[ IN AN 'EXOTIC' LAND ]
Kumu hula Noenoelani Zuttermeister and her halau will perform.
It’s a hapa haole
happening
Here's an oft-told scenario: You're thousands of miles from home. The locals are looking at you with some suspicion -- or worse. Then they discover that you're from Hawaii. Now, whatever your actual ethnicity, they can't do enough for you.
You've just been the beneficiary of the worldwide popularity of hapa haole music.
It's showtime
"Under a Tropic Moon: 100 Years of Hapa Haole Hula"Where: Hawaii Theatre
When: 7:30 p.m. tomorrow and 2 p.m. Sunday
Tickets: $37 general, $32 for seniors
Call: 528-0506
"We may not all agree as to what is the good image of Hawaii that is being represented in a (hapa haole) song, but nonetheless, when movies are being made and Hawaii is being mentioned, people become very interested. All you have to do is mention that one word, Hawaii, and ears open up. ... It just draws people," says Noenoelani Zuttermeister, who is presenting the two-night "Under a Tropic Moon: 100 Years of Hapa Haole Hula" this weekend at the Hawaii Theatre.
Zuttermeister and her halau will be joined by guest dancers from Halau Mehanaokala, Mark Yim & The Blue Hawaiian Band, the Wiki Waki Woo Serenaders, and Loretta Ables. The production is a fundraiser for the Thomas Keola Ahsing Scholarship for students in the College of Engineering at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
Ahsing studied hula and chant with Zuttermeister and her mother, kumu hula Kaui Zuttermeister, and was also a member of the Structural Engineers Association of Hawaii and the Construction Specifiers Institute. He died of complications from a brain tumor in 2002, and Zuttermeister is now raising the final $35,000 needed to endow a perpetual scholarship in his name at the UH.
The title of the show was inspired by the fact that Albert "Sonny" Cunha wrote the first known hapa haole song, "My Waikiki Mermaid," in 1903. He followed it with "My Honolulu Tomboy" and "My Hawaiian Maid" two years later, and the first hapa haole craze was on.
Hapa haole records, sheet music and player piano rolls became big sellers, and mainland song writers jumped on the bandwagon. Hapa haole and Hawaiian music were hot properties nationwide for years, and then enjoyed renewed popularity with the commercial debut of "the talkies" (movies with sound) and the premiere broadcast of the "Hawaii Calls" radio show in 1935.
Among the props that will be used during the show is a sign from the Hawaiian Room of the Lexington Hotel in New York City, remembered as the top showroom for Hawaiian and hapa haole music on the mainland from the late 1930s until the early 1950s. Ray Kinney, George Kainapau, Andy Iona and Alfred Apaka were four of the top Hawaiian artists who performed there.
Zuttermeister and her musicians and dancers will be doing a bit of everything from 1903 to 2004.
"We cite ('My Waikiki Mermaid') as the first hapa haole song written, and we will start our program with that song and then take the history through Boat Days to the movie era, into the nightclubs ... and then to the wacky part of hapa haole music like 'I Had to Lova and Leva on the Lava" and 'They're Wearing 'em Higher in Hawaii' ... and then we're bringing it up to the present, and songs that we still enjoy, songs like 'Waikiki,' that stay with you forever."
SO WHAT exactly constitutes hapa haole music? If the description is translated literally from Hawaiian to English, it's any type of music that combines elements of Hawaiian and non-Hawaiian music of any type or national origin.
Zuttermeister, however, uses a more specific definition when talking about hapa haole hula.
"Sometimes the music is done with traditional Hawaii 4/4 time, but the words are in English, so that makes it half English, half Hawaiian. Sometimes the words are in Hawaiian, but the beat is syncopated, so that makes it hapa haole. Not necessarily all Hawaiian songs with haole words are hapa haole. Sometimes the words are Hawaiian and the music is not."
Her definition also includes the Tin Pan Alley songs that were pumped out by writers in the early 1900s who'd never been west of Jersey, let alone Hawaii, and who came out with such crazy tunes as "Yacka Hula Hickey Dula" and "Oh, How She Could Yacki Hacki Wicki Woo."
The Wiki Waki Woo Serenaders, who pioneered the local revival of those early Tin Pan Alley tunes, will represent that part of the tradition, while Mark Yim and his partners -- Casey Olsen, Danny Naipo and Brian Tolentino -- will accompany the Zuttermeister ohana with what might be called Hawaiian hapa haole music, and titles like "My Little Grass Shack" and "Little Brown Gal."
But all of these songs represents an idealized image of Hawaii as a hospitable and loving place unlike any other.
And, when all goes well, that's what visitors find when they come here.
"When people come here and meet others that are from here, they immediately find a warmth that they cannot get anywhere in the United States or any place else, and I'm not speaking only for Hawaiians, I'm speaking in general. We just have a whole different way of living."
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