Maiki aiu lake biography of michael
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Nature becomes part of us through dance
Michael Pili Pang – Kumu Hula, Hālau Hula Ka No‘eau, – Oahu, HI
15 January 2021
“Hula is connected to the culture. As a hula teacher, I am nothing without my culture. I am nothing without the connection in my stories to the land, to the sea and to the sky,” states Michael Pilli Pang.
Michael is a Kuma Hula which, roughly translated, means “source of dance”. He is the founder of Hālau Hula Ka No’ Eau, located in the foothills of Manoa Valley on Oahu. His Hālau is a group of multi-generational dancers, from 5 to 90 years old, that readily see themselves as family learning and carrying on the art of Hula dancing.
At the age of 8, Michael was introduced to Hula by a teacher at his school. “We went down to the library, and as we walked past some coconut trees, you can see it through the glass doors. A hula class was being taught. That was my first introduction to hula and I fell in lo
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Michael Pili Pang, MFA in dance ’05 Mānoa
Roots: Maryknoll and St. Louis Schools
Career: Kumu hula and city administrator
Honors: Rockefeller grant, National Endowment for the Arts, State Foundation for Culture and the Arts and numerous local foundations
Activities: Hawaiʻi Museums Association board member, 2006 Pacific Century Fellow
Born in Honolulu, Michael Pili Pang began dancing hula as a youngster, later studying under Maiki Aiu Lake and Mae Kamamalu Klein. He opened Hālau hawaiisk dans Ka Noʻeau in 1986 on the Big Island, adding a second hālau in Honolulu in 2002.
After many years spent teaching and performing, Pang decided to pursue his master’s degree.
“The best thing I ever did was go back to school,” he says. As the winner of a John Young Scholarship, he represented the University of Hawaiʻi in Sharing the Legacy: Dance Masterworks of the 20th Century, a schema presented at Hunter College in New York in 200
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But so the mountain and that whole thing was on that play at that time, right, at Alohoi. She didn't write. But I remember the play on the stage and forgetting things all the time. You know, I, um, Momi told me that my uncle worked as my key doing this play called the Hula Dancer, which he was in, and I kind of can't remember what year it was. The Hula Dancer. My uncle was a playwright. He used to do stuff up here at Johnny Noble. Yeah. Johnny Noble. I was the Hula Dancer. Oh, you were? Yeah. I was the Hula Dancer. What do you know about that? I can't remember. What do you know about that? Anyway, I was the Hula Dancer. I was the Hula Dancer. Uh, Jimmy Kailoha was the sun. Nina was the moon. Oh, I wasn't here then. Yeah. The Hula, yeah, lovely, yeah, that was from the Hula Dancer. And I was a Hula Dancer. And my costume was one piece of love, Hula.
That's what I wore. Are we rolling? Was it on the 60s? Yeah. That's what I wore. Yeah. Yeah. Johnny Noble did that show for a long w