Hina, at center stage, sits inside the moon—an oversize hula hoop hanging from the ceiling, its suspension cable vanishing behind the proscenium. Her feet dangle just above the stage. She's still for a moment, the anticipation building in the audience. Then—surprise—she zooms out above the seats, swinging through the air as she lies back and lets go, only her lower back balancing on the hoop. Then she grabs the hoop, pulls herself up, and returns to center stage. The aerialist embodying the Hawaiian goddess of the moon flashes the audience a smile, leaving them guessing at what godlike act of gravity defiance might come next. In both its acrobatics and its storytelling, the moment captures the essence of Auana, Cirque du Soleil's newest show, running at the Outrigger Beachcomber Hotel in Waikiki.
When Hawaiian researcher and consultant Keao NeSmith first heard the title of the show, he knew he wanted to be a part of it. "Auana means to adjust, to allow ourselves the leeway to go this way or that way," he says. "I said, 'Wow, the potential is so great. You're not limiting yourself to anything.'" NeSmith, known for translating classics like Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Little Prince and the Harry Potter series into olelo Hawaii (Hawaiian language), is the Hawaiian-language adviser for Auana. His aim in helping Cirque develop a show rooted in Hawaiian culture: "to see our own lore being produced on the stage and told by Hawaiians in our language."
Conversations about bringing a Cirque production to Hawaii had begun before the pandemic. The idea simmered through the global shutdown, and the creative process began in earnest two years ago. But how to stage an acrobatic theatrical production with roots in Montreal in a way that honors Native Hawaiian culture? Cirque wanted to create a show "about the spirit of Hawaii through the lens of Cirque du Soleil," as Neil Dorward, the show's director, put it. To do it, Dorward pulled in some of Hawaii's respected practitioners, like NeSmith, and immersed himself in Island culture.
Based on the history and moolelo (stories) of Hawaii, its opening scene depicts the early Polynesian migrations.
Cirque du Soleil aerialist Lais Camila performs a portion of Auana, Cirque's new show in Waikiki.
"Neil came to Oahu, and we jumped in a van to drive around the island," recalls Aaron J. Sala, who's been involved as creative cultural producer since the project's inception. Sala, a well-known cultural practitioner and the current president and CEO of the Hawaii Visitors and Convention Bureau, along with other members of the early creative team, explored cultural sites with Dorward, who hails from London. He'd already helmed Mad Apple, another Cirque production, but had scant knowledge of Hawaiian culture. "Aaron gave me so much information," says Dorward. "I was just trying to learn as quickly as I could." He and the creative team sifted news articles from decades past, artifacts and documents at the Bishop Museum, seeking inspiration for what a Cirque show about Hawaii might look like.
As Dorward applied himself to learning about the Islands, Sala visited Las Vegas to take in other Cirque du Soleil shows; he had his own learning to do about the company's distinctive style and how it might interact with Hawaiian storytelling. The team ultimately created an eighty-minute show—eight acts and a finale—that tells stories of Hawaii broadly and Oahu specifically. "Each act is representative of a different mood, a different emotion," says Sala, "and each is inspired by its own Hawaiian story."
Auana begins with a voyaging scene: the first Hawaiians leaving present-day Tahiti to travel across the ocean, with joy and hardship, turbulence and calm. "There's an epic opening, very much Lord of the Rings," says NeSmith. "It's wild and chaotic, and then this chaos becomes more organized as you go along." His reference to Tolkien is pointed: NeSmith has translated The Hobbit into olelo Hawaii. Following acts feature Hina, the goddess of the moon; the tragic love story of Naupaka and Kaui; hee nalu (surfing) and the beautiful waves; the moo, a shape-shifting lizard demigod; Pele, the goddess of fire; and, in the finale, a celebration of life expressed through the colors of the anuenue (rainbow).
The show also tells stories of place, with a focus so sharp that at one point the storytelling zooms in on Kaluaokau, the land in Waikiki where the Beachcomber sits today. NeSmith wanted Auana to give audiences a detailed but also expansive sense of Waikiki—one that includes all of the original ahupuaa, or land division, extending from the mountain ridges of Manoa to the reefs off Waikiki Beach. This wider view, says NeSmith, encourages people to see Waikiki as more than the tourist destination it's become. "It helps hooponopono (reconcile) our understanding of Waikiki as a genuine place," NeSmith says, "deep and rich in Hawaiian culture."
Thomas Janke throws rings during one of several juggling acts—using both hands and feet—throughout the show.
Anna Ivaseva tests her makeup using an ultraviolet light in the dressing room. Auana's makeup designs, created by Heidi Doucet, interact with the show's lighting.
The disused theater at Outrigger Beachcomber Hotel underwent a multimillion-dollar renovation to accommodate the show, which is scheduled to run for the next ten years.
Of course, stories are only part of the Cirque experience: There are plenty of the breathtaking acrobatics that audiences have come to expect, along with roller-skating and juggling (with hands and feet), diving and swimming, a comedic "trickster," live musicians and dancing—hula and beyond.
The stakes for the performers, often moving at great heights at great speed, are life and death, every night. Excellence is critical. "I've been performing for twenty years," says Lais Camila, an aerial performer from Brazil with fourteen years of experience with Cirque du Soleil, "I can't make a mistake, so I have to always be rested and in a good place mentally. I have to keep my body in shape and remain conscious about what I eat and keep myself balanced. There's a lot of physical commitment."
Cirque du Soleil performers are known around the world for the risks they take, and Auana is no exception. At one point Camila—whose performance, with its hula hoop moon, is inspired by Hina—is raised into the air, her entire body dangling by the strength of her neck, bent back to clinch the hoop as she's hoisted to the theater's highest point. In another act a performer balances on a skateboard-sized surfboard, which he somehow keeps in place despite the fact that it's stacked atop three cylinders, each with a mind of its own. Even the acts that don't seem as immediately dangerous are captivating. One performer jumps into a giant fishbowl full of water; another stuffs his entire body inside an oversize balloon.
While the acrobatics are amazing in themselves, they're choreographed to tell a part of Hawaii's story, a duty the performers take seriously. "I feel like a baby crawling, there's been so much to learn every day," says Camila. "I hope I can honor the aina [land]. It's a big responsibility as a foreigner."
The respect that the performers bring to storytelling is returned in kind by the cultural team. "The acrobats, they're not human," says NeSmith. "It's almost supernatural to watch them do their thing. It reminds me that our limitations are artificial, because you can transcend your physical limitations—even more so, what we do with our minds." Sala, too, marvels at what the performers can do. "We are asking these human bodies to stretch further than is normal, to reach higher than is normal, to balance—literally balance—in a way that is not normally possible," he says.
Hula dancer Mahealani Kamau tells the story of the "golden age of tourism" and its impact on Waikiki, wearing a costume by Native Hawaiian designer Manaola Yap.
Half of the show's thirty-two performers were cast from Cirque du Soleil's international talent pool; the other half are local, like Mahealani Kamau, a hula dancer from Kaneohe, Oahu, who's been "dancing straight out of the womb," she says. That rootedness in tradition is critical, says Kamau. "If you're going to have a show in the place where Hawaiian people are, it's important to us that we have our stories, our culture represented right. ... The creative team has been really focused on making sure our culture is honored in the right way. Every part of this creation process has been so attentive and sensitive."
No detail was too small for debate, and there were "many sleepless nights," says Sala, "as the energy churned and we talked through things—not always agreeing. That process I've loved. It's been so challenging and so fun. We've hemmed and hawed over one word sometimes. Should we use skaters for this? Or acrobats for this? If acrobat, why?" In addition to Dorward, NeSmith and Sala, the creative team working its way through these exhausting, invigorating conversations included the show's costume designer, Manaola Yap, and choreographer kumu hula (hula teacher) Hiwa Vaughan.
While the show can be understood without language, the production has a script and lyrics, all in olelo Hawaii. "I have to give Neil credit for that," says NeSmith. "He said, 'I want this show to be only in Hawaiian, I don't want it to be in English.' For someone coming from London, to make this the first decision is super impressive. It's unusual. It immediately caught the cultural team's attention. If we're allowed that space, we're going to run with it." The move was in keeping with Cirque du Soleil's spirit of experimentation, particularly when it comes to language. Several Cirque productions include a made-up language—"Cirquespeak" or "Cirquish"—and one show, Alegria, features lyrics that are a mix of Spanish, Italian, English and French. "If you can do that," says NeSmith, "why not Hawaiian?"
Including Hawaiian, for Dorward, isn't so much about trying to teach the audience or burnish the show's cultural cred as it is about the sound of olelo Hawaii itself. "The language is so beautiful. For the people who don't understand it, it acts like a musical instrument," Dorward says. "It really feeds your soul."
Performer Miguel Diaz learns to apply his makeup for the "Wheel of Life," the final chapter of Auana, which recounts the role of alae ula, or Hawaiian mudhens, in the mythical origin of fire.
Yap helps dress singer and musician Trishnalei in the show's signature print, which alludes to ancient kapa (bark cloth) patterns.
In developing the script and lyrics, NeSmith says he was trying to honor traditional stories while introducing new twists. "We're taking cultural icons and storylines and having fun with them," he says, "retelling the stories in our own way where we can embellish along the way."
For instance, NeSmith plays with the idea of "cirque du soleil," or "circus of the sun," throughout the show, pointing out that "cirque" can also conjure images of a circle. "The circle of the sun is a very meaningful trope in Hawaiian lore, because the sun is the manifestation of the god Kane," he says. "It captures this whole idea of cycles—sun cycles, moon cycles, tide cycles, human cycles that we go through, ups and downs. I buried—as nuggets throughout the show—the phrase 'circle of the sun,' which in olelo is poai o ka la." Nearly every act, NeSmith points out, features a circular motion—spinning, tumbling, skating and swimming.
NeSmith also plays with the story of Maui, depicting the demigod dipping his hook into the water in the opening moments of Auana. "According to South Pacific stories," says NeSmith, "Maui fishes out the islands from the sea. So, Maui's tossing the hook at the beginning of the show is symbolic of the earliest migrations. Each story we tell is like one of the islands that emerges."
The theater's 786 seats (small by Cirque du Soleil standards) surround a thrust stage that make Auana a more intimate experience than many other Cirque productions. The theater used to be home to the long-running Magic of Polynesia, but when that show closed in 2019, the space underwent a multimillion-dollar gut renovation tailored for Auana, which is set to run for ten years.
Mami Ogiwara performs a hula in a chapter telling the story of Mamala, a chiefess of Oahu who surfed and, according to legend, was also a moo—a fearsome and fickle deity who could shapeshift between the form of a beautiful woman and a giant lizard.
"There's an epic opening, very much Lord of the Rings," says Keao NeSmith, one of the Hawaiian cultural advisers who helped Cirque develop Auana. "It's wild and chaotic, and then this chaos becomes more organized as you go along." Above a moment from that epic opening, depicting the early Polynesian voyagers on their journey to Hawaii.
Over that time, NeSmith hopes to see things grow. "There are so many places that are firing in my mind," he says. "We could take these stories into the schools, take them to our elders and have engagement with so many different people."
Both Dorward and NeSmith want the show to stay true to its namesake, always exploring with the creative freedom that brought NeSmith on board in the first place. "We're going to evolve," he says, "to make adjustments, to allow ourselves the leeway to go this way or that way."
"The nice thing about theater is that it will always be fluid," Dorward says. "It's a living, breathing piece of art."
