Day 17. Reclaiming Hawaiian Hula as Queer Storytelling.
Hula as Sacred Language
Hula is more than dance; it is prayer, storytelling, and the living archive of Hawaiian culture. For generations, hula has carried stories of the gods, genealogies, and love between all genders. After colonization, missionaries banned hula in the 19th century, condemning it as “pagan” and attempting to erase its spiritual and sacred expressions.
Queer Reclamation and Cultural Survival
Today, queer hula practitioners are reclaiming their traditional arts as spaces of cultural survival and queer acceptance. Through hula, they embody ancestral stories of resilience, where love was never confined to heterosexual frameworks. Many chants and dances honor the fluidity of nature, the sacredness of gender diversity, and the balance of feminine and masculine energies within every body.
Hula as the Ceremony of Resistance
Kumu hula, the master teachers and cultural preservationists, including many expert Mahu practitioners, uphold hula as sacred offerings of service, resilience, and community connection. When performed, hula is more than dance; it is a ceremony of resistance and reclaiming stories. Every movement of hands and feet, every chant carried through breath, sustains an Indigenous worldview in which gender diversity and queerness are honored as integral and sacred to Hawaiian culture.
“Our bodies in hula are archives of our ancestors. When queer bodies dance, we make visible the stories that colonization tried to bury.” – Dr. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio
By reclaiming hula as queer storytelling, Hawaiians resist both cultural erasure and heteronormative suppression, offering the world a powerful vision: survival through ancestral knowledge and living tradition.
Learn More
- Article: Native Hawaiian Mahu Are Reclaiming Their History – Them Magazine
- Film: Dr. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio: This is the Way We Rise – American Masters PBS
- Organization: Hula Preservation Society – dedicated to documenting and sharing the legacies of hula masters
- Film: Kapaemahu – PBS Hawai’i – an animated story revealing the erasure of the ancient Mahu healers and the hidden history of four monumental stones on Waikiki Beach that hold their healing spirits.
- Exhibit: The Healer Stones of Kapaemahu – The Bishop Museum
- Profile: Dr. Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osorio – a Kanaka Maoli wahine mākua, artist, activist, scholar, storyteller and three-time national poetry champion and published author. – University of Hawaii at Manoa – Indigenous Politics Program
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