Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders are looking to inspire and educate students while sharing a breath of life through the Aloha Dance Club.
Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders make up only 0.05 percent of Ohio State’s total minority student population, according to autumn 2020 Ohio State enrollment statistics. Aloha Dance Club, a new student organization at Ohio State, focuses on educating students on the various cultures and traditional dances of Tahiti, Hawaii, Samoa, New Zealand, Tonga, the Cook Islands and other Polynesian Islands, Selesitila Harvey, one of the club’s founders, said.
The club was founded in April 2021 by Selesitila Harvey, a first-year pursuing her master’s in social work, and her husband Devon, a second-year medical student at Ohio State. Harvey said she and her husband decided to start the club after moving from Provo, Utah, to Columbus to continue their education.
“We were just so amazed about how diverse Columbus was, and we just thought it would be super fun to be able to add Pacific Islanders into the mix, since there’s not a lot of us here and because we both love to dance,” Harvey said. “We thought it would be fun not to just talk about Pacific islands, but to actually share a piece of our culture with the community here in Columbus.”
Harvey said club meetings will consist of learning and practicing different dances from various islands and hopefully performing those dances once or twice each year. She said they also plan to teach members about the culture of the islands from which the dances originate.
Harvey said she hopes students from all backgrounds feel inspired to join Aloha Dance Club.
“It’ll be wonderful to see people who are not of my culture representing it in a dance of some kind or a performance of some kind and seeing how the knowledge of where I come from and where my family comes from is now here in Ohio,” Harvey said.
The couple met through a Pacific Islander and Asian dance group and wanted to be able to create a similar group at Ohio State to celebrate their culture through dance, Harvey said.
“Dancing is a big part of our culture; it’s a way that we communicate, a way that we share stories, a way that we share our emotions and welcome others, the way that we connect with our ancestors,” Harvey said. “So we thought it would be a fun, creative way to be able to dance and also to be able to share our culture with others.”
Wayland Hinds, the program coordinator of recruitment for Ohio State and a Native Hawaiian Ohio State alumnus, became involved in the club through the Multicultural Center at Ohio State. Hinds said the term “aloha” is a Hawiian greeting ritual, not just a spoken word.
“The last syllable in ‘aloha’ is ‘ha,’ and ‘ha’ in Hawaiian is like the breath of life,” Hinds said. “So in Hawaiian culture, when we greet people in a very traditional sense, we come forehead to forehead and kind of touch noses and have a look into that other person’s eyes, and we inhale the same breath through our nose — we share ‘ha.’ So to share air with someone is very powerful.”
Hinds said people are often uneducated on the different cultures of the Polynesian Islands.
“Because we’re here in America, most everyone knows Hawaii and they know about Hula,” Hinds said. “This will be a really great opportunity to highlight those beauties from that island but then go into the differences in countries and how all these different cultures who are oftentimes grouped together –– we all are related –– but we talk about how they’re each different, especially in dance.”
With such a small portion of the Ohio State student population identifying as Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders, Hinds said he is looking forward to seeing his culture represented on campus.
“I personally never really thought in my time as a student to do something like this,” Hinds said. “I guess it’s just because in my time and walking around campus, I never saw people like me. I really appreciate Pacific island cultures being represented here at the university, because we are here.”
Aloha Dance Club has not yet set a meeting time, but students interested in joining the organization can submit an interest form. No background in dancing is required, and all students are welcome to join, Harvey said.
