Hapa Haole Hula Competition celebrates a bygone musical era

It’s time to bring out the cellophane hula skirts, the steel guitars and a repertoire of songs from a past era to the stage.

The Hapa Haole Hula Competition, presented by the PA‘I Foundation, takes place for the 12th year on Saturday at the Hawai‘i Theatre, celebrating a musical genre that stretched from 1903 to 1959. It’s a journey back to a time when visitors flocked to the Kodak Hula Show in Waikiki and dancers wore lengthy lei flowing past their hips.

The event, hosted by KCCN’s Harry B. Soria, will conclude with a concert by Teresa Bright and performances by past competition winners.

“It’s like these old postcards coming to life,” Soria said. “All the kumu hula do an incredible amount of research, too. They take it very seriously.”

Solo dancers will be vying for the titles of Miss Hapa Haole and Miss Comic Hula. Group categories include wahine (women), kane (men), combined (men and women), along with kupuna and keiki.

The birth of hapa-haole songs took place about 1903 with musician Sonny Cunha, according to Soria. Cunha is credited with popularizing hapa-haole songs — typically written in English with a sprinkling of Hawaiian words — with his composition, “My Waikiki Mermaid.” The English lyrics were more accessible to visitors as well as the masses.

Hapa-haole music went through five periods, according to Soria, with various influences, ranging from ragtime to jazz to big band music. It made its way from Hawaii to New York City’s Tin Pan Alley (the collective name for the city’s music publishers and songwriters), which produced songs like “My Isle of Golden Dreams,” and then to Hollywood, which produced songs like “Blue Hawaii” and “Sweet Leilani.”

Hawaii had its “golden period” in the 1920s and 1930s, Soria said, with composers like Johnny Noble and Harry Owens.

PA‘I Foundation’s executive director, Vicky Holt Takamine, revived the festival to celebrate the genre, which she said was oftentimes rejected following the Hawaiian cultural renaissance of the 1970s.

“Now, it’s important for the younger generation of practitioners to appreciate the value and contribution that this genre of music has had to Hawaii,” Takamine said in a press release. “Not all the songs were good, some were really bad, but they all have something to teach this generation about the world we live in, regardless of what era we come from.”

The lineup this year includes Ka Hale I o Kahala, which under the direction of kumu Leimomi Maldonado has placed at the competition every year since entering in 2007. Halau Kilipohe Na Lei Lehua, under the direction of kumu Sky Gora and Liko Cooke, will be entering the wahine group competition this year. Both graduated from kumu Leina‘ala Kalama Heine, and danced for her in the very first competition in 2004. Another halau is coming from Japan.

Kumu Kilohana Silve decided to enter dancers from her Halau Hula O Manoa for the first time this year to honor both of her kumu, the late Ellen Castillo and the late George Holokai, who both loved and choreographed many hulas to hapa haole music.

She will have a solo dancer compete for Miss Comic Hula and a group of dancers in the kupuna group competition.

“It just seems like a wonderful vehicle to showcase the choreography of both Uncle George and Aunty Ellen,” she said. “I remember growing up with this music. It’s an important part of Hawaiian music history. It changed all the hula masters of that period because it was their period.”

Her solo dancer will perform “I’d Like To See Samoa of Samoa” in honor of Holokai, while the kupuna will perform “My Yellow Ginger Lei,” a favorite of Castillo’s.

As part of her research, she is having her solo dancer watch footage of Holokai teaching the “Samoa” song, originally written for a Broadway musical, from the archives of the Hula Preservation Society.

Soria, longtime host of radio show “Territorial Airwaves,” grew up with hapa-haole musicians in the house. He still has the record collection belonging to his father and grandfather.

“Both Vicky and I share the feeling you cannot abandon this period and say it represents the colonial period, when it represents the music of our grandparents and great-grandparents,” Soria said. “So we need to embrace it, not reject it.”