Innovative Choreography

Kennedy may have been referring to the music, but the Choral Festival added much sauce of its own, including stage decor and hula by the Na Leo Kuho'okahi ensemble of the Hawai'i Youth Opera Chorus.

Interpreting Western classical music through hula has been tried before, but it presents multiple challenges, not least of which are different ways of using meter/rhythm and conflicting patterns of repetition. Impressively, choreographer Lauren Chang found a congenial intersection between the two genres, creating a performance that remained true to hula while enhancing the music.