When she was a girl in her first hula classes in Hilo — she studied with an alaka'i of Auntie Helen Desha Beamer — little Paulie Keakealani Lee wasn't too happy with the first few sessions.

"We were learning how to pray, learning how to chant, learning the protocol and all these things, and all I wanted to do was dance," recalls Auntie Pauline Jennings, founder of the World Invitational Hula Festival, which opens Thursday at the Waikiki Shell.

At 77, Jennings is now grateful for that early lesson, not just one in patience but in what is pono — right or fitting — on the hula pa, the space, both physical and metaphysical, in which hula is performed.

"You can't just do hula as a dance," said Jennings. "It's spiritual, mental, cultural as well as physical."

And yet this traditionalist has masterminded one of the most inclusive, sometimes controversial, hula competitions in the Islands — one that emphasizes "camaraderie, cooperation, and fun" and that welcomes hula schools from places as far-flung as Okinawa and Bogota, Colombia.

The event originally was a project of the Moanalua Gardens Foundation, where Jennings then worked, but the original concept didn't fly for financial reasons. Jennings believed in the idea, however, took a deep breath, quit her job and formed a nonprofit organization to oversee a less-glitzy, more from-the-na'au (gut) festival.

Before she started, she gathered hula experts such as Nona Beamer, George Na'ope and George Holokai and asked them, "What is it you don't like about hula competitions?"

The "dog-eat-dog," they said.

"Consider the source," they said. In other words, be mindful of hula's roots, before what she calls the Hollywood "hoochie-koochie" form was created.

Mainly, Jennings said, "I'm in it for the culture and education."

All competitors must commit to being in the Islands for an opening event on the Sunday before the competition, Jennings notes. At this event, the Ho'olana Hula Workshop at Kamehameha Schools, everyone learns an opening chant, and there are lectures and hands-on classes in hula, philosophy, chant and hula-related crafts.

The festival program features a collection of essays by kumu hula and dancers talking about their hula experiences around the world. In it, Okinawa hula teacher Ekko Ota talks about the chicken-skin experience of greeting the voyaging canoe Hokule'a when it visited Asia recently, after Jennings called Ota and told her what she must do, which chants, and so on.

The halau stood on the shore and blew the pu, the conch shell, and heard an eerie answering call from Hokule'a.

It's not publicly talked about, but there are deep rifts in the hula world, and not just on concrete issues such as language or choreography. The World Invitational Hula Festival sits on the knife edge of one of these rifts. Jennings has been accused of selling out hula to "foreigners." Some halau boycott this competition (and some never compete at all, for philosophical reasons).

Jennings shrugs off criticism. "I tell them, 'Just come and see what we do. I'll give you tickets.' "

It's been a struggle. Not long ago, the festival's bank account was down to a negative three figures before Jennings begged a last-minute grant.

The event receives support from Kamehameha Schools, the Waikiki Improvement Association, Na Lei Aloha Foundation and other entities, but there's no endowment, and expenses are ever climbing higher. And Jennings wants to keep ticket prices low enough to allow locals and families to attend.

Among the festival's strongest supporters is a group of Buddhist women, members of Na Lei Aloha Foundation. Last year, the aunties, who like to sew zabuton (floor cushions) as they sip tea and talk story, made hula dolls and sold them to raise money for the event.

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com.