The morning after each monday night, Jodi Ascuena and I work on tracking attendance at EKK. At the end of the day, Jodi brings her questions to me.
J: “Should we create a new category for ‘hot tubs’?”
C: (puzzled) “What do you mean ‘hot tubs’?”
J: Well, four people said they found out about EKK at the hot tubs. One says here that it was the talk at the hot tubs, but there is no category for hot tubs...only fliers, email, newspaper, radio, tv, friends, previous participants, etc.
C: “Well, put it under ‘friends’.”
J: “Yes, they MUST be friends to be in the hot tubs together.”
C: “Hmmmmm....not necessarily; I’ve been in the hot tubs with strangers before.”
J: “Yes, but by now they must be friends.”
C: “Okay...put them under ‘friends’.”

A night of singing...singing...singing...

E Kanikapila Kakou (EKK) must certainly be the buzz around visitor gathering places because when we asked the visitors to stand on Monday night, half the audience stood up instead of the usual 30 - 40 visitors each week. Thanks to Fran Nestel, most of them were properly lei’d.

All who came - visitors, snow birds, local folks - were treated to an evening overflowing with singing...singing...singing. Whenever Keola Alalem is at a party, he will either be telling stories with everyone in stitches or singing; this Monday night he was in the singing mood .... it must have been the huge applause after every song that got him going.

His choice of songs and style of singing took me back to those good ol’ days of Friday night political rallies when all the politicians woo’d their voters on the stage at the County parks, hoping to win car honks of approval. The best part of the rallies was the singing by so many Hawaiian music groups who came on as soon as one polititian stopped talking and the next was ready to give his spiel. Really old style Hawaiian singing with gusto!

Keola had been coming for years to EKK, only to drop off his great grandfather and great grandmother Iida who had been coming since EKK first started, and then running off for 3 hours of “freedom”. Occasionally, he stopped in and danced a hula or sang a song. Finally, we were able to convince Keola to be a presenter at EKK.

Along with the accompaniment of Charles Iona, Wes Kaui and Rocky Pau, Keola filled the evening with song after song in his full rich beautiful voice, many sung in falsetto style. Keola loves traditional Hawaiian music -- “Koke’e”, “Nawiliwili”, “Nani Kaua’i”, “Hula O Makee”, “Koula”, “Loa’a Kou Puni Kau’oha”, “Pa’oa Liko Kalehua”, “Na Pueo,” “Kaua’i Beauty,” “Nani Wale Kaua’i,” “Hale’akala” -- and threw in some hapa-haole favorites for great sing-along opportunity -- “My Yellow Ginger Lei,” “Blue Hawai’i,” “White Sandy Beach,” “Hele On to Kaua’i” and “Rocking Chair Hula”. It was a great music-filled lu’au atmosphere without the poi.

“We’re very loud singers in our family; we whale ‘um! We play music just to sing and don’t do all that fancy stuff with instruments. We kids were not allowed to play any of the instruments so when the adults left, we turned everything on and taught ourselves to sing.” It was hard to learn from family members because everyone in their family faced their backs to you and played music hiding their playing styles from each other. In spite of that secrecy, he started early at the age of seven playing at the Kaua’i Village Clocktower in Mapuana Vai’s shop, Hula Land, grew up playing at parties, played on the Smith’s River Boats ... music is more my culture and not my passion...”kinda close to slavery”

Keola’s great grandfather, at age 20, used to go around the islands and record all the old people and their stories so Keola has a lot of old tapes of stories. Keola started delving into his geneology because he did not know who he was or much about his lineage. Keola’s passion is to translate Hawaiian documents and property tax key maps and many of his compositions are based on geneology.

Fascinated with geneology - his families as well as others - he gave the geneological background and complicated connections of family members that stretched across the Hawaiian chain and back into the historical archives of Hawai’i as they related to each of the songs he sang. I can’t even begin to remember the long Hawaiian names of each person as he rattled them off from memory.

His great great grandfather Edward Worthington from England was the manager of Kahuku plantation. He married Nohea O Kalani Ki’i Lehua of Laie; their son was great grandfather John Dillingham Worthington.

Among his illustrious relatives are steel guitar inventor Joseph Kukupu, famous hapa-haole hula dancer Lina Gurrero, grandmother of kumu hula Sonny Ching and sister of his great grandmother Nohea. Their mother was the famous kumu hula Luika Kaio. Go figure....hula runs in the family. Palani Vaughan, Keau Costa (Na Palapalai), and Sonny Ching are also ohana.

He taught us two of his original compositions, both of which won awards in recent hula competitions. Throwing in juicy tidbits and trivia about the many colorful persons connected to the songs, he would often erupt with a shriek of laughter that would be the envy of “Morticia” in the Adams Family. That’s Keola.

“Nani O Koke’e,” composed several years ago for a hula competition, commemorates and romanticizes the time spent up at Koke’e by his Great Grandfather John Dillingham Worthington with phrases that translate to “Let’s fly in that mountain...” John came to Kauai to rebuild the Morman Church after the 1946 tidal wave washed away everything in its path. While on Kauai he met and married Keola’s great grandmother, Martha Kawahine Po’ai Moku Puulei, who was raised in Wainiha. She lost four brothers in the tidal wave along with many other cousins of longtime Hawaiian families who lived in that valley. All that remains of the church today is a large cement slab in the lot across from the former Charo’s restaurant.

Keola is invited each year by Carolyn Nishi of Hula Hui Kapuna Hala to participate in the Hula Oni E hula competition at Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki; her teen age girls danced the hula to this song and won second place. This song also garnered the music award and Hawaiian language award. When they sang it, it was understandable . . . song is exquisite.

Keola explained the three components to a hula performance -- “kai”, “mele”, and “hoi” For their entry, they performed the “kai” to Dennis Kamakahi’s well known “Koke’e”, “Nani O Koke’e” for the hula mele, and the “hoi” was an exit number performed “with attitude” by the dancers.

“Waipolo” (pronounced Wai-plo), the Beach on island of Ni’ihau where the 14 colors of the Kahelelani shells can be found, was Keola’s second original composition that he taught. At the 2002 - 2003 Hula Oni E competition, this song won all the hula awards.

With some coaxing from the side, Keola shared one of his hilarious stories about his visit to Ni’ihau to visit his hanae Mom, Emele Shintani, describing his adventures in the “hale li’i li’i” (outhouse). Everyone was cackling with laughter listening to Keola’s stories.

Hula is a family thing; his Mom is one of 8 siblings so when they have a huge family reunion in La’ie, everyone is trying to bump each other off the stage. Keola was introduced to hula at the age of five with Mapuana Vai as his kumu.

The audience was demanding hula so Keola obliged with “Ka’uluwehi O Ke Kai”, a song about the seaweeds (and much more). If Keola’s singing pleased the audience, his hula had everyone yelling “hana hou” so of course he quickly followed with “Papa Lina Lahi Lahi” joined by Wayne Harada, Jr. With the hula floodgates open, everyone wanted to be on stage so four of the north shore “snowbirds” came up to dance “Ulupalakua”. Several more hulas followed to everyone’s pleasure.

Even after everyone sang “Hawai’i Aloha” and were streaming out with damp eyes, Keola kept on singing a couple of beautiful hymns -- “E Kolu Mea Nui” and “Ho’omana Ia Iesu” -- providing the “hoi” music for folks to exit with attitude. What a gift to be overflowing with so many beautiful melodies and a greater gift to be willing to share it.

Upcoming in February:

This coming Monday, February 4, Malani Bilyeu (Kalapana) of Kaua’i will be the presenter. Monday, February 11, Anthony and Jamie Natividad of Maui will be presenting a rare evening of Hawaiian nose flute music. Monday, February 18, Mihana Souza and her cousin Luana McKinney (Puamana), along with 100 year old ukulele virtuoso Bill Tapia, will be the presenters. February 25 will be another special evening with Kumu Hula Keala Ching and Rolinda Bean of BI, along with a whole cadre of his students from Japan and BI.

Notice from Island School for February 11: the parking lot will be getting a new layer of asphalt from Saturday to Monday, so all cars MUST be parked outside on the KCC grounds and folks must walk the short distance to the main hall.

Carol Kouchi Yotsuda, www.gardenislandarts.org -- “Celebrating 31 years of bringing ARTS to the people and people to the ARTS”

E Kanikapila Kakou 2008 -- EKK Silver Anniversary -- Hawaiian Music Program is funded in part by the Hawai’i Tourism Authority, the County of Kaua’i Office of Economic Development, and Garden Island Arts Council supporters. Space made available by Island School.

Garden Island Arts Council programs are supported in part by the State Foundation on Culture and the Arts through appropriations from the Legislature of Hawai’i and grants from the National Endowment for the Arts.