Surf legend Gerry Lopez to host Hawaii premiere of film

Famed surfer/yogi Gerry Lopez, known as “Mr. Pipeline” for his pioneer tube-riding at the lethal North Shore break, will make a rare, hometown appearance Monday at Hawaii Theatre for the island premiere of “The Yin and Yang of Gerry Lopez,” an intimate, revelatory, feature-length documentary directed by award-winning filmmaker Stacy Peralta.

The film shows classic, 1970s scenes where a young Lopez sights and turns with apparent, laid-back stillness into menacing Pipeline caverns, but he was actually working and focusing with all his might, drawing deeply on his yoga training, he reveals.

“Yoga and surfing have been the most yin/yang balancing act of my entire life,” Lopez says in the film, which alternates interviews with him and other surf industry legends, including Barry Kanaiaupuni and Randy Rarick, with breathtaking wave-riding in Hawaii and Indonesia.

The peaceful yin of yoga tempered the aggressive yang of his surfing, Lopez says, adding, “I want to apologize to all the people that I stole waves from.”

What the magazines and surf films don’t show, Lopez says, are all the horrific wipeouts and injuries, including a perforated intestine, in between the legendary rides.

The honesty with which the septuagenarian examines the arc of his still-active life makes this a film anyone can learn from, identify with and thoroughly enjoy.

Doors open at 6:30 p.m. Monday with live music by Kawika Kahiapo and slides by surf photographer Dana Edmonds; the screening starts at 7 p.m., followed with two live songs from Brother Noland and a talk story with Lopez.

Tickets are $10. Patagonia is donating a portion of the proceeds to Hawaii Theatre and Kokua Hawai’i Foundation; the latter will also benefit from lobby sales of Lopez’s book “Surf Is Where You Find It.”

For more, go to hawaiitheatre.com.