Constance Hale
Constance Hale is the bestselling author of Sin and Syntax and Vex, Hex, Smash, Smooch. She was born and raised on the North Shore of Oahu and is now based in San Francisco. She has worked as an editor at the Oakland Tribune, San Francisco Examiner, Wired, and Health; she’s also edited three dozen books. Her writing appears in Afar, The Atlantic, Smithsonian, the Los Angeles Times, and Honolulu. Her eight-part series on the sentence is on the New York Times site. She runs the Mokule‘ia Writers Retreat and covers the writing life at sinandsyntax.com .
The Natives Are Restless: A San Francisco Dance Master Takes Hula Into the 21st Century
In The Natives Are Restless, Constance Hale presents the largely untold story of the dance tradition in this first-of-its-kind book, using the twin keyholes of Kumu Patrick Makuakāne (a Hawai‘i-born, San Francisco based hula master), and his 350-person arts organization (Nā Lei Hulu i ka Wēkiu). In the background, she weaves the poignant story of an ancient people and the resilience of their culture. In the foreground, she tells the story of an electrifying new form of hula that has emerged from a restless generation of artists like Makuakāne. The crisp narrative is complemented by full-color photographs and stunning page design. Hale’s love for hula, and her history with the dance are shown through her prose. She makes Makuakāne’s exuberant, fierce, sensuous dance style come alive on the page.
Comments:
“A new coffee-table book tells the story of Patrick Makuakāne and Nā Lei Hulu through a stirring narrative, striking photographs, and arresting moments from performances through the years.”
—Nā Lei Hulu, publisher
“Constance Hale is a beautiful writer with a sensitive appreciation of Hawaiian culture. Combining her deep knowledge of Hawaii with her talents as a prose stylist, she is following in the footsteps of the late James D. Houston as one of our most profound thinkers on island history and culture.”
―Julia Flynn Siler, journalist and author of Lost Kingdom
“Patrick embodies an important quality of our people―resilience. In his work we see the form and content of the past, expressed in a new way. What’s traditional is the way he thinks―in sync with the land, the history, the mindset, the philosophy. What’s the future is his ability to reach out across time and space. He is just an amazing example of who we are, today.”
―Maile Meyer, entrepreneur and proprietor of Nā Mea Hawai‘i
Links:
http://www.constance-hale.com/
http://www.sfchronicle.com/style/article/Hula-with-a-21st-century-twist-9969199.php
https://www.pri.org/stories/2016-12-26/next-generation-takes-dance-hawaiian-history-future
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constance_Hale
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