Arts & Culture

A plucky little gallery on the Hanalei River is mighty glad not to have seen flooding over the weekend.  Still, it’s a surprise to area regulars that Ola’s Hanalei, known for its array of fine art and crafts, will be closing at the end of October.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa spoke with the owner of Ola’s yesterday, as intermittent downpours fed a rising Hanalei River.

The way people work is changing these days as companies outsource, and the gig economy advances.  Co-working hubs, that is, places for people to work alone or together, are proliferating around the globe. Honolulu is in the happy space of having several unique neighborhood hubs.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa visits a few of them this week.

Values are a frequent theme this political season, and on Maui, a community group is working to ensure that the values and can-do attitude of previous generations are a part of everyone’s life today.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa takes us on a visit to the Maui Nisei Veterans Memorial Center on Go For Broke Place.

The 41st Annual Prince Lot Hula Festival is set for this Saturday and Sunday in a new venue.   This event, now at ‘Iolani Palace, is cherished as the largest non-competitive hula gathering in the islands.  Twenty distinguished hālau will perform, as the Moanalua Gardens Foundation pays tribute to chant and hula from Hawai‘i Island.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa spoke with Professor Kalena Silva, who will be honored with the Namakahelu Oli Award.

Affordable housing got a boost on Maui recently when Governor Ige signed a bill that will help keep rents stable for 142 apartments on Front Street and build more affordable rentals in Lahaina. In the first of a series about housing on Maui, HPR's Noe Tanigawa reports on Maui's struggle to match incomes to housing costs.

Honolulu is in full summer mode.  Sunny days, surf is up on the east side, everyone’s wearing their coral friendly sunscreen, and happy hours are thriving, especially with live music.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports on one young singer/songwriter who is making his mark.

Volcano notwithstanding, Hilo’s Paradise Roller Girls pulled off the 2nd Annual Big Island Brawl last month, with roller derby teams from across the state competing.  O‘ahu’s spunky team, Pacific Roller Derby, was there, and once a month they invite their Honolulu fans to a game.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa offers this report from the Coast Guard’s Hideaway Club at Kalaeloa.

Childish Gambino’s viral video, “This is America,” offers a cold view of American culture that has sparked streams of comment online.   Gambino says he made the song for people to play on the 4th of July.  Spinoffs on Youtube beg the question, if a Hawai‘i version of “This is America” were done, what would it say?  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa asked a local hip hop crew, the Super Groupers, what they would include in a version of “This is Hawai‘i.”

What is Muslim culture?  That’s the question posed by the Shangri La Center for Islamic Art, Culture, and Design.  Through a series of imaginative immersion activities, they are giving Honolulu audiences a sampling from coffee through hip hop that just could convince us, America is more Muslim than we realized. 

It’s not unusual to see parents with their babies strapped on their chests these days, and one of the most highly rated baby carriers of this type is the Ergobaby, invented on Maui.  For the past six years, inventor Karin Frost has been investing proceeds from her baby carrier’s success in Hōkū Nui, a project to create a regenerative community in Upcountry Maui.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa visited Hōkū Nui with Kumu Hula Keali‘i  Reichel, who is creating a cultural center and home for his hālau as part of the project.

Kumu Hula Keali‘i Reichel’s Hālau Ke‘alaokamaile has numerous awards to its credit, including being overall winner at Merrie Monarch in 2011.  In an effort now to deepen their work, the Hālau is establishing a cultural center and joining in a larger effort to create a regenerative community on Maui.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa caught up with Reichel in that pastoral setting for a wide ranging conversation that included a tip for hikers in Hawaiian forests.

In 1834, just fourteen years after missionaries first arrived in Hawai’i, an estimated 90-95% of Hawaiians could read.  Over a hundred Hawaiian language newspapers all through the Kindgom documented legends, place names, current events and everyday trials and tribulations, including volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and lava flows.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports.

With lava from Fissure 8 pouring into Kapoho Bay, the current eruptive phase at Kilauea is pressing into its fifth week, and its effects are taking a toll.  Hawai’i County is looking at $3-6 million dollars in volcano related expenses so far and the Island of Hawaii Visitors Bureau estimates a $5 million dollar loss through visitor cancellations.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports residents are holding firm.

The Maoli Arts Movement, or MAMO, Wearable Art Show established a base for native Hawaiian fashion when it began 12 years ago.  Last year, Manaola was the first Hawaiian to step from the MAMO stage into the New York Fashion Week spotlight.  This year, organizer Vicky Holt Takamine says the MAMO runway show features a Maui designer who is ready to take off.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports.

Kumu Hula Kekuhi Kealiʻikanakaʻole was raised in Hawaiian culture on Hawaiʻi island.  Her grandmother, educator Edith Kanakaʻole, was revered for her knowledge of hula and chant, and rigorous practice of those arts continues through Halau o Kekuhi, the family hula school.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports Kealiʻikanakaʻole’s view of the current eruption is firmly rooted in a connection with the lava, active continually underground.   

Kekuhi Kealiʻikanakaʻole is the Coordinator for the Center for Hawai’i Life Styles, UH Hilo. She’s an award winning singer, and a kumu hula, the eighth generation with Halau o Kekuhi, which bases its style of hula on the forces of Pele and her sister, Hiʻiaka.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports, Kealiʻikanakaʻole offers a different perspective on the current Kilauea eruption.

When you head to Kuhio Beach in the center of Waikiki, you expect to be able to rent a surfboard, maybe get lessons, or even try one of those famous outrigger canoe rides.  You can do this through two for-profit city concessions, which go up to bid every five years.  This time, new regulations will likely mean the end of an era.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports.

Erick Swenson’s sculptures look so real, they make people gasp.  You simply do not expect to see a life size seven point buck, flayed, its flesh peeling back from bones, lying, surprised, on a gallery floor.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports, Swenson mixes animals and humans too, so you begin to think maybe some odd looking creatures really exist.

As personal stories and emergency updates continue around the current Kilauea eruption, Hawai’i’s resident teams of expert volcanologists continue their research and observations.  How is this eruption different from others?  How could a tsunami be generated?  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports.

Last week, a coalition of Maui community groups presented a plan at the Alexander and Baldwin shareholders’ meeting in Honolulu.   The coalition, Hukilike no Maui, is proposing to acquire five thousand acres, or 15% of A&B’s Maui land holdings, for affordable housing, agriculture, and conservation.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa was on Maui with Hukilike members to find out more about this community planning initiative.

Juvana Soliven’s beeswax sculptures could make you feel a little weak in the knees.  She plays with things that are solid and stiff and other things that are droopy and soft. C.B. Forsythe’s intricate threadwork combines familiar detritus from the past with contemporary intention. HPR’s Noe Tanigawa offers this look inside their work, which is on view now at First Hawaiian Bank Center downtown.

Mid-century Modern happens to be a design phase Hawai’i did rather well.  Now a new generation has a chance to snap up some of the finest local artworks of the period.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports on a rare opportunity to acquire art by Hawai’i masters and benefit the Hawaii State Art Museum.

Contact Hawai’i is proving to be Honolulu’s most intellectually and visually stimulating annual art exhibition.  The 2018 show opened with multiple installations in Waikiki and continues at the Honolulu Museum of Art School.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports the jurors’ combined perspectives yielded a show with energy and insight.

This year, one of Honolulu’s most important annual art exhibitions is taking its theme of contact and connection right into our tourist capital.  Contact Hawai'i is bringing live art installations and displays to the middle of Waikiki tonight.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports.

This semester, six students will be graduating with Master of Fine Arts degrees from UH Manoa.  They’ve spent the last three years intently developing their skills and creativity with video, printmaking, glass, vinyl, photography and more to be ready to face a changing job market, MFA in hand.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports.

In the hands of a skilled practitioner, intriguing ideas are the seeds for resonant works of art.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports, some interesting   ideas inform a ceramist and a photographer whose works  are on view now at the First Hawaiian Center downtown.

An underground icon in Honolulu has just gone the way of male northern white rhinos.  Ward’s Rafters, a weekend music venue in residential Kaimuki, has hosted its final concert.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports, thousands who made the trek down the driveway and up the stairs will never forget Ward’s Rafters’ particular ambiance.

Today, Jaelynn Rose Willey, 16, died.  She was standing in the hallway of her Maryland high school on Tuesday when she was shot with a semi-automatic handgun. On an average day in America, seven children and teens are killed with guns.  HPR’s Noe Tanigawa reports, since the Parkland, Florida shootings which took 17 young lives, a youth movement has taken root against gun violence.