Updated at 3:50 p.m., Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Manu Boyd leaves OHA to join Waikiki shopping center
Wanda A. Adams
Advertiser Staff Writer
Boyd — kumu hula, composer, chanter, cultural specialist — today completed his last day as public information director for the Office of Hawaiian Affairs. (He ran unsuccessfully in the organization's last board of directors election.) In June, he will become cultural director of the newly renovated Royal Hawaiian Shopping Center in Waikiki, owned by Bishop Estate.
The shopping center is on the site of Helumoa, what was once an historic coco-palm grove. Boyd's job will be to place the cultural significance of the site at the heart of center events and to assure cultural accuracy and significance in everything that the center does.
Boyd takes up his duties after a trip to Japan with his band Ho'okena.
"My goal," said Boyd, "is to help that property come alive again as a Hawaiian place, for people to meet there, eat there, join there in a revival of the spirit of the place."
