By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Pua Ali'i 'Ilima performs at the Prince Lot Hula Festival.
Kumu hula Vicky Holt Takamine calls the event "a backyard party."

---

Hula, for everyone

At the Prince Lot festival,
hula returns to its roots—family
and the great outdoors

Story By Malia Rulon
Photos by Kathryn Bender
Star-Bulletin

The Prince Lot Hula Festival was a day of ohana, a special time for families performing on the hula mound and those gathered around it.

"It's a great family day," said Shelly Freitas, who came with her mother, husband, sons, daughters-in-laws and grandchildren to watch her daughter Kawehi, 17, perform with Halau Hula O Mililani in the festival on Sunday.

"The festival brings the halau together so they can share aloha with each other in a noncompetitive atmosphere," Freitas said.

"It's a way for the dancers to share with their family."

Jason Kuahiwi Lorenzo brought his family of six to sit under the canopy of banyan trees and watch the show. "It's nice for families," said Lorenzo, who danced with Ka Pa Hula Hawai'i in the festival's opening ceremony.

But for Lorenzo, it was the noncompetitive atmosphere and natural garden setting that made the festival unique.

By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Moanalua Gardens was a comfortable setting for families.

---

"Here, you can express your dance without the strict elements of competitions," Lorenzo said. "And just being outdoors brings you back to nature. You're watching hula like you're back in the 1800s."

This atmosphere of history and ohana radiated through the crowd of about 6,000 that gathered at Moanalua Gardens for the second day of festival. Seated on woven mats, quilts and lawn chairs with their families, the festival guests spent the warm day basking in the excitement of the festival's 20th anniversary.

"It's like a backyard party," said kumu hula Vicky Holt Takamine, who brought her entire halau of 60 dancers to share in the festival. "We come here to enjoy ourselves, to perform the best we can and to share our hula with everyone."

But the festival is important to Takamine for another reason as well. It is the only hula event that includes her entire halau.

"Most of the other hula events are competitions and at competitions you can only take the best dancers," Takamine said. "Prince Lot embodies the family spirit, because the whole halau comes to perform."

By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
A dancer with Halau Hula O Mililani peeks out
between the ti leaves before taking the stage.

---

And that includes everyone -- mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, aunts, uncles, nieces, nephews and tutus.

"The moms come and help the keiki get ready, and the dads play the music," Takamine said. "Thunderous applause is also required of daddies."

Although her dancers include husbands and wives and mothers and daughters, she added, everyone who comes to kokua and share in the dancing is part of the halau's ohana.

"My mom comes and cooks and helps with the leis and my sister-in-law makes the costumes."

This spirit has been with hula for generations, part of an oral tradition that has tied the Hawaiian culture together for centuries.

"In a family, the grandparents were responsible for handing down their life's knowledge to their grandchildren," said kumu hula Frank Kawaikapuokalani Hewett.

"And that cycle has repeated time and time again. With all aspects of our culture, everyone has that responsibility."

Hewett said that when his Kuhai Halau O Kawaikapuokalani Pa Olapa Kahiko first performed at Moanalua in 1978, many in his halau were young and had no children. Now, some have passed away, but many children have been born.

By Kathryn Bender, Star-Bulletin
Halau Hula O Mililani performs at the Prince Lot
Hula Festival, a dance exhibition held outdoors at
Moanalua Gardens. The event's noncompetitive
format gives dancers a relaxed stage for their art.

---

"I am now imparting my life's knowledge to my children," Hewett said. "And I see everyone who walks into my halau as my children."

Hewett, once called "the rebel of hula," shares in the tradition passed down from his grandmother, Iwa Kanae of Kaneohe, an expert in folk arts, and his great aunt Emma Defries, a student of the well-known kumu hula Keaka Kanahele.

"This is living history," he said. "It's a legacy that continues."

And the Prince Lot festival is a part of that legacy. Halau that are new to the festival will return in 20 years with just as many fond memories, Hewett said.

"Moanalua is not just a hula festival," Hewett said. "Moanalua is a part of hula history."