When "Kahekili," an award-winning hula-as-theater production, plays Leeward Community College Theatre on Saturday night, it will complete a significant performance cycle that hurled a modest Maui producing and dancing ensemble to the ranks of an elite dance crowd. The esteemed group includes the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre, the Martha Graham Dance Company, the Paul Taylor Dance Company; it's an incredible achievement.

So drum roll, please, for kumu hula Hokulani Holt and her halau Pa'u O Hi'iaka, of Maui, which has been on a whirlwind ride.

"This has been a gratifying experience," said Holt, who mounted a production that explores the little-told tale of Kahekili, said to be Kamehameha the Great's father, who became the de-facto ruler of all but the Big Island.

The show was honored by the National Endowment for the Arts via its American Masterpieces Dance Initiative last year, which triggered and helped fund a resulting tour in California and Arizona and earlier performances on Maui and the Big Island. Now it's Honolulu's chance to see and cheer.

"To share the depth and breadth of hula with others, to bring 'Kahekili' to the rest of the world who may not know his story, and to win a National Endowment for the Arts American masterpiece award ... it's amazing," said Holt, whose day job is cultural programmer for the Maui Arts & Cultural Center.

When the NEA bestowed the honor, it hurled hula kahiko up several notches into the dance mainstream. It also meant the local company had to put a theatrical spin to the history and drama of dance to expand the horizons and boundaries of traditional kahiko for a broader, outside-of-Hawai'i audience.

"To be able to take hula as an equitable, artistic dance form to other stages of the continent was a challenge," Holt said. "When you think of it, 'Kahekili' was the only ethnic, the only cultural one."

She gravitated to Kahekili "because he was from Maui," Holt said. Hometown loyalty and all that.

"But people just don't know his story. They don't know that his activities set up the possibility of Kamehameha's rise," Holt said of his historical significance.

The project had broad implications and needs.

Holt had to provide a study guide to explain Kahekili's importance in Island history, include a vocabulary of common and infrequent Hawaiian terms, describe the range of implements used in Hawaiian performances, etc. Workshops were part of the tour agenda, to support the performance and shed light on the project.

With her passion for hula, "Kahekili" became a mission.

"Hula has been my life — all of my life," Holt said. "I come from a family of kumu hula."

She also is well aware of changes in hula — the good with the bad — over the decades. She's all for innovation but respects tradition.

"Hula has changed radically," she said. "I always see evolution of hula as an evolution of the people's creative look, influenced by the world. It's like that in history: How much we maintain as our own evolution, how much we bring in from others ... it's reflected in music, in theater.

"But for me, it's important to be creative while you bring traditions back — like checking the dots and reconnecting them. I think, for example, the efforts of Patrick Makuakane (and his Na Lei Hulu I Ka Wekiu, who were in Honolulu last weekend), who adds a contemporary flair to hula, is great. But you always have to have a place to go back to and touch the bases."

Sisters and brothers from other halau participated in the show's mounting.

As artistic director, she sought kokua from Maui wizards of dance such as Keali'i Reichel (production designer) and Cliff Pali Ahue (production manager) — in the early endeavor.

The production was commissioned by the Maui Arts & Cultural Center and has matured into a dramatic theatrical wonderment with a cast of 20 performers and two techies, whose efforts are graced with stage lights and sound. Storyteller Moses Goods serves as a bridge to enable viewers to understand, through narration, the elements of Kahekili's life.

So what's next?

"There are a few clickety-clicks going on in my brains," Holt said. "We're still looking for the next creative thing."

Reach Wayne Harada at wharada@honoluluadvertiser.com.