Cine
The Golden Eagle Award
"Holo Mai Pele"
Tatge/Lasseur Productions
2001

CINE
Golden Eagle
Great Performances
Producers: Catherine Tatge & Dominique Lasseur
2001

The 2002 Aurora Awards
Platinum Best of Show
Tatge/Lasseur Productions
2002

The Aurora Awards
Platinum Best of Show
"Holo Mai Pele"
Tatge/Lasseur Productions
2002

Reviewed by Lucinda Keller
Dance Magazine

Hawaiian hula kahiko (ancient dance) is a true living treasure. The movement is often performed low to the ground, with fast stomps accompanied by the haunting chant and guttural cry of the descendants of the ancient Hawaiians. Audiences will have a chance to learn what makes hula so compelling when public television affiliates air Holo Mai Pele—this is first time the work has ever appeared on television or film. The documentary is a collaboration between one of Hawaii's oldest and most prestigious hula halau (performing group/schools) and some of the best makers of dance film.

Holo Mai Pele, a milestone in Hawaii's forty-year-old cultural renaissance, has played local stages since 1995. Halau O Kekuhi broke ground by presenting traditional hula in a newly expanded form, telling an ancient saga in a three-hour work. Pualani Kanaka'ole Kanahele and her sister Nalani Kanaka'ole are the kumu hula (teachers and artistic directors) of Halau O Kekui. They adapted a complex legend passed down from their ancestors in chant and dance. Theater audiences have been captivated by this intricate tale of the goddesses Hi`iaka and Pele in several acts, set on each major Hawaiian Island and populated by scores of characters. There is a love triangle, a battle with a giant lizard, a skirt with magic powers, sorcerers, and a maimed seer.

Holo Mai Pele has been dubbed the first hula opera. It combines full-length dance pieces, the chants from which they're derived, and abbreviated translations as subtitles. In an onscreen interview, Pua Kanahele explains the storyline and intricacies of the production. She says that their traditional steps ground the dancers to the earth, that their arms cutting circles on different planes describe the wind in the trees and the currents in the water.

The movement is very specific to a certain wind in a specific tree. It might be the delicate red lehua blossoms of the ohia tree, associated with the life-giving powers which Hi`iaka discovers on her epic journey. The rustle of raffia skirts in half-pivot turns is like the dry swish of the pandanus tree, and signifies Pele's destructive lava. The dancers wear ankle and wrist rattles and carry slit bamboo sticks at their waists. Seated dancers hold an ipu gourd in one hand, which they slap with other hand, tap on the ground, and swing overhead with a wide sweep of the torso, while chanting in Hawaiian, "The hot mountain is overrun with fire, smoke encircles the uplands, the land of Pele’s clan."

Emmy-winning director and co-producer Catherine Tatge has produced a number of programs for PBS’s Great Performances, including Martha Graham: The Dancer Revealed, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre: Three by Three, and American Indian Dance Theater: Finding the Circle. Director of Photography Thomas Hurwitz won an Oscar nomination for his Dancemaker documentary on the Paul Taylor Company. Alan Adelman’s credits as lighting designer include live dance performances as well as film/television collaborations with New York City Ballet, Mark Morris, Twyla Tharp, and Bill T. Jones.

Pua Kanahele has said that working with the director and crew caused her to clarify ideas that have been assumed in her family for generations. Gorgeous images of Hawai`i are used as expository transitions and they are true to the color, sound, and feeling of the islands' natural elements. The forest is actually that lush, the ocean that blue, and the dance that moving. Holo Mai Pele is dense with information and rich with the dance legacy of Hawaii.

The video is a co-production of Pacific Islanders in Communications, International Cultural Programming, Thirteen/WNET New York. A video and companion book will be available in the fall.

From http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/shows/holomaipele/holomaipele.html:
Every culture has its defining myth: Hindus have the Mahabharata, the Greeks the Homeric Odyssey. For native Hawaiians, perhaps no myth is more central than the story of the Fire Goddess Pele and her enduring rivalry with her sister Hi'iaka. Six years ago, the renowned dance company Halau O Kekuhi began the ambitious undertaking of assembling and recreating the legend for modern audiences, translating it to the contemporary stage by combining the traditions of Hawaiian chant and hula with innovative elements of Western theater. The work, "Holo Mai Pele" (Pele Travels), premiered on Maui in 1995. A dynamic blend of traditional Hawaiian chant and dance, this remarkable performance now comes to public television for the first time under the auspices of the Pacific Islanders in Communications in an exciting adaptation for DANCE IN AMERICA.

From http://www.pbs.org/wnet/gperf/shows/holomaipele/story.html:
The age-old theme of sibling rivalry lies at the heart of the drama of "Holo Mai Pele." But it is at the same time the story of an individual's heroic awakening into selfhood. The legend begins by introducing the central figures of the drama, the two sisters, Pele and Hi'iaka, whose family had migrated across the seas to dwell in the domain of the fiery volcano Kilauea on the island of Hawaii.
Pele, a proud, imperious beauty of great power, is the matriarch of the clan. She wishes to find her lover Lohi'au and commands her younger sister Hi'iaka to fetch him. Before she leaves on her errand, Hi'iaka is given the gift of hula, and she in turn entrusts to Pele the care of her beloved 'ohi'a groves. 'Ohi'a trees and their fragile, brilliantly colored flowers are emblematic of Hi'iaka.
The guileless younger sister sets out on her journey and battles, in succession, demons, death, and the seduction of lust. She encounters relatives and others who, charmed by her innocence and character, reveal to her the genealogy of the Pele clan. Hi'iaka grows in strength with each encounter and soon claims her full stature as a goddess -- she becomes one who takes and restores life. However, nothing can fully prepare her for the consequences of falling in love with Lohi'au.
Soon enough, Pele discovers the lovers, and in a fit of vengeance destroys all things beloved by Hi'iaka: she kills Lohi'au and burns her sister's 'ohi'a groves to the ground. Faced with this profound betrayal, Hi'iaka undergoes a painful loss of innocence. Yet it is this very loss that ultimately frees the goddess to stand up and face Pele in battle.
The epic struggle of Pele and Hi'iaka is played out to this day in the ongoing tension and balance of natural forces. After each eruption, lava flows destroy what life lies in their paths, but before long, they become beds for 'ohi'a seedlings. In the Hawaiian cosmology, Pele and Hi'iaka comprise the eternal cycle of destruction and renewal that drives creation.

Holo Mai Pele is the epic myth of the rivalry between two sister goddesses. Shot in Hawaii Holo Mai Pele marks the first time hula has been broadcast to a national audience. Shown October 2001 on PBS Great Performances, Holo Mai Pele is included in the Hawaiian International Film Festival.