If you, like this writer, have long been a customer of Hello Direct, an online source for phones and headsets, would it strike you as odd if that company started suing others that used the word “hello” in their name? Maybe they would take their claim to copyright infringement even further and try to threaten any advertisers or signage that simply uses the word “hello” anywhere.
Absurd as this sounds, it is closely analogous to the legal threats being made by the so-called Aloha Poke company, according to organizers of CAATA’s Confest 2018, who staged a peaceful protest on August 15 outside one of the ten Aloha Poke restaurants in Chicago, which happens to be a quick walk from DePaul and Victory Gardens theater where most of the Confest 2018 meetings and performances were held. This is no small thing. Rather, it is part of a struggle by Hawaiian-born and their supporters to ensure that Native Hawaiians and not outsiders are the ones to decide how and when to share their culture – and language- with the rest of humanity.
(Editor’s note: Read the Paoakalani Declaration here and learn more about the ALOHA NOT FOR SALE campaign here. )
However much this protest helped put Hawaiian culture on the radar – as did the recent reprise of Not One Batu by Nothing Without a Company — the contribution of Confest’s staging of PŌHAKU underscored how little the Hawaiian mindset and ways are part of mainstream USA today, poke watering hole proliferation notwithstanding.
As we settle in our seats a sole man wearing a leaf wreath on his head and smaller leaf bracelets on his wrist, Christopher K. Morgan, is busy on stage moving stones from one point to another. At some point, Elsie Kaleihulukea Ryder quietly tags people in the audience to help bring more stones to this growing pile stage front. If we haven’t read the program notes yet, we likely don’t know that passing stones to build temples and such was an important part of ancient Hawaiian culture. We do sense though, immediately, that this is ritual and this is sacred.
The performance then unfolds like a moving collage. Ryder, also the hula choreographer, chants and plays percussion. A soulful electric cello accompanies at times. Morgan shares the story of his ancestors and especially brings our focus on his engineer mother, who made her first trip to the segregated south of the mainland during her service in World War II. Morgan is moving seamlessly from hulas to arms and legs reaching to rhythms in contemporary dance style, showing us his two identities better than the narrative account of them. The projections too show Hawaii—the water, the land. The chants are mesmerizing and seem to create a nest for cellist and composer Wytold to midwife Beethoven and Bach’s rebirth Hawaiian style.
CAATA Provokes Thought
As with another CAATA performance reviewed by Picture this Post—Pratik Motwani’s #< EMBEDDED ># — PŌHAKU makes a non-Hawaiian, at least this one!, think anew about Asian American culture. Let’s hope this touring production continues to reach and stir wider audiences.
Note: Two hulas choreographed by Ryder; one traditional hula is performed, and all other choreography is by Christopher K. Morgan.
For more information about PŌHAKU visit the Christopher K. Morgan & Artists website.
Photos and video courtesy of Christopher K. Morgan and CAATA.
Visit the CAATA website for more information about the Consortium of Asian American Theaters and Artists.
About the Author: Amy Munice
Amy Munice is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher of Picture This Post. She covers books, dance, film, theater, music, museums and travel. Prior to founding Picture This Post, Amy was a freelance writer and global PR specialist for decades—writing and ghostwriting thousands of articles and promotional communications on a wide range of technical and not-so-technical topics.
Amy hopes the magazine’s click-a-picture-to-read-a-vivid-account format will nourish those ever hunting for under-discovered cultural treasures. She especially loves writing articles about travel finds, showcasing works by cultural warriors of a progressive bent, and shining a light on bold, creative strokes by fledgling artists in all genres.
