“ 'Auana,” Cirque du Soleil’s first resident show in Hawai'i, opens with a character fishing the islands up from the bottom of the sea. He becomes representative of the people in the audience and having him “be the guide on our journey into this realistic fantasy is rather profound,” said Aaron Salā, the cultural creative producer for the show.
“The opening — in and of itself — is an incredible spectacle,” Salā said. The show provides a way to share the stories of Hawai'i with a more mainstream audience, he said.
“'Auana” tells the story of Hawai'i from the Polynesian migration to the golden age of tourism. It took the stage at the Outrigger Theatre within the Outrigger Waikīkī Beachcomber Hotel in mid-December.
Salā, who is also president and CEO of the Hawai'i Visitors and Convention Bureau and the festival director for Festival of Pacific Arts & Culture (FestPAC), brings award-winning musical experience to the job. His debut album “Ka 'Upu Aloha — Alone With My Thoughts” won the Nā Hōkū Hanohano Award for Most Promising Artist in 2006. He has also served as the music director for Aulani, A Disney Resort & Spa and Disney’s production of “Moana” in 'Ōlelo Hawai‘i.
The Auana Theatre holds up to 784 guests. Tickets start at $85. Salā spoke with Aloha State Daily about the show’s title, his favorite moments and what this means for Hawaii.
The entire show is in 'Ōlelo Hawaii with even the invitation to observe the exits narrated in Ōlelo Hawai‘i first and translated to English. Can you talk about language in the show? The first thing you hear, officially in the audience — outside of the music and the ambience, setting, etc — the first language you hear is Hawaiian in the room. It's quite a statement.
What is the meaning of the show’s title, “ 'Auana”? 'Auana is a word that we know most connected to hula 'auana, which is a departure from hula kahiko, which for all intents and purposes is representative of ancient style of sound and ancient style of dance. So 'auana, literally in the hula world is the opportunity for the body to move away from a solitary spot, which is the way generally that kahiko is danced. … 'Auana literally means to wander or to veer off the beaten path. And so what we're doing here is to 'auana away from reality. And to allow the mind to be in this liminal threshold between reality and fantasy, so that the stories we're telling are stories that have guided a worldview of a particular people of a particular time in a particular place — Hawaiians in Hawai'i of the millennia. But also what we are attaching to that reality is this fantastical spectacle that is part of the identity of Cirque du Soleil and that has driven the brand over its own 40 years.
What is your favorite moment in the show? This is a hard one because every time I see the show a new piece of it resonates with me in a different way. One of the acts that I've come to appreciate quite a bit is the Pele vignette. I think the official title for the apparatus is Wheel of Death, and we recoined it Wheel of Life. Each vignette in the show is meant to tell a particular story that's connected to some kind of Hawaiian mo‘olelo. Attached to that mo‘olelo is one key Cirque du Soleil principal piece. And then, built around it is the rest of the cast, and hula, etc. … Well, that “Wheel of Life” segment is one that — in my opinion — looks at a world ever in flux, ever dynamic. The humans on the wheel are moving in one direction, while the wheel itself is moving in a different direction the speed of which is controlled by the feet that are in constant motion. But if the feet stop moving, the apparatus stops moving, which means they'll fall off the apparatus. This need for us to be in constant motion in a dynamic environment all the time is really the definition of what it means to be an islander in the middle of the ocean. … On one hand, Pele is this force of destruction, but Pele doing her thing, ultimately means new life. That Wheel of Life is apropos of how we see ourselves as living in this dynamic island environment, ever resilient, ever responsive to a geography, a weather, an ocean that is always in flux.
Katie Helland can be reached at katie@alohastatedaily.com.
