Hula legend returns to the Waikiki stage

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

Kent Ghirard was in the vanguard of 1950s hula. He will be honored at the World Invitational Hula Festival finale Saturday. Photo courtesy of Kent Ghirard/Hula Preservation Society Hula festival E Ho'i Mai I Ka Piko Hula, the World Invitational Hula Festival Today through Saturday Waikiki Shell $25-$5 Blaisdell box office or Ticketmaster outlets: (877) 750-4400

Not literally, perhaps. Two dozen dancers, gathered to honor their esteemed teacher, Kent Ghirard, are tutus now; only the magic of memory can return them to their original sylphlike state.

But even while practicing on the Ghirard living room floor, wearing a simple short mu'u, it's impossible to conceal the practiced grace of a true hula dancer.

Ghirard supervised the fluid swaying of Juana Sampaio and Beckley Pang, two of his featured dancers, to that saucy classic, "Papalina Lahilahi." A look of satisfaction spread across his face.

At 86, the man behind the "Hula Nani Girls" '50s troupe is finding his own limbs unenthused about transporting himself around the block, much less "around the island," as a kama'aina might call that hula move. But he's frankly happy to relocate to the Shell to be honored at the World Invitational Hula Festival finale.

When festival producer Paulie Jennings invited him to make an appearance, he didn't have to think long before replying.

"Paulie asked me a year ago," he said with a smile. "I said, 'I would love to.' "

Ghirard is one of the best known teachers from Hawai'i's territorial and early statehood days, and one of only a few noted haole teachers. A San Francisco native, Ghirard came to Hawai'i first in 1931 at age 12 with his vacationing parents. The dance of the Islands may have been the first thing he noticed.

"I was taken with the hula," he said. "When I was home, I hung out in Hawaiian clubs, and there were quite a few. They had good music."

Later, he returned for a six-week summer school program.

"I didn't go to school very much," he confessed. "I was at the Kodak Hula Show."

Finally, he said, he "couldn't stand it any more," and he picked up and moved here in 1947. After some very basic hula lessons, he became a largely self-taught dancer and, finally, a hula teacher in his own right. He said he just took to all of it, like a fish in water.

"I love the music, as much as I do the dance," Ghirard said. "A lot of people are more enmeshed in the dance."

Hula Nani Girls had become enough of an item on the local scene by 1955 that he took them on tour to Japan. Hula and all things Hawaiian had become such a craze on the Mainland, that in 1959, a group — including Sampaio and Pang — packed off to Chicago for seven months to stage a hula extravaganza at the Edgewater Beach Hotel.

The resort, very trendy in those days, was a pink palace not unlike The Royal Hawaiian hotel, Sampaio said. "We were the hit of Chicago," Sampaio said, grinning at the recollection. "That's what it said in the paper."

The following year, another group of performers returned for a second tour, this one less successful. Ghirard made the classic throat-slitting motion across his neck.

"The girls were great," he said. "But I went a little too Hollywood, and it didn't go over very well."

Ghirard, like most teachers of the day, believed in keeping hairstyles long and natural and the dancers' attire unfettered — no nail polish or jewelry, Pang and Sampaio recalled.

Many of his dancers, a loyal bunch, come back to their teacher's house on the slope of Diamond Head for every birthday, Pang said. Sampaio, who now lives in Las Vegas, returned last week for a visit and to prepare for the tribute.

She also appeared with Ghirard and Pang before the video cameras of the Hula Preservation Society, an organization compiling oral histories and a digital record of various hula styles through the years.

For video posterity, the women danced "Papalina" as well as the old favorite "Hula O Makee," a demonstration that doubled as a mini-rehearsal for Saturday.

Ghirard still insists on that unfettered look.

"No glasses on Saturday!" he admonished his students. They laughed, concealing whatever worry they might have felt.

Yes, teacher, was the wordless, implicit reply.

Reach Vicki Viotti at 525-8053 or vviotti@honoluluadvertiser.com.