she explains, hula is all about poetry and storytelling.

“‘Hula kahiko,’ that means ancient dance, is generally a dance to chant. Hula kahiko also praises gods and goddesses [and] places in the island. Sometimes hula tells love stories, especially native classical love stories.”

The movements in this traditional hula are powerful and angular. Hale says it begins, for example, when the dancer bends at the knees, goes as low to the ground as possible, and then the movements of the legs and the arms are straighter, with angles.  

Modern hula

The dance has evolved over a long period of time. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, hula began to change with the introduction of Western instruments. That’s how the modern hula, or what’s called hula auana, came into existence.

“And, of course, in the 20th century, you have the influence of Hollywood and the tourism industry,” Hale said. “Many more hula songs were written in English and described quite secular subjects. Hula auana is very fluid and graceful and more danced to guitars and ukuleles and Western melodies, as opposed to Hawaiian chants.”

By the mid-20th century, Hawaiian culture was in decline. “Hawaii had been annexed to the U.S,” Hale noted. “There was a great influx of the American culture. And the Hawaiian language had almost become extinct. And many cultural practices were on the way. There was a resurgence in the late 20th century. In 1970s, 1980s, hula was really part of that resurgence.”

Kumu Hula Patrick Makuakane

That’s when Patrick Makuakane was attracted to hula.

“He sort of discovered hula at the age of 13 or 14,” Hale said. “He loved it and was actually dancing professionally in Honolulu as a teenager with one of the famous musicians in Hawaii. He practiced hula in a traditional way, but when he moved to San Francisco and started to participate in the underground club scene, he started to push hula in new directions.”

In The Natives Are Restless, Hale describes this master’s style through the dances he choreographed for his company.

“The hula company is Na Lei Hulu i ka Wekiu. Kumu Hula Patrick Makuakane has invented his new style of hula, which he calls ‘hula mua’.”

Hula mua

Sometimes hula mua dancers dress in hula traditional costumes. Often, they don’t. “For example, it might be a tree leaf skirt,” Hale said. “Then on their head, they might be wearing a garland of ferns or wearing wrist and ankle bracelets of nuts. Those are the traditional costumes. In hula mua, or modern hula, they might be wearing black velvet gowns or colorful street clothes. It always is going to depend on the song.”

Though the hula mua style uses many traditional movements, Makuakane incorporates some very nontraditional choreography.

“For example, in some dances, you’ll see movements that look more like Broadway than like hula. The dancers align themselves in a formation and throw open their arms in a way that’s very Broadway.”

And the music is different. “[It] might be Michael Jackson’s Dangerous, or it might be Madonna’s song, Rain, or it might be an electronic track by a British band. He takes music from all over the word and pairs that with traditional Hawaiian vocabulary.”

Hula narratives

What also separates Makuakane from other hula choreographers is that he’s imagined narrative shows. Hale explained, “He’s choreographed a full-length evening like a one-hour or two-hour show taking on a major theme or a major story, a piece of mythology, or a historical account. ‘Salva Mea,’ one of the dances in the troupe’s Natives Are Restless show, is an example.”

Salva Mea depicts — in a traumatic way and with electronic music — the clash of Christianity and the native Hawaiian culture, when Christian missionaries came to the islands in the 1820s. “He has dancers going across the stage as in ballet, or maybe it looks a little bit like Riverdance, if people are familiar with the Irish clog dance,” she said. “He’s taken some movements from other dance styles, he’s integrated them into some dances.”

Hale says Kumu Hula Patrick Makuakane is not the only native Hawaiian artist who realized that in order to live, hula must change and grow. But he stands out as a pioneer in pushing the boundaries further and exploring what it means to be Hawaiian in the 21st century.
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For his work in films reflecting U.S. history such as “Saving Private Ryan,” “Apollo 13” and “Bridge of Spies,” actor Tom Hanks has won this year’s Records of Achievement Award, the National Archives Foundation said on Monday.

Hanks, 61, will receive the award, given to individuals who bring a broad awareness of U.S. history through their work, at an Oct. 21 event at the National Archives Museum in Washington, the nonprofit organization said in a statement.

“As a dive into archives of almost any kind is, to me, a swim in the finest of waters, I’m dazzled to be a part of this event,” said Hanks, a two-time Oscar winner, who last year was one of 21 people awarded the 2016 Presidential Medal of Freedom – the highest U.S. civilian honor.

“Part of my job has always been one not far from that of a lay-Historian, to understand that I am a part of the documenting of the human condition and the American idea, even in the silliest of stories,” he added in the statement.

Hanks has appeared in numerous films based on historical events and figures, including the World War II drama “Saving Private Ryan” and crime thriller “Catch Me If You Can,” based on the true story of fraudster Frank Abagnale.

More recently, Hanks played the title role in “Sully,” based on pilot Chesley Sullenberger’s 2009 emergency landing of a passenger flight on the Hudson River. He was also an executive producer and co-writer/director on the 2001 World War II television miniseries “Band of Brothers.”

“He’s served in World War II [in both the European and Pacific Theaters], negotiated for the U.S. in the Cold War, fought in Vietnam, worked in Congress, and led the space program,” said David Ferriero, archivist of the United States and board member of the National Archives Foundation.

A past winner of the award is Steven Spielberg, who directed Hanks in “Saving Private Ryan,” “Bridge of Spies” and the upcoming Pentagon Papers movie “The Papers.”

Previous recipients also include Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Ron Chernow, Tony award-winning film and theater director Thomas Kail and Tony award-winning “Hamilton” composer, lyricist and performer Lin-Manuel Miranda.
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A federal appeals court on Monday revived a lawsuit seeking to force a Madrid museum to return an Impressionist masterpiece to the family of a Jewish woman who was compelled to sell it to a Nazi art appraiser for $360 in 1939 so she could flee Germany.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said two of Lilly Cassirer’s great-grandchildren may sue the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum for the return of Camille Pissarro’s 1897 depiction of a Paris street scene, “Rue Saint-Honoree, Apres-midi, Effet de Pluie.”

Monday’s decision revived a 16-year legal battle that began after the Cassirers learned that the Pissarro, whose value may exceed $40 million, was on display in the Madrid museum, its home since 1992.

Applying Spanish law, the appeals court said it was an open question whether the museum knew the painting was stolen when it acquired it in 1993 in a $338 million purchase of Baron Hans Heinrich Thyssen-Bornemisza’s art collection.

It said that price was well below the collection’s estimated $1 billion to $2 billion value, and the baron may have known he also got a bargain when he bought the Pissarro from a New York art dealer for $275,000 in 1976.

“The Cassirers have created a triable issue of fact whether [the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection] knew the painting was stolen from Lilly when TBC purchased the painting from the Baron,” Circuit Judge Carlos Bea wrote. “There is a triable issue of fact as to the Baron’s good faith.”

Bea also said Lilly Cassirer did not waive her ownership rights when Germany’s government paid her 120,000 marks for the loss of the painting in 1958, when its whereabouts were unknown.

The Pasadena, California-based appeals court returned the case to U.S. District Judge John Walter in Los Angeles, who dismissed the lawsuit in June 2015.

“We’re obviously very pleased,” said Stephen Zack, a Boies, Schiller & Flexner partner representing the Cassirers, in a phone interview. “This has been a scar they’ve had to deal with for generations.”

David Boies, a prominent U.S. lawyer, had argued the Cassirers’ appeal.

Thaddeus Stauber, a lawyer for the foundation that runs the museum, wrote in an email that the baron and the museum acquired the Pissarro in good faith.

“We remain confident that the foundation’s ownership of the painting will once again be confirmed,” Stauber said.

Both sides agreed that Lilly Cassirer’s sale of the Pissarro to Berlin art dealer Jackob Scheidwimmer amounted to a forcible taking. Pissarro’s works had been popular among European Jewish collectors.

The case is Cassirer v Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection Foundation, 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Nos. 15-55550, 15-55977, 15-55951.
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