Doors at 6:30 pm; Show at 7:00 pm

Tickets are $15 

Tonight’s focus is on women’s dance in Hawai’i and Tahiti as Ashkenaz and Women Drummers International celebrate Women’s History Month with our March series of special concerts and workshops, the Maestra Series. This series features women musicians, dancers, and poets from around the world. The nights are filled with inspired culture, singing, dancing, drumming, performers in new groupings, once-only collaborations, and reunions of pioneering women musicians.

This is the big production: enchanting, colorful, and mesmerizing, as the dance troupe Hālau Ka Ua Tuahine features director Māhealani Uchiyama along with nine musicians and drummers, plus 33 dancers. Hālau Ka Ua Tuahine focuses on dances of Hawaiʻi and Tahiti. Started by Uchiyama more than 20 years ago, Hālau KaUaTuahine is the resident company of her Māhea Uchiyama Center for International Dance. The troupe is named after the gentle “sister” rain that falls in the valley of Mānoa in Honolulu. The dancers have won numerous awards and perform internationally, appearing in venues ranging from the Hollywood Bowl to the National Museum of New Zealand.

This is not hula for tourists, but the real thing – island dances that are both dazzling and deeply rooted in culture and history. “Classical Hawaiian hula is one of the world’s oldest sacred dance genres,” according to Uchiyama. “In its contemporary form it has also taken on more secular expressions. We focus on both styles, presenting classical hula as close to its original form as possible, along with vibrant modern interpretations. Though Tahitian dance does not share the same sacred underpinnings, it does have many different forms, both traditional and contemporary, that are exciting and beautiful.”