In 1971, Kau'i Brandt went to Disneyland for an eight-month gig starting a Polynesian revue there.

Thirty-six years later, she's still on the Mainland, along with most of her five children, 10 grandchildren and six great-grandchildren.

"They warned me, 'If you leave the Islands you never come back, you never come back," said the 75-year-old, who acts as the cultural ambassador at Disney's Polynesian Resort in Orlando, where she is universally known as Auntie Kau'i.

But Brandt did come back, to be honored with the 2007 Duke's Ho'okahiko Award from Duke's Waikiki restaurant, which recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to the culture and traditions of Hawai'i. Dozens of her Kamehameha Schools (1950) classmates came to fete her.

"I hadn't seen some of them in 50 years. I was saying 'We need name tags,'" joked Brandt, speaking by phone from her Florida home, having returned after the April 20 ceremony.

"Kau'i is preserving traditional Hawaiian hula by teaching Mainlanders how to properly dance the hula," said Ross Anderson, Duke's Waikiki general manager. "Without people like Brandt, many valued Hawaiian traditions would be lost or changed."

Brandt returns to Hawai'i whenever she can, often during the Merrie Monarch Festival hula competition. This year during the festival, she handed over her program to get the autograph of her one-time kumu hula, festival co-founder Uncle George Na'ope, and was stunned when the octogenarian recognized her right away.

"I told him, 'I'm still teaching all those numbers you taught me 60 years ago.' Those old numbers were beautiful. They really were pa'a (long-lasting, solid)."

When she's feeling a bit naughty, Brandt will perform "Maunaloa," a song about a steamship that has a decidedly un-shiplike kaona (poetic concealed references). But her signature is the 1920s love song, "Mi nei": " While you are searching ... (why not) consider me, right here?"

Much has changed in the generations since Brandt first learned that and other old favorites.

Brandt, who grew up in Pearl City, recalls when the speaking of Hawaiian was forbidden and kahiko-style (traditional) hula was taught only in secret. When she attends Merrie Monarch now and hears the younger generation conversing in Hawaiian, and sees how their knowledge of the language and the culture so deeply informs their hula performances, she is so pleased and proud, she said.

Hers was the era of the cellophane hula skirt (one of her teachers was Auntie Rose Joshua, who invented that infamous bit of costuming) and the "keep the eyes on the hands" comedy hula. After high school, she worked in Waikiki at the International Market Place in a daily revue that included dances from throughout the Pacific.

"I LOOOOOOVED to do Tahitian," she said. "I learned Tahitian from a French Polynesian. He didn't speak English and I didn't speak French or Tahitian, but he would just say 'Watch!' and that's how I learned." Both Tahitian and hula were often condemned in those days as being vulgar, she recalled. In fact, when hula was taught at Kamehameha, they had to perform the gestures sitting down to avoid those suggestive swaying hips.

Brandt began teaching hula in Florida because she wanted to be sure that her grandchildren, and others with Hawaiian connections but born on the Mainland, would learn something of their culture.

She said she still loves every day of her job because it's as though she's enveloped in "a small Hawai'i," even though she's so far away.

"It's wonderful. You are at a hotel that wants to spread aloha. I couldn't get too homesick because I was at the hotel. And so many people have come (from Hawai'i) to share their mana'o with us; (the late hospitality expert and author) Dr. George Kanahele came and we learned so much. We have exchanges and send people to Hawai'i so they learn how to do things the right way. That way, we can pass it on, even way up in Florida."

Though she no longer performs regularly in the hula show, she interacts constantly with guests, making lei, showing them hula moves.

"It's so funny, I have a hard time walking; I have arthritis in my knees," she said. "But when I am dancing, I have no pain; I can just glide."

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