How do we assess the success of a cultural event? What metrics apply when you’re talking about dancers, artists and a host of creatives? That’s the challenge facing anyone who wants to determine whether the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture was a success.
A lot of elevated expectations met this year’s Festival: it had been eight years instead of four since the last Festival, thanks to COVID-19; Hawaii, which attracts more than six million tourists a year who spend close to US$20 billion annually, was a first-time Festival host; just a few months before the start of the Festival on June 6, 2024, the Hawaii organising committee was some US$5 million short. The budget deficit was closed with days to spare by Hawaii’s secret weapon in Washington, DC. She is Erika Moritsugu, an attorney and veteran Washington insider who now serves in the White House as Deputy Assistant to President Biden, as Senior Liaison for Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Affairs. Born and raised in Hawaii, Moritsugu worked the phones and organised the missing US$5 million for the Festival from federal sources. It was appropriate indeed that she had a place of honor on the historic Hawaiian voyaging canoe Hokule`a when VIPs were brought ashore at Kualoa Beach Park early in the Festival.
And the outcome: despite some serious internal organisational challenges – during the first few days, the Festival program seemed to change hourly – the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture was a raging success – but perhaps for a reason many would not normally think of. Having nearly 3000 of the region’s finest dancers and artists descend on Hawaii may have marked a sea change for the islands’ indigenous Hawaiian population.
For the first time, many of those Hawaiians heard Pacific Islanders often refer to their islands as the “Hawaiian nation”, a sign of respect that hasn’t been internationally recognised since the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893.
And the respect and honor accorded the hosts had another effect – to remind Hawaiians, perhaps unintentionally, of their monarch King David Kalakaua’s vision of a Polynesian Confederacy linking the remaining independent island nations (at the time Hawaii, Samoa and Tonga). The Polynesian Confederacy was a follow-on to an earlier Pacific-East Asia Confederacy Kalakaua had proposed to the Japanese emperor.
These separate universes came together early in the Festival when, at the ecumenical Sunday service held in the sports arena of the University of Hawaii, a group of American Samoans, dressed in their Sunday whites, and in the pitch perfect harmony that Samoans do with such ease and joy, sang Hawaii Aloha, a beloved hymn. In their magnificent voices, which reached every corner of the large area, the Samoans sang in Hawaiian, “E Hawai’i e ku’u one hānau e, Ku’u home kulaīwi nei, ‘Oli nō au i nā pono lani ou, E Hawai’i, aloha ē.” (O Hawai’i, o sands of my birth, My native home, I rejoice in the blessings of heaven, O Hawai’i, aloha).
As soon as it became evident the Samoans were honoring their hosts, the arena erupted in cheers and the blowing of conch shells. It was a life changing moment.
There were other moments when Pacific hospitality and protocol came together to bind the wounds caused by the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy. One that stays with me is the hula performed for Pacific traditional leaders on the grounds of Iolani Palace, the former home of the Hawaiian alii.
Appropriately enough, the honors (this time from the Hawaiians to the Pacific) was led appropriately enough by kumu hula, the hula teachers who have been at the forefront of the restoration of Hawaiian culture in the islands. In this instance, it was Kumu Hula Sonny Ching of Halau Na Mamo O Puuanahulu and Kumu Hula HulaKa’ilihiwa Vaughan-Darval of Halau Hula Ka lehua Tuahine. The hula performed for the gathered chiefs was reserved for special occasions.
I’m not sure all of the Hawaiians who attended the Festival were aware at that macro level of the impact of the 10-day celebration of Pacific culture. But I am sure the magnificent dancing and pride that was evident everywhere one looked affected those who attended the Festival. A friend of mine, a veteran videographer who is of Asian ancestry, told me of being brought to tears by the pride and dignity on display. And he was not the only one so moved. Metrics? Perhaps when we can assess tears of pride as a metric will we be able to fully appreciate the impact the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture had on its host.
