Listening to their hearts
Two kumu hula capture a decade of hula in song

By Lisa Asato / Ka Wai Ola

Kumu hula Karl Baker can 'uwehe, 'ami and slide with the best of them. But writing songs in Hawaiian is another story. “I'm not even a poet in English,” he says. “I write great memos, but I'm not a poet.”

Good thing for Baker he has a collaborator in the music studio, as well as on the pā hula – his fellow kumu hula of Hālau I Ka Wēkiu, Michael Casupang. “Michael speaks Hawaiian. If a song is in Hawaiian, he does the poetry and I do the music,” Baker says. “I do the melodies, you know, just like Rodgers and Hammerstein.”

The KUmZ, Michael Casupang and Karl Baker. - Cover art courtesy of Hālau I Ka Wēkiu. The TENder Years O'ahu: June 8, 5 p.m., Blaisdell Concert Hall ($35, $25) Maui: July 5, 7 p.m., Maui Arts & Cultural Center ($35-$10) Hawai'i: July 12, 8 p.m., Kahilu Theatre in Waimea ($30, $25) Hawai'i: July 13, 5 p.m., Aloha Theatre in Kainaliu, Kona (prices TBD) Kaua'i: TBA On the Web: www.halauikawekiu.com

This year the two kumu – “kumz” to their students – are celebrating a decade of making music and hula together with their third CD, KUmZ: Listen to Your Heart, and a four-island concert tour with the hālau, starting June 8 at the Blaisdell Center in Honolulu.

The “The TENder Years” tour travels to the East Coast July 31 to Aug. 11 for more performances and workshops before returning home for a concert on Kaua'i sometime this fall. Proceeds from the concerts and CD will benefit the halaus non-profit, Kauakoko Foundation. On the continent, the troupe will perform at venues like the international Jacob's Pillow dance festival in Massachusetts. “They bring the best dance companies from throughout the world like Russia, U.S., and for our little hālau to be invited is amazing. To put hula on that kind of stage is great for hula as far as we're concerned,” he says. “And when we're in New York, we're doing the United Nations. They're going to have an indigenous conference there.”

Baker and Casupang were protégés of kumu hula Robert Cazimero, whose latest CD is reviewed at right.

Hālau I Ka Wēkiu's first decade has been “a whirlwind,” Baker says. Music lovers can peer inside that whirlwind through the 14 original songs on KUmZ, which “documents our hālau's experiences going on huaka'i to different islands,” he says. Their students also had a hand in creating the CD. Student 'Aukai Reynolds helped write the title track, Ho'olohe I Ka Poli (Listen to Your Heart), which happens to be Baker's favorite. The song recounts the hālau's trip to Kaua'i to prepare for what would prove to be its triumphant 2007 Merrie Monarch appearance, when they won four top awards, including overall honors.

Baker and Casupang are hoping other kumu hula like what they hear. They gave them copies of their CD with the message, “If something inspires you, please make it yours,” Baker says. “People in the community think just because they write it nobody else can do it. We wanted them to understand we freely give this to them. We want them to use our music.”