Monthly Archives: April 2008

Community, Where We Live

Merrie Monarch Week 2008

I love Merrie Monarch week in Hilo.

Hilo absolutely shines every year during Merrie Monarch week, which started Sunday. Hula dancers and hula fans

descend upon this town from the other islands, from other states and even from other countries, for our annual, huge, week-long celebration of hula.

During Merrie Monarch week every year, when there are so many more Hawaiian people than usual around town, I feel like I can squint my eyes and almost see what it was like here a couple hundred years ago.

And there is hula everywhere. Here is the halau of well-known California kumu Mark Keali‘i Ho‘omalu practicing outside one of the hotels on Banyan Drive yesterday morning.

And I love the craft fairs with beautiful Hawaiian products, and the food, and the demonstrations and talks and everything Hawaiian.

Here are some of the other things I really enjoy about Merrie Monarch week in Hilo:

• Hearing lots of people around town speaking Hawaiian

• Hula performances everywhere!

• Seeing all the beautiful, woven lauhala hats people wear

• People wearing amazing flowers in their hair. And lei. And beautiful, genuine smiles.

• Seeing the living traditions that people still practice. Such as this hula by Halau O Kekuhi, who performed at Wednesday night’s Ho‘ike, a free performance every year during Merrie Monarch week. It was a thrill to see this renowned halau dancing in the open-air Edith Kanaka‘ole Stadium with Mauna Kea behind them.

• Hearing Hawaiian music

• Seeing Uncle George Na‘ope around town

• People who spontaneously stand up and do a hula because they’ve just gotta dance!

This was unplanned. This woman in the audience was sitting, doing the hula from her chair as she enjoyed this familiar anthem to Hilo, and then just cast aside her cane — really — and got up and danced, to great applause. It was wonderful.

• Seeing cultural traditions survive, and thrive

• Little 3-year-olds up on stage with their elders, dancing hula

• Seeing how many people—young, old, male, female—appreciate hula

At the Hilo Hawaiian on Tuesday, Iwalani Kalima’s halau performed. At one point, the students kneeled on the stage and pulled two sticks, which they would use in the upcoming hula, out of their waistbands. The kumu (teacher), Iwalani, was at the ipu, but suddenly she stood up and climbed on the stage.

She kneeled down next to the tiniest girl — could she even have been 3 years old? Maybe only 2 — and started fumbling around with the girl’s outer skirt. “She lost hers,” she finally said to the audience, and we realized the girl’s sticks had slipped inside her costume. Iwalani had to lift up the outer skirts and hunt around inside the elaborate costume for the little girl’s sticks. It went on for quite some time and was cute and hilarious. Here’s that performance.

There are a hundred other stories and photos and videos I could show you. Search “Merrie Monarch” at YouTube if you’d like to see more.

You can also watch tonight’s Merrie Monarch program live on KITV’s website. It’s Hula Kahiko, traditional hula, and it runs from 6 p.m. to 11

p.m. The final night, which will also stream live on KITV, is tomorrow and runs from 5:30 p.m. to midnight.

And then you can start making your plans to be here in Hilo next year!

Music

Slack Key Class

Richard asked Macario to say a few words about the slack key guitar class they both took recently, which was taught by slack key master Cyril Pahinui.

The class, held at the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo, was popular — so many signed up that they had to split the group into two different classes.

Macario says it was Richard’s “fault” he was there. “Richard told me about this class coming up, and I signed up at the very last minute. It was fun taking the class with a friend. We were having so much fun, we wouldn’t play we would just listen. You get caught up when he starts to play, and we’d just put our guitars down and listen to him playing.”

“Richard was into it,” he says. “Both of us were. He and I were just like two little kids at a candy store. It was great.”

Macario was a professional musician in his “former life” — a couple decades ago, before changing careers and becoming a photographer. But he played drums, not guitar, and says he always wanted to learn slack key.

“It’s more than just playing the music,” he says. “There’s a feeling to the music. Cyril kept saying, ‘Don’t play how I play. Play how you feel.’ Because when you’re playing, and you’re in that groove, then something happens. Because you can move people.”

Cyril’s father was the late great Gabby Pahinui, the legend in Hawaiian slack key, and he learned to play guitar from his father since he was a young boy.

Macario says Cyril taught his father’s tuning — the way he tuned his guitar. In older days, this information was private and never shared. So why does Cyril teach it now?

Cyril told the class he likes to pass it on. “He said if he doesn’t teach anybody, and nobody carries it on after him, then he’s going to lose it.”

Macario says he’d definitely take a class from Cyril again. “There’s so much coming at you. I think it made the beginners a little scared. But it’s good for them. It’s good for them to see we can all do this. All you have to do is work at it. If you practice everything he taught you in this class, then when he comes back to teach the next one you’ll be ready for that class.”

“The music is just in him,” he says. “And in class, he’s coming at ya. It’s a lifetime, two lifetimes of music coming at you, and you’d better pick up what you can because you’ve only got six classes to do it.”

He says he’s still trying to find his way around his guitar. “But everything Cyril taught us just makes sense,” he says. “If you practice what Cyril taught in that class, you can pretty much play any Hawaiian song. And not only did Cyril teach the class, he made people go up and jam with him. How many chances do you get to play with Cyril Pahinui?”

He says the class was a nice surprise. “Before, his dad just overshadowed everything because he was so great. But Cyril is on his own and carrying on the tradition even without his dad.

“And Cyril himself is ‘the man’ now,” he says. “He’s the icon now. He is a great slack key player in his own right.”