A CHANT’S ENCOUNTER WITH EAST OAKLAND’S CONTROVERSIAL KUMU
I’m hoofing it to catch a 57 bus that cuts across the entire city to Kumu Hula Mark’s Halau, the Academy of Hawaiian Arts (AHA), which is located in a strip mall in deep East Oakland. I’m bumping along to Po’okela Chants, Kumu Hula Mark’s groundbreaking first album, and when I stroll past the Black Panther Party museum and catch a glimpse of a Huey Newton portrait in the window, it registers an instant reminder of the Town’s vibrant cultural history that is often hiding in plain sight. Whether you are a revolutionary, a congresswoman, a kung fu sifu, a kumu hula, or a graffiti king, Oakland is a gigantic legacy incubator.
The bus route begins on Shellmound Street, so-named as a consolation to the Ohlone/Lisjan tribe who had fought for years hoping to prevent developers from bulldozing one of their most sacred sites. Just before scooping me, the bus will pass Garnet and Broadway where once upon a time Bruce Lee opened his martial arts school. Bruce Lee and Mark Keali’i Ho’omalu are two peas in a pod. Two visionary masters–a Sifu and a Kumu–drawn to Oakland by forces both seen and unseen, challenging longstanding tradition by modernizing ancient practices in bold new ways. When Garnet Street was renamed Bruce Lee Way, his daughter Shannon remarked at the ribbon cutting that the Town and her father were a true power couple. “Oakland was chosen because Oakland was where that open mind was.” First question for Kumu Hula Mark: What is it about Oakland that opens so many minds?
Two decades passed before Kumu Hula Mark would put down roots in the same East Oakland where Bruce Lee lived and first conceptualized his own Kung Fu philosophy, Jeet Kun Do. It would be from this same mud that Kumu Hula Mark sculpted his own dynamic Hula style that would put the whole genre on notice: New Ideas Approaching!
What makes his approach so revolutionary starts with the chant itself. Kumu Hula Mark has a chant style that is so unorthodox, even a casual listener can distinguish it from traditional chanting. His chants syncopate with a near diabolical urgency, the phrasings stab with an intensity and aggressiveness that is expertly balanced out by his rich tonal personality and theatrical thought-provoking narrative. His masterful insertion of rhythmic spacing creates a tension and release that thrills listeners. “Chicken skin!” (pidgin slang for “goosebumps”) is the highest compliment a Hawaiian audience can bestow, and it is an oft-repeated sentiment in social media comments accompanying any post of a Kumu Hula Mark and AHA performance.
Back in 2008, a journalist for Hawai’i’s MidWeek who was covering the annual Merrie Monarch Hula Festival in Hilo observed: “His progression is to give the male chant a melody and rhythm that moves Hawaiian music into striking distance of modern music. It makes the Merrie Monarch audience rise to its feet in wild applause, but pains many of the old-timers.’” Walt Disney executives exacerbated this dichotomy when they invited Kumu Hula Mark to submit the only non-Elvis songs on the first Lilo & Stitch soundtrack after several traditional chanters from Hawai’i had failed to impress. When they asked their consultants if there were any chanters who sounded different from the auditions, they were finally told, “There’s this guy in Oakland…”
Much to the chagrin of Hula’s gatekeepers, Kumu Hula Mark prefers to honor tradition with creativity, stagecraft, and showmanship. “I’ve been told that Hula is not entertainment. When we get on the stage, nothing belongs to us. It belongs to the people that are watching and listening. That’s what Hula is for, to connect with your environment, and your environment is an audience, and that’s what we connect to. Those that say it’s not about that, it’s because they’re not entertaining and they cannot hold an audience.”
The Merrie Monarch Festival is the Super Bowl of international Hula competition and has a long history of never awarding Kumu Hula Mark and AHA for their hugely popular performances. In 2024, after judges failed again to place AHA in any category, the court of public opinion blew up Merrie Monarch social media handles with their disgust about Kumu Hula Mark not being placed. AHA was crowned the undisputed People’s Champ. The intense public outcry forced Merrie Monarch officials to turn off their comment sections. When the announcer invites AHA to the stage, the vocal love from the audience is real. Kumu Hula Mark has a rep for giving the people what they want: A Spectacle. “They [the audience] can’t connect to that graveyard style of singing and chanting anymore. I’m singing for the living, not for the dead, not for the past. I sing for right now.”
Kuma Mark’s path to the mainland began with an invitation from Tiare Clifford. She taught Ōteʻa (Tahitian dance) and was a towering pillar in the Polynesian dance community that flourished in the Bay Area during the 1970s and 1980s. At her behest, Kumu Hula Mark arrived in 1979 to teach Hula in San Francisco. He credits Tiare with nurturing the AHA’s competitive spirit. ”She said, ‘We don’t do anything unless we go to win.’ That was the mentality. It helped me too, kind of encouraged me to find a way: Don’t do nothing just because, do something with a purpose.”
Some purists who are critical of the poetic license Kumu Hula Mark takes with traditional Hawaiian chants accuse him of sounding like a slam poet or a rapper. He chuckles, “They label me a ‘destroyer of culture’ but as far as chanting is concerned, Hawai’i has only one sound. It’s quite detrimental, and it’s so mundane. We have a thousand songs, but only one sound. It’s like singing a thousand chants with Row Row Row Your Boat as the melody.”
THA TOWN & COUNTRY
Kumu Hula Mark enjoyed a tropical country boy upbringing straight out of a storybook. “From mountain to ocean, no restrictions, I just go.” He was raised in Aiea on the island of O’ahu.
I was born in the Territory and I’m proud to be Hawaiian. Not American-Hawaiian, I was born in Hawai’i as Hawaiian, and made American. I’m born on the tail end of the plantations. I get to grow up in the camps with the Filipinos and the Japanese and the Chinese and all the different camps that there are. I’m raised before freeways. When I was a kid, there was nothing taller than coconut trees. There’s nothing about Hawai’i that reminds me of what it was before. It’s all gone, every last bit of it.
The rural surroundings that marked his childhood are a far cry from the urban strip mall where AHA is located. The road from that island countryside to Oakland’s eastside is an unlikely hero’s journey.
One could argue Mark Keali’i Ho’omalu is an accidental Kumu. As a boy, he had common misinformed notions about Hula. “You know, only the māhū’s (‘3rd gender’) and da kine dance Hula and stuff. My dad is a man’s man, and he didn’t like that. Today, he’s my biggest supporter.” In high school, young Mark was coaxed to attend a Hula class with a friend. When he saw the Tahitian dancers perform, he told his buddy, “I coming to Hula class every day, brah.’ And I’ve been coming to Hula class ever since.”
Kuma Mark’s path to the mainland began with an invitation from Tiare Clifford. She taught Ōteʻa (Tahitian dance) and was a towering pillar in the Polynesian dance community that flourished in the Bay Area during the 1970s and 1980s. At her behest, Kumu Hula Mark arrived in 1979 to teach Hula in San Francisco. He credits Tiare with nurturing the AHA’s competitive spirit. ”She said, ‘We don’t do anything unless we go to win.’ That was the mentality. It helped me too, kind of encouraged me to find a way: Don’t do nothing just because, do something with a purpose.”
OAKLAND IS A HALAU
Loosely translated ‘aina means “land”, but the deeper cultural definition is “that which feeds”. For many Hawaiians, staying on the island is a crucial component for maintaining one’s identity. Yet, the number of Hawaiians living off-island far exceeds the number of Hawaiians who reside in the Motherland. Living off-island, Kumu Hula Mark sees the island from a different perspective. His definition of ‘aina has also expanded. He tells me:
Everything that I need from Hawai’i is in here (points to his heart). Today you are the descendant. Tomorrow, you are the ancestor of your descendant. That’s the vertical ‘aina. I came here to America and created my own little Hawai’i. No matter where I go, Hawai’i go with me. Every place I go is sacred ground.
I’m convinced that what Kumu Hula Mark has created in East Oakland could never have happened if he stayed on the island, and he agrees.
Cannot do it in Hawai’i. Like, you love your mom. We grow up, ‘Oh mom, look!’ for affirmation and confirmation and validation. Hawai’i is our Motherland. I’m the one that, you know, is the different one, the one who gets spankings the most. The others that do come from there say mahalo for taking the spanking for us because it lets us push the boundaries a little bit because you already took the spankings.
The name of the halau is Academy of Hawaiian Arts, so I ask Kumu Hula Mark if he is a Hula artist.
I don’t understand the word too much. When practical use dies, then we call it art. I look at it as body science–how to move and why we move this way, what makes sense to move, and how we do it. In Hawai’i, we just follow along. I wanna recreate everything into a scientific movement where it’s not ‘just follow.’ I want my students to be able to describe and say what it is, put something behind it, and the reasons why you do it and how it works and why it works.
His answer reveals the cornerstone of his teachings: Think for yourself. And this philosophy is what creates so much consternation among Hula’s high society. The laziest critiques point to his non-traditional chant cadence, which some diminish as sounding like a rapper or a military march. Some say his choreography is more reminiscent of a drill team or a HBCU marching band than of traditional Hula. Many take issue with how his choreography seemingly blurs gender roles, sometimes assigning traditionally masculine poses to women. Some detractors just can’t get past his uncompromising swagger. Could it be that Kumu Hula Mark Keali’i Ho’omalu is giving them the Town Biz and is just too hyphy for Hula’s gatekeepers?
Kumu Hula Mark explains, “Halau is an area. Oakland is a Halau.” The Academy of Hawaiian Arts is also a place of refuge, intentionally disconnected from the craziness of the world. “Here, I greet you with Aloha. While you’re here, I share my Aloha, and when you leave, Aloha goes with you. The world needs Aloha. So, Aloha and welcome to my world.”
HULA, AMERICAN STYLE?
Kumu Hula Mark Keali’i Ho’omalu is guilty of the same crimes of invention as George Balanchine, Bob Dylan, and Bruce Lee: innovators from strictly defined traditions who were vilified before being embraced as icons. I would argue that the next generation of Hula students will be more interested in the style born at AHA. “They’re already doing that!” he says. I respond, “In the future, an anthropologist or some other -ologist will pinpoint AHA as the beginning of a West Coast style of Hula. Am I looking at the ‘Father of American Hula?’”
For the first time during our interview he’s at a loss for words. He stammers a bit, “I-I-I can’t…I don’t know…” He pauses trying to gather his thoughts before just saying simply, “No.” After a few moments he starts again:
I don’t know, maybe it’s because, you know, Hawaiian people, Polynesian people by and large, we have a small kine resentment about Haole and being associated as that. Haole is culturally not something you wanna be. I didn’t even think about it like that. My thing is being Hawaiian and being identified as Hawaiian. Being identified as American-Hawaiian, I don’t even want that, I just want to be Hawaiian.”
Kumu Hula Mark has bars and drops plenty of knowledge, but he also peppers our exchange with jokes and funny stories about being an off-island islander.
Why does Oakland open so many minds? Because ancestors prayed, sang, and chanted together at a shellmound, and so it is. This mana or spirit or vibe or whatever you want to call it, is harnessed by Kumu Hula Mark and every other artist, creator, and innovator who has called Bay Area home. Despite the stink eye from academic elites, Kumu Karens, and Merrie Monarch judges, Oakland Is Proud to claim Kumu Hula Mark and the work of AHA as official Town Biz.
When I ask Kumu Hula Mark about institutional support, his students come first.
My hope and dream was to teach Hula around the world. When I was a kid, it only cost me a dollar a month to do Hula class. And if I could do the same thing today, I would do that, just to teach people. I have stuff I like to do. How about supporting me to go take one production home called Kingdom Denied that I can do on the steps of the Iolani Palace?
Just before I leave, Kumu Hula Mark pulls me aside and says, “You might be right. Maybe I am the first.” I’m a little surprised by his admission. I know he’s still wrapping his head around the idea of being dubbed “The Father of American Hula” or anything remotely adjacent. But every tradition begins with an innovation. And no amount of applause can assuage the isolation of being ahead of your time. At the 2025 Merrie Monarch Festival, AHA was denied recognition again. Amid the ongoing rejection, Kumu Hula Mark takes it all in stride. “I ain’t nobody. Hula is this long road. That’s the tradition, this long road. I ain’t nothing but a crosswalk. But the road lasts forever, Hula lasts forever.”
Retracing my steps across the lot, a downtown-bound 57 is resting at the curb. The headsign blinks on and displays the final stop: SHELLMOUND ST. This innocuous street name belies the profound travesty of what happened. The Shellmound was once 40 feet high, 350 feet in diameter, and was the largest of over 400 in this region. It had been sacred burial and ceremonial grounds for thousands of years and predated The Pyramids. According to Lisjan tribal leader Corrina Gould, the mounds align with Alcatraz and other nearby sacred sites to mark points of exit to the next world. It was Corrina who told me that the unrepentant creative energy this area is celebrated for is the result of her people laying prayers upon this land for millennia. The mana of East Oakland is no accident.
Why does Oakland open so many minds? Because ancestors prayed, sang, and chanted together at a shellmound, and so it is. This mana or spirit or vibe or whatever you want to call it, is harnessed by Kumu Hula Mark and every other artist, creator, and innovator who has called Bay Area home. Despite the stink eye from academic elites, Kumu Karens, and Merrie Monarch judges, Oakland Is Proud to claim Kumu Hula Mark and the work of AHA as official Town Biz.
