By NICKIE WANG/ Manila Standard Today
The story itself is an engaging tale of a personal struggle and a quest for identity. It chronicles a journey that covers the time when the character was just a kid seeing a hula dance for the very first time until it became a permanent part of his life. Dance, music, humor, and cultural values are integrated to essay the fascinating life of Keo Woolford in a stage production entitled I Land.
Fresh from his off-Broadway outing, Keo is here in Manila to stage his semi-autobiographical journey in a one-man show set to run at the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino starting Jan. 22, 8 p.m.
Accentuated by Keo’s exceptional talent, I Land is a moving search for the meaning of heritage in a post-modern world weaving together traditional Hawaiian hula, hip-hop, Hawaiian talk story, and spoken word.
“The story starts when I first saw hula which I was a kid until I would be in my early to mid- twenties,” acclaimed actor and hula dancer Keo Woolford shared during an interview with Standard Today.
His story
The show chronicles Keo’s first exposure to hula and how he came under the instruction of his idol, whom he dubs the “Hula god.” In the production, he also describes his fleeting brush with fame as a member of a boy band that almost hits the big time; his subsequent descent into a world of drugs and partying; and his rediscovery of the dance that connects him to both his culture and to himself.
“It’s a one hour and twenty minutes of performance,” Keo, who is fit to be an undergarment model with his chiseled physique, said and continued: “So it’s more of the adrenaline rush that keeps me going. I can’t see them [audience] and I’d rather not because it makes me nervous, but I feel the audience. It’s actually the audience that keeps me going. Audience is the key to my every performance.”
I Land as a one-man show also features original songs and choreography done in the ancient or traditional style known in Hawaii as kahiko. The one- hour-and-twenty-minute production will give the audience an experience seeing an engaging actor, who was born and raised in Hawaii to a Filipina mother and to a Hawaiian father, morph into a dozen characters.
The actor’s passion in music, dancing and acting began at a very young age that being a multi-disciplinary artist is no longer surprising.
“Acting is my passion. It’s so funny because when I was younger, right before I got into acting, I never thought that I was going to be an actor. When I was sort of figuring out what I was going to do with my life in music, I wanted to be a pop star,” Keo laughed as he sipped his coffee.
Aside from being an actor, dancer, and a musician, Keo is also a prolific writer. In 1995 in Los Angeles, he penned the one-man show He Hawai‘i Au. The show earned him praises that opened new windows of opportunities.
Keo’s remarkable performances include a plum role in a production entitled In My Father’s House that earned him a Virgo Award for Best Actor. In New York, he has been seen in Karaoke Stories, The Greeks, References to Salvador Dali Make Me Hot, Sonnets for an Old Century, and The Remarkable Journey of Prince Jen. His film and TV appearances include East Broadway, Hawaii, True Vengeance, and Happy Texas.
Turning point
In 2007, before the off-Broadway staging of I Land, Keo’s mother passed away. It was one of the defining moments for the actor because he had to stage the show a day after the funeral.
“The off-Broadway run is ironically the toughest run I have ever did. The thing that was really really tough, I don’t know if I should talk about this, is when my mom passed away right before opening night. The funeral was a day before the performance so from my mom’s funeral I went straight to the theater,” the actor narrated.
Despite the loss, his mother’s death pushed and inspired him to pursue his performance and thus his career. He found his self-salvation through music and claimed: “Dancing is therapeutic. Dancing with music is a way of self-salvation because it’s so raw and natural that people celebrate with it. You could be by your self; listen and dance around and it’s like you’re connected to the universe.”
He lands
I Land was created by Keo in collaboration with director Roberta Uno. Uno encouraged him to write something again as to follow up his first self-penned show more than a decade ago.
“I’m really grateful that I have gone through what I have gone through because it enabled me to share my experiences. I actually turned her [Uno] down at first because I said, ‘What am I going to say and who will care to hear about it,’” he affirmed.
The production will highlight the hula dance that has been famed for its unique style. According to Keo, hula is like a bunch of different things because it involves history, language, and values. A hula dancer also needs to learn a language and a history that are essential in telling a story.
“Hula is more about expressing the story you are telling more than the actual body movements and that it’s the key or the correlation between hula and acting. Before you even learn anything else, you need to learn the basic steps and that took me a long long time. Some people don’t have the patience, skill, and the attitude,” Keo concluded, disclosing that hula doesn’t work for everyone.
I Land’s limited run from Jan. 22 to 25 at the Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino is a fundraising activity spearheaded by the Asian Cultural Council Philippines for the benefit of the ACC Philippine Fellowship Program and the Makiling Academic and Research Institute for the Arts (MARIA) Scholarship.
Call the CCP Box Office at 832-3704 or 832-1125 loc. 1409 or call Ticketworld at 891-9999 for more information.
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