Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 34, Number 6, 1 June 2017 — Meet Miss Aloha Hula 2017 [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Meet Miss Aloha Hula 2017

ByTreena Shapiro

Kelina Kyoko Ke'ano'ilehua Tiffany Eldredge has some advice for keiki who dream of becoming Miss Aloha Hula. First: "If you believe in it, you ean do it. You dream, you work hard and it pays off," she says. Also: "Take Hawaiian." During her solo kahiko performance at this year's Merrie Monarch Festival, Eldredge delivered an emohonal kepakepa style oli with such rapid-fire precision that she earned OHA's Hawaiian Fanguage Award. She can't say for sure, but she suspects 'ōlelo also gave her the 0.2 point edge she needed to win Miss Aloha Hula after two tiebreaking deliberations. The 'ōlelo Hawai'i award was a hard-won honor for Eldredge, who had left off Hawaiian

language study after completing the requisite two years at Kamehameha Schools. "I was kind of like, 'I think I'm good. No need Hawaiian. I dance hula. I get it there,'" she said. After four months of rigorous training under kumu hula Robert Ke'ano Ka'upu IV and Eono Padilla, she now knows that was a big mistake. "We only did oli for three weeks straight, just chanting, just trying to memorize the words, things like that," she describes. Her kumu gave her just three lines at a time, having her eome back when they were memorized to get another three. Written, the oli was a page-and-a-half long. "I thought it was never going to end," Eldredge says. While Eldredge didn't learn 'ōlelo Hawai'i at home, love for hula and Polynesian dance runs in her family. Her first hula teacher was her SEE ELDREDGE ON PAGE 7

Miss Aloha Hula 201 7- Kelina Kiyoko Ke'ano'ilehua Tiffany Eldredge; Hālau Hi'iakaināmakalehua; Kumu: Robert Ke'ano Ka'upu IV & Lono Padilla. - Photo:Alice Silbanuz

ELDREDGE

Continued from page 6 mother, who ran a dance studio until about five years ago. Now Eldredge's family owns Aloha Hula Supply where she works by day before heading to Waikīkī to dance at Magic of Polynesia at night. To deepen her eonneetion to hula and her culture, she enrolled in Ka'upu and Padilla's Hālau Hi'iakainamakalehua after its 2014 Merrie Monarch debut. She was drawn to the hālau after seeing her former Hawaiian ensemble teacher Tiana Kuni compete for Miss Aloha Hula under Ka'upu and Padilla's direction. "I completely fell in love with her style, everything about her. I looked up to her as a dancer but I'd never seen her give so mueh of herself on that stage," says Eldredge. "I thought, I'm going to go dance for them. Luckily they had open enrollment right after Merrie Monarch and that's kind of where it all started." Eldredge is the second eonsecutive Miss Aloha Hula to emerge from Ka'upu and Padilla's hālau - her hula sister Kayli Ka'iulani Carr won the honor last year. "They're so talented, they're truly geniuses. They make me me," says Eldredge, noting that her kumu selected her costuming, picked her songs and choreographed her performances. They also kept pushing her - at times to tears - to meet their exacting standards. "So many times I went home crying, just sat in my car outside crying, cried in hālau. There's a lot of blood, sweat and tears but you ultimately grow as a person, not even just as a dancer." Eldredge plans to use her Miss Aloha Hula reign to encourage keiki to reach for their goals. "I legit didn't think [winning] would ever be a possibility but you dream and you work hard and it pays off." ■