The piece of music I picked for this song share is a Hawaiian Drum-Dance Chant titled “Malka’l Ke Anu O Walmea”. I found this piece through a video from the 2009 Merrie Monarch festival while looking through traditional Drum-Dance Chants on YouTube. The piece is performed by a “lead” female voice who is also playing a Pahu drum, and a large group of female dancers. At the beginning of the YouTube video the announcers at the event describe the song as having deep meaning. The song was created in honor of Kalākaua (the last king of the kingdom of Hawaii) and captures the “beautiful portrait of love and passion” in the kingdom while also containing a hidden meaning portraying war and battle. The song also represents the change and influence that the kingdom of Hawaii was facing at the time of Kalākaua. 

The song itself starts off with a solo female singing voice, who then starts to play a Pahu drum around 1 minute and 15 seconds into the piece. With the entrance of the drum, the dancers start a brief chant and begin dancing. One thing that I thought was unique about this piece is that the dancers have something either on their legs or in their dress (it is hard to determine from the video) that is creating another voice in the piece. When the dancers move their legs a certain way, they make a rustling type sound that kind of takes the form of another percussion voice. I found this aspect of the piece to be particularly interesting and fascinating that the group was able to allow their movement not only to add to the visual aspect of the performance but also to the sound and texture of the piece. After some time of just the Pahu and the rustling noises, the dancers chant once more and the solo voice comes back in, which continues for most of the piece until the end, with brief chants from the dancers sprinkled in throughout. 

The themes that are mentioned by the announcers at the beginning of the video make themselves very prominent, even if you may not understand what the actual words mean. This was one of the prominent reasons I chose this piece. The idea of love and passion is portrayed very beautifully at the beginning of the piece using the solo female voice, with its longer held notes and intimate feeling. The piece then turns to the faster and more tense section which seems to portray the themes of battle and change. The one thing that really drew me to this piece the most is that it was a representation of power and war but was preformed only by women. When you watch the dance that accompanies this piece of music, you really get to see the passion and power that is being presented by the dancers. They show so much confidence and resilience through their movement and facial expressions. Their calls throughout the the piece reminded me a battle cries, which further added to the sense of immersion I felt while listening to this piece. I love when women are able to use their skills to illustrate the power they posses and this performance did just that. In the end I thought this piece was quite beautiful to listen too and watch. I feel that it has such strong imagery that can be felt through the amazing performance of the group. 

The Video: 

https://youtu.be/ASl6exlOn0Y