Annual hula performance celebrates Kamehameha, Kūhīo and kūpuna

ʻEia Ka Hula will celebrate beloved Waimea elders along with two of the most significant leaders in Hawaiian history — King Kamehameha the Great and Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole.

ʻEia Ka Hula is an annual performance by the over 170-year-old Beamer Solomon Hālau O Poʻohala, led by Loea Kumu Hula (revered hula master/teacher) Hulali Solomon Covington and Kākau ʻŌlelo (record keeper) Malama Solomon.

The performance explores Hawaiian history, culture, and community ties.

Through historical anecdotes, personal Beamer-Solomon family stories, hula, oli (chants), and mele (songs), the hālau will perform “Eō Mai E Nā Pua O Hawaiʻi” to share the backstory and deeper meanings of why Hawaiʻi annually celebrates King Kamehameha Day and Prince Kūhiō Day.

As early as 1871, then-King Kamehameha V proclaimed a holiday to honor and celebrate his grandfather, Kamehameha the Great, as the founding father of the Hawaiian Kingdom. Subsequently, in 1872, June 11 officially became Hawaiʻi’s first state holiday — King Kamehameha Day.

The hula kahiko portion of the program will feature traditional dances and oli dedicated to the memory of the Kamehameha dynasty, including the 116-year-old mandate from Kamehameha the Great’s legacy, “Ua Mau Ke Ea O Ka ʻĀina I Ka Pono,” which means, “The life of the land is perpetuated in righteousness.”

The next segment of the performance will feature hula ʻauana, a more modern style of dancing recognized by the program’s second honoree, who is honored annually March 26 on Prince Kūhiō Day.

Prince Kūhiō Day was formally established in 1949 by the Legislature of the Territory of Hawaiʻi because members considered Prince Kūhiō to be one of the best-known Hawaiian leaders in Hawaiʻi’s modern history and he served as an honorary member of the U.S. Congress.

Prince Kūhiō’s political tenure as a congressman influenced the modernization of Hawaiʻi’s cultural, social, and economic life with the preservation of Native Hawaiian ancestral lands through the establishment of the Hawaiian Homestead Act of 1920.

The program will then turn to honoring the hula matriarch of the hālau’s elder class, Aunty Aulani Wagner Akana, who recently celebrated her 89th birthday and dances regularly with the Beamer-Solomon hālau.

Her five children and their families continue to be deeply committed to the perpetuation and preservation of the paniolo (Hawaiian cowboy) legacy of Waimea — as ranchers, exceptional rodeo competitors, and Nā Wahine O Paʻū (women on horseback).

A film clip by Ari Bernstein will share a glimpse of her children and grandchildren living Waimea’s paniolo heritage, and several of her great-granddaughters will be among the hālau’s keiki dancers.

Throughout the show, keiki haumāna (students), known as the Nā Hala, will share hula favorites including “Pūpū Hinuhinu,” a hula noho (sitting hula) that is a lullaby written by the hālau kumu’s great-grandmother, Helen Desha Beamer, for her granddaughter, the late Winona Desha Beamer.

The annual performance includes an annual silent auction featuring a four-string Kamaka ʻukulele restored by Leonard Librizzi of Waimea, which will support the hālau’s participation in hula festivals throughout the state and this summer in Sacramento, Calif.

ʻEia Ka Hula will begin at 5 p.m. on Saturday, March 22, at Hawaiʻi Preparatory Academy’s Gates Theater in Waimea. Tickets are $25 and are available from hālau members and at the door.

For tickets and more information, call Loea Kumu Hulali Solomon Covington at 808-938-8620.