Festival welcomed the familiar
| • | Merrie Monarch results |
| • | Photo gallery |
By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer
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| Hula Halau O Kamuela, of O'ahu, won the Merrie Monarch Festival's overall trophy last night.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertise |
The Merrie Monarch Festival's annual hula competition has evolved into a class reunion of sorts, a time to anticipate the pleasure and comfort of familiar faces and artistic styles. (What would the festival be, for example, without the intricate footwork by the women of Hula Halau O Kamuela or the rollicking modern hula of Chinky Mahoe's men?)
Of course, veteran watchers of this "Olympiad of Hula" have learned to expect the unexpected from a few regular participants. Foremost among these is Johnny Lum Ho, the Hilo teacher who composed songs this year about sore backs, cleaning house and other ordinary things of life, as well as an extraordinary legend of a snorting pig deity and a rascally barking dog.
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| The movements of Hula Halau O Kamuela performed a kahiko hula about Queen Emma's travels to the summit of Mauna Kea in last night's Hula 'Auana competition at the Merrie Monarch Festival.
Eugene Tanner • The Honolulu Advertise |
Mainly, though, the 2002 festival brought back kumu hula and their students who had yielded their coveted spots in the lineup for several years — Leimomi Ho and Maelia Carter among them. For Puluelo Park of Kailua, it had been a 17-year hiatus she closed to mark her golden anniversary as a hula teacher.
Everyone cheered at the return from Carson, Calif., of kumu hula Sissy Kaio. Her students have been long absent from the Merrie Monarch, but two years ago they attended Hilo's World Conference on Hula and learned to plant a lo'i in Waipi'o.
In the past week, the Californians have visited sites named in their chants, Kaio said, and returned to the valley to "check on our lo'i and perhaps have an opportunity to cultivate a new one."
In hula, too, the hope of every halau is that after all the exhausting work something will grow
Correction: Hula Halau O Kamuela performed a kahiko hula about Queen Emma's travels to the summit of Mauna Kea. A caption in a previous version of this story was incorrect.
