Stephanie grew up in the Bay Area and started dancing at the age of 16, when a friend brought her to her first open house at Te Mau Tamari’i A Tiare/Na Kamali’i a Kiele, under the direction of Kumu Marlo Caramat. The echo of the ipu and the beat of the Tahitian drums sounded so beautiful and mesmerizing, it only felt natural to get up and dance. The next thing she knew she signed up to join halau and made sure to save her allowances to keep coming to class each month. After graduating high school and moving away after college, the connection with hula and halau was still strong, yet the difficult decision to stop dancing was painful.
After a break from dancing and having moved to Hollister to start her own family, she saw a flyer in town for Ha’a Hula/Te Reva O Te Manu. It has always been a must for her to share the beauty of dancing hula and being a part of Halau with her own children. The same connection she felt with her first halau reminded her of how much she loved to dance hula, and immediately contacted the Kumu. Little did she know her first alaka’i, Auntie Kamaile is now the Kumu to the Halau on the flyer. Reuniting with Kumu Malou or Auntie Kamaile felt like finding her lost sister, and like she had come home.
Dancing hula is a completely different experience, which involves sharing a story and feeling a connection with your audience. There is something that happens to your spirit when dancing. The meaning of a mele or song of the hula gets translated thru your hands, where you are not only telling the story of the song, but the audience watches the story come to life. For Stephanie, being with a halau where the bonding of strangers change into sisterhood, dancing together to see smiles on the audience’s faces, and being able to share and spread aloha, is the way to living a fulfilled life.
“Dancing gives me peace and feeds my mana or spirit. There is just something about a Hawaiian mele that has the power to heal.”