Where's My Moko

This is Tisha, who is my hula sister that i've featured on here more than once. She represented our halau at E Hula Mau this year as our wahine soloist. Last night, our halau performed at the fall Lokahi Ho'olaule'a & Tisha got to perform her kahiko as it was written & as it was originally supposed to be done. You see....in California, while at the judges meeting, Tisha's selection was not highly looked upon by the judges. She received criticism because it was a "hula competition" and by portraying her Maori roots in her song, they felt that it was combining 2 different cultures & it wasn't suggested that she go on using her moko (her family marking on her mouth, or her wrap). So needless to say, she went on stage at EHM without these things & with different words in her song, because the original words were Maori words. But last night....was beautiful. Her performance was BEAUTIFUL!! Here she is just before going on....

Tisha (soon to be Testa) preparing for Lokahi (10/6/07)