honoluluadvertiser.com

Sponsored by:

Comment, blog & share photos

Log in | Become a member
The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Sunday, September 14, 2003

Artistic talent, inspiration and a bit of whimsy go on parade

By Bob Krauss
Advertiser Columnist

Artistic inspiration comes as easily to people in Hawai'i as water flows down the Ala Wai, only we don't always recognize it. Take the Aloha Festivals Floral Parade yesterday. Enough artistic inspiration went into those brief hours to make Rembrandt jealous.

Consider, say, the Hilton Hawaiian Village float. The artists who created it, I must admit, are undiscovered. Like Ed Kaanehe, the chief steward at the hotel. It is true that he has had artistic training: Kaanehe took hula lessons.

The 79 marching units in yesterday's parade through Waikiki included Kamehameha School students. Corinne Chun, 14, right, keeps time with her feathered 'uli'uli.

Bruce Asato • The Honolulu Advertiser

What's more, his mother was executive director of the Aloha Week Festival from 1955 to 1992 so he grew up watching Aloha Week parades. If that isn't artistic training, I don't know what is.

Pat Souza is executive housekeeper. Her artistic talent lies in the needle-and-thread line. Souza takes time off every year to help build the float. She designs the costumes, picks the fabric and does her sewing at the hotel.

The whole Souza family is artistic. Pat's mother, 78, comes down every year to work on the float, along with six other members of the family, including Souza's 6-year-old granddaughter who would rather help with the float than go to school.

Actually, the artistic integrity of the float is too important to be one person's responsibility. A jury of experts deliberates for six months before the inspiration comes clear. You have Eileen Nepomuceno, director of training, and Fred Ing, who retired two years ago as director of operations.

Ing got his art training the hard way, by experience. He helped build the first Hilton Hawaiian Village float in 1962 and hasn't stopped since. He remembers the art world of the old days.

"Back then, they gave us beer," said Ing. "Everybody helped — housekeeping, bellmen. People brought flowers from their back yards. The first float was a night-blooming cereus on a Jeep. We had somebody inside turning a crank to make the flower open and close."

Other masterpieces included underwater scenes and a waterfall.

This year the jury decided on live hula instruments. By live, I mean an 'ukulele that plays itself and 'uli'uli that rattle about without human assistance. What the artists worked to achieve is an Andy Warhol approach to Hawaiian culture — something kolohe, mischievous. Males in malo make the instruments move.

"We need to brighten it up," Kaanehe explained. "We're not educating people; we're entertaining them."

Like any art studio, the one behind the parking structure at the Hilton Hawaiian Village is cluttered. That's where the float was built. When I visited, electrician Carl Tsukasaki was up to his elbows in wires that connect all the working parts. You might call him a modern sculptor.

Tsukasaki was also the navigator of the float. He walked in front as a guide for Florante Carlos, who sat inside the pahu and steered while hidden in the big drum.

Reach Bob Krauss at 525-8073.