By Gary Chun / gchun@staradvertiser.com
Today’s Ho’olaule’a along Kalakaua Avenue, an integral part of every year’s Pan-Pacific Festival, will feature an appealing variety of hula and music that brings together the local and visiting Japanese communities. Food booths and arts and crafts vendors will help fill out the evening’s activities from 7 to 10 p.m.
Pan-Pacific FestivalWhere: Waikiki (various locations) and Ala Moana Center’s “Centertainment Stage,” Level 3, Nordstrom Wing When: Today-Sunday Cost: Free Info: 926-8177, ext. 279/280, pan-pacific-festival.com
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Food trucks will also be there: Elena’s Filipino Food, Kona Ice, Cake Works, Island Pops, Time 2 Grind, Da Spot, Hula Shrimp and Le Crepe.
For the third year in a row, a stage sponsored by the Hawaii Academy of Recording Arts will feature Na Hoku Hanohano Award winners tonight.
Festival spokesman Alan Kinuhata notes that it will once again be a “charity stage,” accepting donations to the Minami Soma Fund to help those in the area of Japan hardest hit by the 2011 earthquake and tsunami.
Kalakaua Avenue will be closed to traffic starting at 5:30 p.m. from Lewers Street to Uluniu Avenue, and will reopen sometime between 11 p.m. and midnight.
There will be two performing arts showcases, at the Waikiki Beach Walk Plaza stage and the Ala Moana Centertainment Stage, Level 3, Nordstrom Wing, taking place today and Saturday.
The Pan-Pacific Hula Festival (now in its 13th year) will feature halau from Japan, as well as a special exhibition performance
by local Halau O Napuala ‘Ikauika ‘Iu, led by kumu hula Sally Yoza. It will be held at Kuhio Beach Hula Mound today through Sunday.
The festival culminates with a parade starting at 5 p.m. Sunday. Drummers, dancers, marching bands and cultural groups from around the world will march down Kalakaua Avenue, beginning at Fort DeRussy and finishing at Kapiolani Park. Traffic will also be rerouted and closed off from Kalakaua Avenue on Sunday afternoon.
The highlight of the parade will be the return of the Noto Kiriko, a huge Shinto-style lantern float donated by the people of Noto Peninsula, Ishikawa prefecture, Japan. Kiriko floats are made of a rectangular platform with long bars on the sides to shoulder them, Kinuhata said, and often feature elaborate decorative pieces on top and smaller lanterns on the inside.
The lacquered Noto Kiriko will be about 40 feet long and 16 feet high, and carrying it along the parade route requires at least 30 people.
The festival was originally established in 1980 as Matsuri in Hawai’i. The matsuri (Japanese for festival)-based event was created to increase exposure of traditional Japanese culture in Hawaii through music, dance, food, crafts and more. When it became the Pan-Pacific Festival, it broadened its scope and appeal to include other Pacific Rim cultures, including Hawaii.
Sixteen prefectures from Japan are represented in this year’s festival.
Spanning the event’s three-day weekend from today through Sunday, close to 100 performance groups and organizations will be out in force around Waikiki and at Ala Moana Center.
Kinuhata noted that taiko (also known as daiko) drumming is always a popular attraction. “We’ve gotten a few more taiko groups from Japan this year,” he said.
| FESTIVAL SCHEDULE Today’s Ho’olaule’a schedule along Kalakaua Avenue: Na Hoku Hanohano Stage (in front of Moana Surfrider) >> 7 p.m. — Dukes of Surf >> 7:30 p.m. — Kalei Gamiao >> 8 p.m. — Waipuna >> 8:30 p.m. — Natalie Au Kamau’u >> 9 p.m. — Mailani Makainai >> 9:30 p.m. — Maunalua Royal Hawaiian Avenue Seaside Avenue Beachcomber Performance Zone Outrigger Hotel
Performing arts showcases Highlighting groups from Japan Waikiki Beach Walk Plaza Ala Moana Centertainment Stage Saturday Waikiki Beach Walk Plaza Ala Moana Centertainment Stage Sunday Waikiki Beach Walk Plaza Ala Moana Centertainment Stage
Pan-Pacific Hula Festival lineup Saturday Sunday
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