traveldk.com

The modern renaissance of the Hawaiian culture, which began in the late 1960s, continues to this day, with music playing a major role. The Brothers Cazimero, Ho’okena, the late Israel Kamakawiwo’ole, and Maui’s own Keali’i Reichel have combined their astounding voices with modern instruments and classic Hawaiian poetic techniques to create a magnificent new sound.

Most easily described as male vocalists singing above their regular range, there is nothing so sweet as the sound of the Hawaiian falsetto.

Whether slack-key, steel, acoustic, or electric, the guitar is essential to Hawaiian music.

In this famous art form, hula dancers are accompanied by percussive instruments made from natural materials and the intonations of one or more chanters. Ancient hula began, it is believed, as a male preserve and as religious ritual.

When the practice of hula was revived during the reign of the Merrie Monarch, King David Kalākaua, a new dance style took center stage. Known as hula ’auana (modern hula), it is accompanied by instruments like the ’ukulele, guitar, standing bass, and singing voices. It is more flowing in style than hulakahiko , and dancers generally wear western clothes.

A hollowed-out gourd that, in skilled hands, is used to keep the beat in hula.

Pairs of sticks of varying length that are struck against each other during dancing.

During February’s Chinese New Year celebrations, the Lion Dance is performed all over Hawai’i. Acrobatic dancers don a lion costume and perform a dance to a steady – and very loud – drum beat designed to ward off evil and spread good fortune. Spectators fill red and gold envelopes with dollar bills and feed them to the lion to ensure future prosperity.

O-Bon is a traditional Japanese religious observance but has evolved, as have so many cultural practices in the islands, into a more secular event. O-Bon dances honor deceased ancestors and are joyous occasions marked by drums, music, dances, and, nowadays, festival foods and fun activities.

Perhaps the most sacred of hula implements, pahu are drums, traditionally made using coconut tree trunk with a covering of sharkskin.