DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Their long hair swaying, dancers from Halau Hula 'O Kawaili'ula, performed Friday night at the 39th Annual Merrie Monarch Festival.

Natural wonders

Passion, joy and attention to the
small things help define the
Merrie Monarch experience

---

By Scott Vogel
svogel@starbulletin.com

Hilo >> One way to get to Lorna Onori's booth at the Merrie Monarch Arts and Crafts Fair was to take a left turn at the rack of hibiscus decals and then a sharp right at the Hula Supply Center, which, if you're interested, is normally located just off the lobby of the Naniloa Hotel (slogan: "Come visit us by the elevators").

From there you continued past the salt shakers decorated to look like red anthurium, jogged right at the koa wood yo-yos, went straight again past Ekini Lindsey's kahiko hula dolls ("They're made of silk, and silk is forever," said a patron to her friend), until at last you reached Ms. Onori, who sat dwarfed by a sign that might have hung over the entire Merrie Monarch Festival.

"Natural and Unnatural" is not only the blunt name of Onori's small business venture, but also a handy way to understand how Aunty Dottie Thompson's megahit hula fest -- which next year celebrates 40 years -- defines and judges itself. But now we're getting ahead of ourselves.

"These are real feathers, this is real bougainvillea," said Onori, describing a hatband that this day sold for $20. Inches away, however, and just as lovely to the undiscriminating, was a synthetic bougainvillea band (the blue color was a dead giveaway) which "lasts forever -- you can go swimming in them and everything."

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM The ladies of Hula Halau O Kamuela, decked in flowing ti leaves, gave a first-place performance in the kahiko portion of the competition.

For eternity, you would need to fork over $30, but that was a steal compared to the $89 Lindsey charged for immortality, the Honolulu merchant's dolls a study in velvet, silk and polyester, and a major hit at the craft fair.

"You can definitely customize your doll," she said, peering at a table full of hula mannequins frozen forever in one pose or another. "You say, 'Ekini, I want doll No. 37. I love her stance, but I would like the red (dress),' so what I do is make the red holoku and adorn them with either a yellow or white base." Lindsey brings them to life, and the rest is up to you.

"A lot of people say, 'Why don't you name your dolls?' and we say no, because when you come and you say, 'Oh, this looks like my Auntie Maile' or 'Gosh, this looks like my Uncle George,' we want you to capture that person in our doll."

Compared to the passion and unadulterated joy demonstrated by the halau that mounted the stage at Edith Kanaka'ole Stadium the entire weekend, Lindsey's tabletop halau was an emotional let-down. Devoid of expression and posed every which way, they wouldn't have garnered many points from this year's panel of seven judges, who sat under their own "natural and unnatural" sign of sorts. But at least there can be agreement about the dolls -- they definitely weren't real. No such consensus can be found in the bracing, nonpoly-blended world of competitive hula, where real and unreal are still a matter of great debate.

"Sometimes, when you watch dancers -- I call it fluff," said Maelia Carter, kumu hula of Honolulu's Ka Pa Hula O Kauanoe O Wa'ahila and granddaughter of the great, un-fluffy "Auntie Mae" Loebenstein. "It looks nice. They've got the picture. But it never comes from here." She gestured toward her heart. "You never see the lights on. And for me that's a turn-off." Salvation for these hula Pinocchios, according to Carter, lies in joining a halau that sticks to its traditions.

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Elegance was found even in the mundane, as a dancer for Halau Ka Ua Kani Lehua depicted the effects of back pain during the kahiko competition.

"Unfortunately, I've seen it where a halau may have entered 10 years ago and their style has maybe changed five or six times in that 10 years. They just kind of do what last year's winner did." Not only does this lead to heartless hula, Carter said, but also monotonous competitions in which all the halau "suddenly decide that they're going to be copycats. There's no originality there."

A prime target for copycats, it would seem, is the Hula Halau O Kamuela, which as of Saturday has now won the overall wahine title four years running. Led by the charismatic and opinionated Paleka Leina'ala Mattos and her brother Kunewa Mook (sadly, many of those opinions were delivered off the record), this is a halau that consistently finds unity in opposites, ancient in the modern and modern in the ancient.

"Everything that I do is very traditional," said Mattos, by way of explaining her phenomenal success. "What I've done is brought it up to the present time so people can understand it. People say it's 'today's hula.' It's not today's hula. Everything I've done was done a long time ago, and what I've done is upgrade it and make it look like something different."

However Hula Halau O Kamuela achieves this synthesis, it certainly works. During the 'auana portion of the event, the corps of 34 wahine was as pretty as dolls, though displaying the twinkling eyes no doll could ever match. And then there was the slight variation you saw when you looked close -- the way one girl preferred a tighter bun or looser plumeria lei, how the green anthuriums in their hair were cocked at slightly different angles. Part of what makes the Merrie Monarch Festival a thoroughly human story is the way tiny details can take on a major importance. What's small and modest and therefore dismissed elsewhere is never forgotten in Hilo, a town that, like any good kumu hula, prefers the heartfelt over the flashy.

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Halau Hula Olana, in gowns of pink, performed Saturday night during the 'auana portion of the competition, earning fourth place. This, coupled with a third-place win in the kahiko competition, put the halau in third place overall for wahine.

Take the annual Royal Parade, for instance, which lumbers through the streets of town at a pace that might charitably be described as leisurely. (H-1 at rush hour moves quicker.) But the residents, long accustomed to lingering over minutia, are distinctly unfazed.

"You better smile, boy -- show me some teeth," commanded Jodi Pereira from her lawn chair perched on the sidewalk overlooking Keawe Street. A glum-looking Hilo boy on horseback promptly bolted to life, flashing a grin that elicited applause from Pereira and her cohorts, who live just up the road. During the past two hours, they've watched as Hilo's Swinging Grannies scooted by on motorcycles (slogan: "We paid our dues, now we cruise"), clapped for the employees of the local Wal-Mart -- who pushed a team of ti-leaf-decorated grocery carts down the street -- waved to the first runner-up in the toddler division of the Royal Hawaiian Baby Miss Popularity Contest, and cheered the gang from Hilo Moose Lodge No. 2379, who sailed by on a flatbed. They already knew more than half the parade participants (Pereira's a bus driver), saw little they hadn't seen before and wouldn't trade it for the world.

"Honolulu's so fast, you know?" she said. "To get from this street to that street over there, you gotta take five different lanes. That's a little bit too much for me. I'd rather just sit here, enjoy and relax."

Still, as Pereira's friend Vanessa Kahikikolo pointed out, there's pleasure in the annual round of attention Hilo receives.

"We cannot compete with Oahu, and I think this is the only event that brings us up to their standards." she said. "It's exciting to see all the people here."

And does the influx ever tempt them to pull up stakes for life in the big city?

"Oh, hell no," Pereira said immediately. "Never," Kahikikolo added. Their town, unlike Honolulu, has something eternal about it, something that's all the more real to them for being comfortably predictable.

"Hilo is Hilo, and it will always be the same," said Pereira as she gathered up her things for the walk home. "Look, it was sunny about 15 minutes ago, hot as hell, and now it's going to rain. And it's not even going to bother us, because that's what comes with Hilo."

If only hula were so easily defined.

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM Members of Hula Halau O Kamuela, from left, Uilani Estavilla, Kayla Sakumoto, Kasey Reyes and Jasmine Orlando celebrated their win in the wahine kahiko competition. The halau would go on to win the 'auana division and the overall title. The halau has won the overall wahine title for four years.

FINAL TALLY

Here are the results of Friday and Saturday night's Merrie Monarch Festival competition:

Overall Winner

Hula Halau O Kamuela (kumu hula Paleka Leina'ala Mattos and Kunewa Mook), Waimanalo/Kalihi; 1,228 points

Wahine Overall

First: Hula Halau O Kamuela (kumu hula Paleka Leina'ala Mattos and Kunewa Mook); Waimanalo/Kalihi; 1,228 points
Second: Halau Ka Ua Kani Lehua (kumu hula Johnny Lum Ho), Hilo; 1,193 points (won on tiebreaker)
Third: Halau Hula Ohana (kumu hula Howard and Olana Ai), 'Aiea; 1,193 points

Kane Overall

First: Halau Ka Ua Kani Lehua (kumu hula Johnny Lum Ho), Hilo; 1,181 points
Second: Ka Pa Hula o Kamehameha (kumu hula Holoua Stender), Kapalama-Uka, Oahu; 1,171 points
Third: Halau Hula 'O Kawaili'ula (kumu hula Chinky Mahoe), Kailua, Oahu; 1,169 points

Wahine Kahiko

First: Hula Halau O Kamuela (kumu hula Paleka Leina'ala Mattos and Kunewa Mook), Waimanalo/Kalihi; 613 points
Second: Halau Ka Ua Kani Lehua (kumu hula Johnny Lum Ho), Hilo; 598 points
Third: Halau Hula Ohana (kumu hula Howard and Olana Ai), 'Aiea; 593 points
Fourth: Ka Pa Hula O Kauanoe O Wa'ahila (kumu hula Maelia Carter), Honolulu; 586 points
Fifth: Keolalaulani Halau 'Olapa 'O Laka (kumu hula Aloha Dalire), He'eia, Kaneohe; 585 points

Wahine 'Auana

First: Hula Halau O Kamuela (kumu hula Paleka Leina'ala Mattos and Kunewa Mook), Waimanalo/Kalihi; 615 points
Second: Halau Hula 'O Kawaili'ula (kumu hula Chinky Mahoe), Kailua, Oahu; 611 points
Third: Ka Pa Hula o Kamehameha (kumu hula Holoua Stender), Kapalama-Uka, Oahu; 602 points
Fourth: Halau Hula Ohana (kumu hula Howard and Olana Ai), 'Aiea; 600 points
Fifth: Halau Ka Ua Kani Lehua (kumu hula Johnny Lum Ho), Hilo; 595 points

Kane Kahiko

First: Halau Ka Ua Kani Lehua (kumu hula Johnny Lum Ho), Hilo; 594 points
Second: Halau Hula 'O Kahikilaulani (kumu hula Ray Fonseca), Hilo; 573 points (won on tiebreaker)
Third: Halau Hula 'O Kawaili'ula (kumu hula Chinky Mahoe), Kailua, Oahu; 573 points
Fourth: Halau Ke Kia'i A 'O Hula (kumu hula Kapi'olani Ha'o), Honolulu, 571 points

Kane 'Auana

First: Ka Pa Hula o Kamehameha (kumu hula Holoua Stender), Kapalama-Uka, Oahu; 603 points
Second: Halau Hula 'O Kawaili'ula (kumu hula Chinky Mahoe), Kailua, Oahu; 596 points
Third: Halau Hula 'O Kahikilaulani (kumu hula Ray Fonseca), Hilo; 595 points
Fourth: Halau I Ka Wekiu (kumu hula Karl Veto Baker and Michael Casupang), Honolulu; 588 points

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