Merrie Monarch: Two hula festivals in one location

By Wanda A. Adams
Assistant Features Editor

A member of Halau Hula 'O Kawaili'ula from Kailua performed in the hula Kahiko competition of the Merrie Monarch Festival last year. Advertiser photo illustration

Miss Aloha Hula 2000, TeHani Gonzado, and David Kalama, who produces Merrie Monarch coverage for KITV-Channel 4, discuss the Merrie Monarch format at KITV.

Merrie Monarch live events Hilo, Hawai'i Ho'ike (hula show), 6 p.m. Wednesday, featuring Johnny Lum Ho's Halau Ka Ua Kani Lehua and the Kanaka'ole family's Halau O Kekuhi, Edith Kanaka'ole Stadium. Free. Miss Aloha Hula, 6 p.m. Thursday, kahiko and 'auana performance, Edith Kanaka'ole Stadium. $5 admission. Televised. Group hula competition, kahiko, 6 p.m. Friday, Edith Kanaka'ole Stadium. Sold out. Group hula competition, 'auana, 6 p.m., Saturday, Edith Kanaka'ole Stadium. Sold out. Craft fairs: Merrie Monarch Craft Fair, 8:30 to 4 p.m., Wednesday-Saturday Ah Fook-Chinen Civic Auditorium ; Hawaiian Arts, Crafts and Food Festival, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday, Sangha Hall, Hilo; Hilo Shopping Center Craft Fair, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday.

Four first-time halau will compete in the 41st annual competition, three of them led by younger or less tried kumu hula. Five of the seven judging positions have turned over. And, for the TV audience, two new commentators will be introduced, though both of them are intimately acquainted with that scarred plywood stage.

There are, in effect, two Merrie Monarch Hula Festivals: the one on TV and the one in the stadium.

Both take place this week. Both will attract capacity audiences.

But the two are as different as a flower lei and a well-made crochet lei — equally beautiful and much appreciated, but different.

There's the show seen by most of Hawai'i, and many in the world watching via streaming video: three evenings of hula competition broadcast by KITV-4, enlivened by commentary, interviews and producer David Kalama's features on Hawaiian cultural themes.

And there is the actual event, defined by subtle factors most viewers don't even imagine: the solemn, silent and slow entry each evening of the royal court, the pleasant babble of conversation that rises and then is abruptly cut off as the next performance is announced, the world-class people-watching and eavesdropping.

"The one part you cannot capture at home is really the excitement of the audience. And the smell — the flowers, the ferns, the maile. It just takes you to a place where you can envision yourself up in the mountains; the scent just carries through the stadium," says longtime judge Noenoelani Zuttermeister-Lewis.

Watchers at home have all the comforts: pupu, an easy chair, the bathroom just steps away. They record and play back, indulge in their own commentary, channel-flip, make bets on who will win and even, in some households, pass out ballots and try to out-guess the judges.

Says Josey Iriyama of 'Alewa Heights, who took hula in high school, "My husband says by Saturday night my eyes are shaped like the TV. He falls asleep on the couch and I'm on the phone with my girlfriends wala'au (talking) about the hair, the costumes, the song, who played music for who. I love it and, yeah, it gets kind of same-same — but for hula dancers, it's the Olympics!"

Then there is the real-life festival in Hilo: a week of rehearsals, the Kanaka'ole 'ohana's extraordinary free Wednesday night ho'ike (hula performance), craft fairs, a Saturday parade, traffic jams, booked-up hotels, overcrowded restaurants, flocks of Japanese hula afficionados and three nights of intense, sense-saturating hula.

But viewers at home may know more about the dances than those on the scene. Because what those in the stadium hear during breaks is ... nothing. They spend the intervals gossiping and playing fashion police, standing in the sloooooow lines for food and the bathroom, buying T-shirts and posters or — as the hour grows late — sitting numbly, overwhelmed by the fragrance of flowers, the mellifluous sound of mele and 'oli and the thrumming of feet against the bare wood stage. 'Okoles grow numb and ache from the famously hard metal folding chairs and bleachers.

And yet who would pass up a chance to experience the real thing? Almost no one, which is why the stadium's 2,700 or so spectator seats sell out months in advance.

"I only got to go once, but I never forgot it. The difference is you're there! You actually see less of what's going on because you can only see what you can see from your seat, no camera angles, but what you see is in 3-D! It's just exciting," said Laura Robello of Maui.

The success of the event, says Zuttermeister-Lewis, is the vision of longtime Merrie Monarch executive director Dorothy "Auntie Dottie" Thompson, who last year began to pass some of the duties to her daughter, assistant director Luana Kawelu, due to ill health.

Thompson took a small, obscure event in a town known mainly for its excessive annual rainfall and attraction for tsunami and made it the most prestigious hula event in Hawai'i. She did so, Zuttermeister-Lewis believes, by focusing on the hula and the language, avoiding excess commercialism and seeking the advice of culturally rooted kupuna including Zuttermeister-Lewis's mother, the late kumu hula Kau'i Zuttermeister, as well as Edith Kanaka'ole, 'Iolani Luahine and others.

"She got the blessing of the older generation, and that was the right thing to do," said Zuttermeister-Lewis. "That's what I admire about her. She just does what she believes is the right thing to do, and it is because of her wisdom and her honesty that the halau keep coming back."

This year, Zuttermeister-Lewis will be sitting in a new spot, as "hula consultant" for KITV, helping to explain the significance of the costume, flowers, steps and songs.

It's a role she's quietly played for some time, advising director John Wray not to let the camera crew "fall in love" with the dancer's face. "They are so beautiful and their smiles are so wonderful but from a dancer's and teacher's standpoint, we want to see the feet and the hands," said Zuttermeister-Lewis, who teaches hula at the University of Hawai'i. She also writes the script for hosts Kimo Kahoano and Paula Akana.

Zuttermeister-Lewis says she expects her new job to be easier than the one she played as judge.

"There are many times when people watching don't understand exactly what happened, why we voted the way we did. They think it's favoritism," she said. "All I can say is it's a very hard job. No one can pay you enough to sit in that chair for hours or make up to you all the time you spend reading the information sheets (detailed descriptions of the song, dance, adornments filed by kumu hula in advance). There's a lot of work that goes into this. And nobody who hasn't done it can know how much the halau sacrifice to be there, either."

Kaleo Trinidad knows.

Last year, he was one of a triumvirate of kumu hula for Ka Pa Hula O Kamehameha with his teacher Holoua Stender and his hula sister Snowbird Bento. When the competition ended, the others voted for sitting out a year.

But 28-year-old Trinidad wasn't ready to step back. Having recently undergone the 'uniki graduation as a kumu hula along with Bento, he found competition stimulating.

"It gets my creative juices going for everything I do," he said. "It's just the whole process I love, doing it over and over and over again until you are as close as you can be to the degree of perfection that Hawaiians have been known for."

So he founded the halau kane Ka Leo O Laka I Ka Hikina O Ka La, a name given him by Stender, meaning "The voice of Laka that rises like the sun in the East" — a play on Trinidad's name, and also on the rise of a new generation of teachers and a tribute to hula goddess, Laka.

The kahiko (old-style) piece his group — composed of students, alumnae and family — will perform at Merrie Monarch will be familiar to those who watched the recent Kamehameha Song Contest. It's "He Mele Kaua no Kamehameha I Kepaniwai," an energetic representation of the famed battle that cemented the king's rule on Maui.

But Song Contest is one thing. Merrie Monarch another. Halau Ka Leo was tapped late, just a couple of months ago, when another competitor dropped out. "It's ... ," he pauses, groping for words, "scary. But good scary."

TeHani Gonzado knows that scary feeling well. Now a radio personality and producer with her fiance Shawn Pimental of the Hoku Award-winning Na Palapalai, Gonzado competed in the Miss Aloha Hula division of Merrie Monarch in 2000, and won the title. It still stands out as a high point of her life and she's looking forward to perhaps helping calm the fears of the dozen Miss Aloha Hula contestants when she serves as guest reporter for KITV Thursday evening.

"Only someone who has been through it knows what they're going through," said Gonzado. She'll try to bring out the young women's personalities in her chats with them. "Nobody knows who these girls are. They just appear that night and only the people in their own halau and their families know what it took for them to get there. I want to tell their stories."

This year's Hilo hula spectacular will feature plenty that's new

First-time halau: Halau O Ke 'A'ali'i Ku Makani, Kane'ohe, O'ahu, kumu hula Manu Boyd; Halau Na Lei Kaumaka O Uka, kumu hula Napua Greig and Patty Maluo-Huber; Ka Leo O Laka I Ka Hikina O Ka La Kumu Hula, kumu hula Kaleo Trinidad; Kukui Malamalama 'O Kona, kumu hula Jay Jay Ahulau Akiona (Akiona has brought his kane in the past, but never the wahine)

Missing in action: Crowd-pleasers Johnny Lum Ho and Chinky Mahoe; Ho is judging, Mahoe taking a year off

Back after an absence: Kumu hula Nani Lim Yap and Leialoha Amina and Na Lei 'O Kaholoku of Kohala make their first appearance in Merrie Monarch competition since 1997 (the halau did dance in the free Ho'ike last year). O'Brian Eselu brings his Ke Kai O Kahiki halau kane after a three-year absence (they came in second in overall kane in 2000 and first in kane kahiko). Moloka'i's Hula Halau 'O Moana was last seen in 1999.

Judges: The judging panel, which has been stable for some years, is shifting. Fresh faces this year are one-time competitor and Kamehameha Schools official Wayne Chang, kumu hula and former competitor Alicia Smith, kumu hula and composer Frank Kawaikapuokalani Hewett, kumu hula Johnny Lum Ho and genealogist, historian and Living Treasure Edith Kawelohea McKinzie. Returning are Vicky Holt Takamine (kumu hula) and Cy Bridges.

TV commentators: Two familiar faces debut in new positions on KITV-4. TeHani Gonzado, radio personality and Miss Aloha Hula 2000, will interview Miss Aloha Hula candidates. And kumu hula and longtime judge Noenoe Zuttermeister-Lewis is hula consultant, offering her perspective from the stage-side podium along with Kimo Kahoano and Paula Akana.

The T-shirt: Green ground, pakalana and kukuna-o-ka-la lei.

The poster: In a continuing Pele legend series, the poster this year features the tale of Kamapua'a, the sexy pig god.

Web site: www.merriemonarchfestival.org, basic festival information and history; ordering directions for T-shirts, sweatshirts, tote bags and posters.

Merrie Monarch participating halau

In alphabetical order by halau (hula school), followed by kumu hula (teacher), location and divisions in which halau will compete:

• Halau Hula O Hokulani, kumu hula Hokulani De Rego; Central O'ahu — wahine.
• Halau Hula 'O Kahikilaulani, kumu hula Ray Fonseca; Hilo, Hawai'i — wahine.
• Halau Hula Olana, kumu hula Olana and Howard Ai; 'Aiea — wahine, Miss Aloha Hula.
• Halau I Ka Wekiu, kumu hula Karl Veto Baker and Michael Nalanakila'ekolu Casupang; Honolulu — wahine, kane, Miss Aloha Hula.
• Halau Keali'i O Nalani, kumu hula, Keali'i Ceballos, Los Angeles — wahine, kane, Miss Aloha Hula.
• Halau Ke Kia'i A O Hula, kumu hula, Kapi'olani Ha'o; Honolulu, — kane.
• Halau Mohala 'Ilima, kumu Hula, kumu hula Mapuana de Silva; Ka'ohao, O'ahu — wahine, Miss Aloha Hula.
• Halau Na Lei Kaumaka O Uka, kumu hula Napua Greig and Kahulu Maluo-Huber; Pukalani, Maui — wahine, Miss Aloha Hula.
• Halau Na Mamo 'O Pu'uanahulu, kumu hula William Haunu'u "Sonny" Ching; Honolulu — wahine, kane, Miss Aloha Hula.
• Halau O Ke 'A'ali'i Ku Makani, kumu hula Manu Boyd; Kane'ohe — wahine.
• Halau O Na Pua Kukui, kumu hula Ed Collier; Honolulu — wahine, kane, Miss Aloha Hula.
• Halau 'O Ke 'Anuenue, kumu hula Glen Kelena Vasconcellos; Hilo, Hawai'i — wahine, Miss Aloha Hula.
• Hula Halau 'O Kamuela, kumu hula Kau'i Kamana'o and Kunewa Mook, Waimanalo and Kalihi — wahine.
• Hula Halau 'O Lilinoe, kumu hula Sissy Lilinoe Ka'io; Carson, Calif. — kane.
• Hula Halau 'O Moana, kumu hula Moana and Raquel Dudoit, Kaunakakai, Moloka'i — wahine, Miss Aloha Hula.
• Ka Leo O Laka I Ka Hikina O Ka La, kumu hula Kaleo Trinidad; Kapalama Uka, O'ahu — kane.
• Kano'eau Dance Academy, kumu hula Ke'ala Kukona; Lahaina, Maui — wahine, Miss Aloha Hula.
• Ke Kai O Kahiki, O'Brian Eselu, Nanakuli — kane, Miss Aloha Hula.
• Keolalaulani Halau 'Olapa O Laka, kumu hula Aloha Dalire; He'eia/Kane'ohe — wahine, kane.
• Kukui Malamalama 'O Kona, kumu hula Jay Jay Ahulau Akiona; Kailua, Hawai'i — wahine.
• Na Lei 'O Kaholoku, kumu hula Nani Lim Yap and Leialoha Amina; Kohala, Hawai'i — wahine.

Miss Aloha Hula candidates

In alphabetical order by last name, followed by halau (hula school):

• Natasha Mahealani Akau, Halau Na Mamo 'O Pu'uanahulu.
• Joy Chiemi Kaholomoana Espiritu, Hula Halau 'O Moana.
• Jadelyn Mokihana Kalaukoa, Halau 'O Ke 'Anuenue.
• Bianca Keopuolani Rapu Leitel, Halau I Ka Wekiu.
• Ka'imilani Lamorena, Halau Keali'i O Nalani.
• Natasha Lokelani Lopez, Halau Mohala 'Ilima.
• Cialyn Thara Kawahinekuliaikau'i Broclic Kukona-Pacheco, Kano'eau Dance Academy.
• Trina Lee Kawailehua Perkins, Halau Na Lei Kaumaka O Uka.
• Nicole Moani Taylor, Ke Kai O Kahiki.
• Kellilynn Kanoelani Cockett Smith, Halau Hula Olana.
• Devynne E.K.U. Leihokumainalani Sue, Halau O Na Pua Kukui.