CULTURE
COURTESY MOANALUA GARDENS FOUNDATION
Since 1978, halau of all ages have performed at the Prince Lot Hula Festival in the spirit of sharing rather than competition.
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How hula saved the gardens
The Prince Lot Hula Festival saved Moanalua Gardens from being destroyed by a plan to run H-3 freeway through it
Trees. The branches reach for the warmth of the sun, the roots fan out in the rich soil. Together they form two halves of a whole, a perfect cycle, an ahupua'a of the rhythms of life, and when Nalani Olds lay beneath the glorious trees of Moanalua Gardens and stared up into the rustling branches, very nearly in a dream state, she saw paths and connections and a kind of organic holism.
And she pondered this.
Prince Lot Hula Festival
"Ko Kakou Kuleana: Our Land, Our Legacy, Our Trust," presented by the Moanalua Gardens Foundation:
Time: 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday
Place: Moanalua Gardens
Donation: $3
Call: 839-5334 or visit www.mgf-hawaii.org
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It was the 1970s and the state really, really, really wanted to run the proposed H-3 freeway through Moanalua Valley. But the project would not only pave over one-of-a-kind archaeological sites, it would pretty much rend Moanalua Gardens into nothingness.
Feelings were running high on both sides. The board of the garden foundation had asked Olds, a Hawaiian entertainer known for her sensitivity to cultural issues, to devise a "people event, something positive for the estate of Samuel Mills Damon," as she recalled. "The estate had preserved the garden, but was pretty quiet. Such fabulous things were being discovered in the valley that it had to be saved."
Executive secretary for the estate was Allen Napoleon -- Olds' husband -- the liaison to all the businesses on estate land in Mapunapuna. "The trustees wanted something positive to occur among all the bad feelings," Olds said.
And so she pondered.
The idea of the Prince Lot Hula Festival came "literally in a dream. I lay in the gardens under the trees and thought about it; I went to sleep every night thinking about it. I met daily with executive director Anna Derby Blackwell and discussed ideas. But I had a dream one night -- a gathering in the garden, smiling faces in harmony -- and I wondered: Would the trustees allow a festival in the garden? Trustees Edwin Porteus, Herman von Holt and Henry Damon, bless their hearts, saw the merit and said, 'Run with it.' "
COURTESY MOANALUA GARDENS FOUNDATION
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Why Prince Lot? The area had been sacred to hula since the days of King Kakuhihewa, and when the sweeping mouth of the valley was inherited by Prince Lot Kapuaiwa, adopted son of Kamehameha's cousin, Kame'eiamoku, he and half-sister Princess Ruth Ke'elikolani did their best to revive hula after it had been banned by missionaries.
"Lot's cottage is on the property, and he was the last caretaker," said Olds. "He very much wanted Hawaii to get back to the way it was before, but at the same time he lived in the present. He's the one who sent to Germany for Henry Berger, who created the Royal Hawaiian Band."
That it would be a festival of hula was self-evident. The catch was that it would be a strictly noncompetitive showcase.
"I always hated the idea of competition," said Olds. "The kumu is the tree, and the branches are the haumana, the students, and they themselves create offshoots, leaves and flowers that are students of students. They grow. They do not compete."
The event was designed "to show the best that hula could be, which meant that it very definitely needed NOT to be a contest," said Blackwell, executive director of the Moanalua Gardens Foundation at the time. "Hula is so basic to the Hawaiian people as a means of transmitting culture that it needed to be preserved without the pressures of competition."
The concept succeeded, both as a festival and as a positive boost to the gardens' image. As many as 10,000 people have shown up.
"The festival has put us rather firmly in the picture as an institution worthy of respect in perpetuating Hawaiian culture," said Blackwell.
COURTESY MOANALUA GARDENS FOUNDATION
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The first festival was held in 1978; in 1980, a permanent performance mound was built.
"We were renting stages, and it was very costly," said Olds. "We talked to Mr. Von Holt about needing a mound, and ironically that day Allen was driving out to Mapunapuna, and the Army Corps of Engineers was working on the Puuloa Interchange. There was a big pile of boulders and dirt there. 'Where is this going?' Allen asked. 'Oh, we'll dump it in Leeward,' they said. 'Could you just dump it over there so we can build a hula mound?' asked Allen. 'No, they said, we'll build it for you!' And so they came a week later and tailored it to our specifications. Magical! What luck!"
John Renken Kaha'iali'io-kaiwi'ulaokamehameha Kauauaamahikalaniki'eki'eokohala Topolinski's traditional halau was chosen to dedicate the new hula mound, and was asked to keep the event as old-style as possible.
"Then it was opened up to other halau," says Topolinski. "The festival over the years has proved one point -- that halau can get together and share and show technique instead of competing. You know the judging can be rather subjective! Instead, halau at the Moanalua festival perform at their best and are honored for what they know. It's very halau-friendly."
Olds is not as involved as she used to be, but she's always at the festival.
"Nalani was always our quality control," said Blackwell. "Trustees come and go, but Nalani is ageless, and I love her dearly."