{"id":74008,"date":"2019-08-19T01:49:15","date_gmt":"2019-08-19T01:49:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hula-dancing-brightens-community-gardens-open-house\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T16:02:04","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T16:02:04","slug":"hula-dancing-brightens-community-gardens-open-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/hula-dancing-brightens-community-gardens-open-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Hula dancing brightens community garden\u2019s open house"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Nine
Nine dancers from Durango Hula Ohana performed Sunday at the open house at the Ohana Kuleana Community Garden.<\/span>Patrick Armijo\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Ohana Kuleana Community Garden celebrated its open house and the 91st birthday of its master gardener with hula dancing, grilled veggies and a birthday carrot cake on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Ananda Foley, founder of Durango Hula Ohana, choreographed several of the dances performed Sunday including the opening dance celebrating the sunshine performed to John Denver\u2019s \u201cSunshine on my Shoulders.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHula is like a language,\u201d Foley said. \u201cHawaiians didn\u2019t have a written language, and so hula was a way to pass down the stories. It was like a sign language.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anywhere between five and 14 people attend Durango Hula Ohana gatherings to learn dances and celebrate native Hawaiian culture.<\/p>\n

Besides learning hula dancing, Foley said Durango Hula Ohana teaches members about native Hawaiian culture.<\/p>\n

Melanie Canode, one of the dancers, said during a visit to the Big Island in 2011 that happened to coincide with the island\u2019s biggest festival, the Merrie Monarch, she became fascinated with Hawaiian culture. And when she returned home, she eventually discovered Durango Hula Ohana.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was having hip problems, and hula really helped. It helped physically big time. It helps brain functioning, and the people in this group are some of the kindest I\u2019ve been with in years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Before the hula dances, community gardeners gathered around Marye Jackson to celebrate her 91st birthday.<\/p>\n

\"Gardeners
Gardeners at Ohana Kuleana Community Garden celebrated Marye Jackson\u2019s 91st birthday on Sunday with a two-layer carrot cake.<\/span>Patrick Armijo\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cEveryone around here learns from Marye,\u201d said community gardener Bruce Spining. \u201cShe\u2019s the wisdom.\u201d<\/p>\n

The community garden is in its 10th year, and Chris Paulson said the area\u2019 soil improves every year with care from the gardeners. Initially, the plot of land was mostly road base, and a year of hard work went into making the grounds suitable for gardening.<\/p>\n

A full plot, 150 square feet, rents for $80 per growing season plus four hours per month volunteer time. A half plot rents for $40 per growing season and four hours per month volunteer time.<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kuleana Community Garden also celebrates master gardener\u2019s 91st birthday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":74009,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6149,6148,6147,5843,5844],"tags":[364,511,568],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-74008","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community-living","category-dance","category-events-living","category-living","category-living-living","tag-community","tag-dance","tag-events"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74008","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74008"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74008\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92597,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74008\/revisions\/92597"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74008"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74008"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74008"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=74008"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}