Originally Posted by
bocastephen
Depends on the venue - and I admit that finding a true representation of something as simple as Hula might require a visit to the Merrie Monarch Festival or the luck of stumbling on a local Halau rehearsal. An easy formula to follow - if it's marketed to tourists or found in tourist locales, it's not going to be true to its roots. If it's found with or marketed to locals, you're going to see something more authentic.
There are a couple good luaus on Maui and one on the Big Island.
The PCC is a sanitized, polished, cleansed and 'Mormon-approved' version of Polynesian culture. If one wants to visit just to check it out, that's fine - but you shouldn't come away from there thinking that's a fair copy of Hawaiian or other-island life over the centuries.
It's all in the level of detail you're going to notice. If you're just there to watch a show and have a good time, you'll probably be fine with any luau that serves palatable food and enough mai tais. I tend to be more anal in the details - like watching a show demonstrating Hawaiian culture and finding 90% of the performers are Filipino bothers me.
I definitely agree that the luau at the PCC isn't great. But, I disagree that the polynesian culture that is presented is "sanitized, polished, cleansed, or even Mormon-approved (whatever that means)." No one in the islands has anything close to the recreated buildings, huts, cooking facilities, etc. that are found at the PCC. No one has the extensive demonstrations of native cooking, agriculture, dance, song, etc. that are found at the PCC. You can easily spend two days just looking at the recreated facilities, watching the demonstrations and dances, songs, etc. Nothing else comes anywhere close to recreating and attempting to preserve polynesian culture. The vast majority of the performers are from the respective island that they represent. I'm not sure what more you could want for authenticity.
I suppose if you insist that hula dancers have only coconut bras (authentic?), then you could be right.