Hula Dancers, As Taken

Seriously

BAREFOOTED Hawaiian hula dancers, kept busy during the Pacific War. at last caught the eye of the War .Labour Board whose job was to fix wages, The WLB undertook the task of classi fying dancers according to their ability, and setting the hourly nrice the girls get for their graceful convolutions. Wages ranged from a minimum of a dollar an hour up to ten dollars for half an hour. , Th e Bureau of Labour Statistics divided hu i, a <J ancers into two classes; Class A and Class B, female. ’

The bureau described a hula dancer class A. female, as: “Usuallv a young but experienced worker who, * through the medium of hula, attempts to portray portions of the early history of the Hawaiian people. The worker performs barefooted and usually scantily attired the most common apparel being the leaf dress or sarong encircling her shapely trunk, with bare skin between the top of her garb and a band of six or more inches wide which sometimes restricts the short migrations of the voluptous pulchritudi nous projections appended to the upper forward side of the worker.”

The hula dancer, class B, female, was described as “fully trained, experienced and possessed with an intense desire But due to accumulated torso bulges, stiffened joints and many Hawaiian moons, speed has greatly moderated and the worker uses less footwork and rotary motion of the hips, but instead, puts much emphasis on the straight forward and backward pull-and-push motion.” —From “Magazine Digest."