Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on January 2011

Photos by Kuni Nakai

Aureana Tseu jokes that she must have been hula dancing since she was in her mother’s womb. It’s actually a profound comment by the world-class dancer and former Miss Hawaii. When Aureana’s mother, Iwalani, was pregnant, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer and doctors recommended that she terminate the pregnancy. But Iwalani decided to have her baby.

“I first learned about it from mom when I was a teenager modeling in the Philippines,” said Aureana, 27, a hazel-eyed beauty whose ethnic background is a mix of Hawaiian, Chinese, Filipino and Caucasian. “I think that knowing about it is why I cherish life so much. It takes too much energy to be negative and dwell on what could have happened, should have or maybe. If you take every experience—positive or negative—and realize that there is an opportunity to grow from it, you can stay cheerful. Life really is precious and short.”

It’s a cold afternoon as we sit down for a chat with Aureana and her mother outside Indian restaurant Nirvana in Tokyo Midtown, but that doesn’t faze the vivacious Hawaiian. Her cheerfulness creates its own warmth. She’s a regular visitor to Japan, coming five or six times a year to perform hula shows, teach Japanese students and generally promote the state of Hawaii.

Aureana got her start dancing early in life at her mother’s school, the famed Iwalani School of Dance. She recalls not being very enthusiastic at first. “I cried every day when mom took me to practice. My two sisters and I had no choice. Whether we liked it not, we got packed up and taken to class. It wasn’t until I was 7 or 8 that I had my first experience of being onstage and I started to love it. Then I would play dress-up at home and create my own costumes.”

Beauty pageants became a part of Aureana’s life early on. “When I was 11, my mom sent me to check the mail, and in there was a flyer for Miss Pre-Teen Asia. I had always watched the different pageants on TV, so I begged her to let me enter. She said, ‘Absolutely not!’ because she thought I didn’t have the stamina or skin for it. But she and Dad eventually relented. I signed up for the contest and won it.”

It was the first of many triumphs—Aureana went on to become Miss Hawaii Teen USA 1999, Miss Oahu Filipina 2003, Miss Hawaii Filipina 2003 and Miss Hawaii USA 2009. In between her trips to Japan and beauty pageants, she’s earned a college degree in business management and has a company—Ka Nani A Hawai’i—which produces her many hula dance performances.

Aureana’s shows in Japan always draw enthusiastic fans. “Japanese audiences love hula dancing because Hawaii has a strong historical relationship with Japan. Hula is an interpretive dance, so I try to incorporate different styles and ideas, such as belly dancing, jazz and Brazilian,” says Auerana, who also choreographs her shows, does the stage and costume design, and selects the backup dancers.

Enthusiasm and lots of training are the key to success, she points out. “You need passion to be a great dancer—or with any profession, actually. You also have to be humble enough to know that you are constantly learning, no matter how great other people may tell you that you are.” To keep in shape, Aureana practices 6-8 hours a day, and longer—9-12 hours—when she’s getting ready for a competition. “You discover muscles you didn’t realize you have by doing a certain move,” she explains. “For the rest, lots of sleep and tons of water keep me in good shape.”

Many of the dancers for her shows in Japan come from the Yokohama branch of the Iwalani school, which Aureana’s mother opened in 1996. Besides teaching Japanese students the ethnic dances of the South Pacific, South America and the Middle East, the school helps them to develop a positive attitude, confidence and respect for tradition and family values. “Dancing—any kind of dancing—can help a woman build self-esteem. The group becomes like a second family, your sisters,” she says. “There is one Japanese girl at the Yokohama school, who is shy and introverted. But the second we put her in a costume with eyelashes, she comes alive.”

Aureana says she hopes her own experiences can help young women overcome such problems. “Women, especially young girls, have self-esteem problems. When they are young, so many social pressures are put on them about what is beautiful, smart and strong. They don’t truly believe in themselves and they submit to abuse, be it emotional or domestic violence, because they don’t have inner strength or confidence. That’s a big problem now in Hawaii.

“And what is beauty anyway? Growing up, I had experiences of people making fun of me because of the way I looked. I had fair skin and green eyes and I was in an all-Hawaiian school. As long as you feel beautiful inside, who cares how others judge you? But that is a hard message for young women to instill in themselves.”

One thing that being in a beauty contest taught Aureana is that she can be an advocate for a variety of worthy causes. “As an ambassador for Hawaii, it’s important to not only share everything that is special and unique about Hawaii, but to also bring to the forefront specific issues that our state has to deal with as well.”

Her dancing takes her away from her sunny homeland quite a lot, including to some chilly climates. “The coldest places I have performed in were England and New Zealand. Another time, my sister and I were head choreographers and directors for dancers at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. It was a freezing day. The hula dancers had to wear leotards.”

Aureana has released a DVD that features her dancing and discussing Hawaiian culture. “It shows the human side of me, not just what I do on stage,” she says. The “human” side includes a love for sweets, especially pumpkin ice cream pie, and an affinity for karaoke. “You cannot get me off the microphone,” she says with a laugh.

In the future, Aureana says she would like to be a creative director. “There will be a point where I hang up my hula panties. When I do, I want to continue to just create and produce all the elements that go into a show.”

That won’t be the end of her dancing, though. “I am sure there is hula in heaven,” she says with a sparkle in her voice.

For more info on Aureana, see www.aureana.com.

Chris Betros is the editor of Japan Today (www.japantoday.com)