This year’s San Francisco Arts Commission Legacy Grant award recipient, Patrick Makuakāne began his journey with Hula dancing as a teenager while growing up in Honolulu, Hawaii. After moving to San Francisco in the eighties, Patrick founded Nā Lei Hulu I Ka Wēkiu, an award-winning Hula Dance Company and school in the city where he’s been the Artistic Director for the past 33 years.
Their new show I Mua: Hula in Unusual Places, revisits past locations where the company has performed such as San Quentin State Prison, the Burning Man festival and New York City’s Time Square.
"There's a really strong family aesthetic connected to what we do so you have to take care of one another, you have to be responsible for one another. It's dance, but yet it's more than that."
For this edition of Bay Area Beats, Patrick came by KALW to take us inside his three decades of Hula in San Francisco.
You can see "Hula in Unusual Places" through October 28th at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco.
