For hula practitioners and avid spectators, summer is another exciting season for cultural celebration as the Prince Lot Hula Festival takes center stage. While many halau prepare tirelessly for prestigious hula competitions, the Prince Lot Hula Festival distinguishes itself as Hawaii’s premier noncompetitive hula festival. Welcoming halau and dancers of all ages and skill levels, […]
There are many things Hawaii is known for: pineapples, sandy beaches, Duke Kahanamoku and surfing, to name a few. Oh, and cowboys. You heard us correctly. Cowboys, or paniolo in Hawaiian. Few realize that long before cowboys made their way across the Wild West, paniolo were wrangling wild cattle—known for their often-deadly combination of aggression
I make a scoop with my hand and pull out sticky, slippery white beans from a ridged, yellow pod. It’s a cloudy Friday afternoon in Kapaʻa in East Kauaʻi. I’m in a small clearing in a cacao orchard on Lydgate Farms. Every month, Will Lydgate, the owner and namesake of Lydgate Farms, hosts cacao-harvesting volunteer
Few things declare the laid-back Hawaiʻi lifestyle as boldly as the aloha shirt. Like many pivotal origin stories, (take the heated debate over who invented the loco moco in Hilo, for example) the exact party responsible for the birth of the aloha shirt is hard to pin down. One of the most well-known stories goes
“I wanted to paint surfboards, that’s all I wanted to do.” That’s what Eduardo Bolioli, 58, tells me in his colorfully cramped studio space situated between shaping bays and glassing rooms at the Surfboard Factory Hawaii’s Kapolei location. Bolioli, stout, bearded and sporting a South American accent, looks content, relaxed even, in his little nook,
On Memorial Day in 1999, Her Holiness Shinso Ito, Head Priest of Shinnyo-en, officiated the inaugural Lantern Floating Hawaii ceremony at Keehi Lagoon on Oahu’s south shore. In 2002, the ceremony was moved to the beach at Ala Moana Regional Park, where it has grown into one of the largest remembrance ceremonies in the country. In 2019,
The Na Hoku Hanohano Awards concluded last Saturday night, and Hawaii’s top musicians have been awarded for their talent and hard work. Below, you can check out some of the albums and singles that were so good that they had to be given an award in their specified genre or category, such as Single of
There I was, standing in front of the Historic County Building in downtown Lihue one afternoon last November, wrapping a tape measure around the thick trunk of an old kukui when I realized it was official: I am a tree hugger. That’s not a big surprise. I grew up in the Midwest climbing trees. This
After three full days of competition, the 2019 Merrie Monarch Festival is officially over. Twenty-four hula halau (hula schools) competed in auana (modern) and kahiko (traditional) styles of hula, and schools were split into wahine (women) and kane (men) divisions. A panel of judges reviewed each performance and assigned points to each halau using the Merrie Monarch judging sheet before announcing who
Every year, the Merrie Monarch Festival awards one exceptional wahine (female) hula dancer the title of Miss Aloha Hula, something many hula practioners work their entire lives to obtain. This year, Taizha Keakealani Hughes-Kaluhiokalani won this prestigious award, which is given out after a fierce day of competition where 13 dancers vied for the title. Hughes-Kaluhiokalani comes from Kalihi-based hula halau (hula school) Halau Hiiakainamakalehua and
Every year, Hawaii’s top musicians are celebrated and awarded for their efforts at the Na Hoku Hanohano Awards, Hawaii’s annual premier music award show. Although the event is still a ways off, May 25, finalists have been selected for the many categories the Na Hoku Hanohano Awards celebrates, such as Single of the Year, Music
If you didn’t get a ticket to watch the Merrie Monarch Festival, Hawaii’s premier hula competition, don’t feel bad, not many of us did. But just because you aren’t going to be able to see the hula halau (hula schools) perform in-person doesn’t mean you can’t see it at all. Below is the schedule of events for the three
