28 Sunday, April 1, 2018 Hawaii Tribune-Herald
2018 Merrie Monarch Festival
Sticking to their style
Overall winners
in 2017 return
to defend title
For the first time in three years,
the previous year’s overall
champions return to the Merrie
Monarch Festival hula competition
stage to defend their title.
Ka La ‘Onohi Mai o Ha‘eha‘e, a
Kaneohe, Oahu, halau under the direction
of co-kumu hula and married couple
Tracie and Keawe Lopes, became
the first wahine (women’s) halau
to win the group competition since
Maui’s Halau Ke‘alaokamaile, whose
kumu is Hawaiian music icon Keali‘i
Reichel, took the Lokalia Montgomery
Perpetual Trophy in 2011.
“This will be our 10th year participating
in the competition, said
Keawe Lopes, who teaches Hawaiian
language at the University of Hawaii
at Manoa. “But when you’re the
overall winners and you’re at the
end, it increases your anxiety, making
sure you represent really well.”
Tracie Lopes, who teaches Hawaiian
language at Hawaii Pacific University,
said she’s “more in the excited
realm” about the halau’s return.
“It was sort of surreal, for both of
us, to be called first overall,” she said.
“I think after the state of shock for the
first week after the competition, we
looked back, and we’re so proud of the
girls. We’re teachers and our kids are
teenagers, so balancing halau with our
profession and the kids’ schedules was
challenging last year. To be at the top
was exciting and we’re so appreciative.
We’re excited, we’re a bit anxious, but
this year, like every year, we do our
best to tell the story that we chose.
We’re really excited to get back to Hilo
and share again and do our very best.”
As returning champions, they will
be the last of the 29 groups — 20
wahine and nine kane — to perform in
hula kahiko (ancient hula) on Friday
and hula ‘auana (modern hula) on
Saturday. The halau also performed in
the final spot last year because 2016
overall and kane (men’s) champions
Halau Na Mamo O Pu‘uanahulu,
under the direction kumu hula Sonny
Ching and Lopaka Igarta-De Vera,
and wahine overall winners, Halau Ka
Ua O Kani Lehua of Hilo, under the
direction of kumu hula Johnny Lum
Ho, elected not to compete in 2017.
The halau won the group ‘auana
with the final performance of
the competition, but it was their
group kahiko performance, which
came in second by a single point
to Halau Hi‘iakainamakalehua,
that set hula cognoscenti abuzz.
“We ended the kahiko night with
a ma‘i, which is a procreation chant,
celebrating the genitalia of Queen
Kapi‘olani,” Keawe Lopes said. “And
I think the last time somebody did
a ma‘i was actually Keali‘i Reichel,
those years when he won, but he did
it as part of his competition selection.
We did it as our ho‘i (exit chant),
ending the entire night. In a hula
performance, the proper protocol is
to do the genitalia chant at the end of
any performance to have life continue
on, being that the genitalia is where
life begins for the next generation.
“This the first time that a genitalia
chant was done not only at the end of
a performance but at the end of the
night for hula kahiko competition.”
Tracie Lopes said the historic
timing was unintentional.
“We chose our mele and then
we realized, wow, we’re last. Wow,
what a way to end the competition.
Manu (Boyd) said it on the
TV commentary, too,” she said.
Keawe Lopes said the halau’s
kahiko performance this year will be
a hula noho (seated hula) with ipu
heke (double-gourd percussion).
“We’re going to be celebrating
(David La‘amea) Kawananakoa, who
was the grandfather of Abigail Kinoiki,
the current princess,” he said. “Not
many mele are done about him because
he was one of the younger chiefs.
We’ll be doing a chant for him called
‘He Inoa No Kalani.’ We’re excited
about that because we had the girls
make their own ipu to dance with.
We’ll be doing our closing prayer on
all the ipu the girls are dancing with.”
Their ‘auana will be “Wehiwehi
Manoa,” written by Zachary Lum of
multiple Hoku award-winning traditional
Hawaiian trio Keauhou and
a student of Keawe Lopes at UH.
“We’ll be celebrating the students
that go to Manoa to further their
education. Manoa has been kind of a
second home for Tracie and I. That’s
where we met; that’s where we got
our degrees. For awhile, she worked
there. I’ve been working there for the
past 20 years. A lot of our students
are graduates from UH, or attend
UH, so we’re excited to celebrate
education and celebrate Manoa.”
“When they first sang it for us
before the CD came out, we were
backstage at keiki hula,” Tracie
Lopes recalled. “They sang it in
the dressing room. They said,
‘We’re going to record this song.’
By JOHN BURNETT
Hawaii Tribune-Herald
Tribune-Herald file photo
Ka La ‘Onohi Mai o Ha‘eha‘e dance in the 2017 Merrie Monarch Festival.
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