AYUMI NAKANISHI / ANAKANISHI@STARBULLETIN.COM Pleasant Hawaiian Hula Show dancer Kekoa Corpuz, left, hugged Music Chairwoman E. Moana Chang yesterday after their last performance at the Waikiki Shell.

Performers hug and cry as the
former Kodak Hula Show ends

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By Genevieve A. Suzuki
gsuzuki@starbulletin.com

Male dancers blew into conch shells, announcing the beginning of the end for the 65-year-old Pleasant Hawaiian Hula Show yesterday at the Waikiki Shell.

When host May Akeo Brown said, "Haina ia mai ana ka puana," it took on special meaning. "Thus ends our song," Brown said, translating the phrase midway through the production, formerly the Kodak Hula Show.

After the hour-and-a-half show, the dancers hugged and cried. It ended a 65-year tradition -- a scene on many postcards from Hawaii and in many visitors' memories.

But for the 74-year-old Brown, it's time to say aloha 'oe.

"This time it's for sure, and I'm ready for it," said Brown, who has been with the show since 1938.

In 1999 the show almost closed when the Eastman Kodak Co. ended its sponsorship, but was saved when the California-based Hogan Family Foundation picked it up. But the foundation could not keep the show going, unsuccessful in its search for a new sponsor.

Brown said nothing has really changed since the show began in 1937. The show survived as long as it did "because it's a good show and it's a freebie," she said.

STAR-BULLETIN / 1997 Cast members of the Pleasant Hawaiian Hula Show, formerly known as the Kodak Hula Show, have been entertaining audiences for 65 years.

In yesterday's performance, women wearing blue outfits and orange ilima leis and men in white long-sleeved shirts, black slacks and red hula skirts performed kahiko, or traditional Hawaiian, songs for hundreds of people in the audience.

After the kahiko portion of the show, seven women of the Royal Hawaiian Glee Club came out dressed in muumuus, leis and straw hats to play ukuleles, guitars and an upright bass for the auwana, or modern, portion of the show.

"You'll never find a show like this," said spectator "Uncle George" Domen, a musician who also goes by "Hawaiian George, the One and Only" and whose sister-in-law used to be a dancer in the show.

Domen, a 69-year-old Maili resident, said the show will be sorely missed "as long as people come from the mainland."

After the show, Domen took his ukulele out to play Kui Lee's "I'll Remember You."

July 6, 1939

"It provided an opportunity for the basics of Hawaii to be enjoyed and to be remembered," said spectator Van Horn Diamond, grandnephew of a founding member of the show, Louise Akeo Silva.

Diamond said many well-known dancers began their careers with the show. Among the show's hula dancers yesterday was the reigning Miss Hawaii, Kehaulani Christian, and Miss Aloha Hula, Malia Peterson.

For Diamond the show isn't ending, because so many dancers in other shows began at the Kodak Hula Show.

"(The show) continues through all the others," Diamond said. "It has been a nurturing ground."

Diamond's wife, Kathryn, began dancing in the show about 25 years ago. "It used to be a privilege to be asked to dance for this show," she said. "It's not for the money. If it was for the money, nobody would be here." After the traditional closing song, "Hawaii Aloha," performers cried and hugged each other as people crowded the lawn.

Show emcee Kimo Kahoano introduced Brown as "the hallmark of what this show is about."

Her aunt, Louise Silva, recruited her as a dancer when she was 10 years old.

"It wasn't easy for us," Brown said. "When my friends were out on the weekend, we had lessons."

But Brown's aunt was relentless. "(Silva) said, 'You've already started so don't give up. You can do it,'" Brown said. Before Brown performed in the Kodak Hula Show, she narrated her aunt's shows at the Royal Hawaiian Hotel and what is now the Sheraton Moana Surfrider.

"My aunt said, 'As long as you can walk, talk and sing, you're going to take care of the show,'" Brown said. "You've got to love it to do it."