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Hula babies part of regional culture
By GERIANNE WRIGHT
Staff Writer
I’ve done my part to contribute to the arts in Clinton County by birthing three daughters, all of whom are either in dance class or will be as soon as the hula skirt fits around her toddler body.
Yes, my girls were hula babies, just like legions of other North Country kids, many of whom have gone on to have children, nay, grandchildren of their own who, in turn, were hula babies as well.
What’s a hula baby, you ask? Why, it’s a barometer against which all else is measured.
“How long have the girls known each other?”
“Oh, they’ve been friends since hula babies.”
“How long have you been taking tap class?”
“Since I was a hula baby.”
“When did you learn to skip like that?”
“I learned the year I was a hula baby.”
Left from right?
Hula baby.
Stage presence? Ability to perform? Transition from toddler to kid?
Hula baby. Hula baby. Hula baby.
The hula babies of the North Country are the product of the iconic dancing Langlois. If you’re a Langlois, by birth, by marriage or some other twist of faith, you donned tap shoes at some point in your life.
The studio of the Nancy (Gerace) Langlois School of Dance, in the basement of the family homestead on Elm Street, has a pictorial history of past dancers, including hula baby Susan (Gerace) Mossy, who now teaches scores of North Country kids how to dance herself.
Among her pupils — yup, you guessed it — two more of Langlois heritage: her daughter, Kyra, and son, Hunter.
The Langlois-Racine school has produced its own branch of the dancing family tree and scores of North Country dancers as well who swayed their hips to that catchy tune. Come on. Sing it with me:
“I’m a little hula-hula baby, from the land of Waikiki;
I can hula and I don’t mean maybe, come with me across the sea;
I dance with my eyes, I dance with my lips, I dance with my hands, and I wriggle my hips;
I’m a little hula-hula baby, from the land of Waikiki.
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight (turn).
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight (turn).
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight (turn).
One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight (turn).
I dance with my eyes, I dance with my lips, I dance with my hands and I wriggle my hips;
I’m a little hula-hula baby, from the land of Waikiki.”
If you never danced this dance as a 3-year-old yourself, then you’ve endured blisteringly hot evenings sitting in high-school auditoriums watching some other kid dance it at the annual recitals.
It’s iconic; it’s unique. It brings down the house year after year, no matter which dance school your little one hails from.
And it’s gone national in its reach.
I was blogging on my personal blog recently about how my 2-year-old will some day be a hula baby, and I quoted a line from the song. Suddenly, I was inundated by comments from people wanting to know where they could get it because they had danced to it many years before.
I asked Susan and her mom, Nancy, about the history of the little ditty, which has to be 50 years old, and they said it was from a demo record from a dance conference from many, many years ago.
It’s a trademark, and they’re not inclined to release it. And who can blame them? They’ve been doing it since they were hula babies.
