Merrie Monarch

So, as I said before, Annie came out to visit. She was coming out to the Big Island, as someone she works with had 10 days in a beach house all set up, and was going to be staying Kona side. She had a little extra time at the start of her trip, so I met her at the Kona airport, and we drove across the north-central part of the island. Waimea was lovely, as was the coastline drive down to Hilo from Honoka'a. We did a few of the usual sight-seeing adventures, but we had one really incredibly special treat.

We had the extreme good fortune (thanks to Kaleo and her friend Laura) to get a pair of highly sought-after tickets to the Merrie Monarch Festival. Merrie Monarch is THE premiere hula showcase and competition in the world. It's held right here in Hilo every year.

I was going to go into a long explanation about it, but I figure their website already does better than I ever could.

http://www.merriemonarchfestival.org/about_merrie_monarch_festival.html

At any rate, it was fantastic. We got to go on Saturday night, for the 'Auana part of the competition. 'Auana is the "modern" hula event, although from what I can gather, a better description would be "open" competition, as any and all styles are acceptable. Friday night's event was the Kahiko, or traditional hula competition.

Let me start off by saying that I know almost nothing about hula. All I know is that they're telling a story with the hand and arm movements. That's it.

But this was pretty magical. I was telling Skye later that it was a lot like going to Christmas Mass in Latin, or a really great son in Spanish.....I may have no idea what's being said, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate what it is.

As I said before, these tickets are in very high demand. Ticket prices are intentionally kept low, so most anyone can afford to go. Even though the event is every April, they start selling tickets on the day after Christmas. Ticket sales are limited to two seats per household. From what I've been told, they usually have so many requests, that they end up using some lottery system to decide who gets tickets and who doesn't.

Anyway, I feel like I'm rambling a bit, so I'm going to wrap this up for today.

Oh, and sorry the pictures are blurry.... it was night under lights, and they didn't allow flash photography... so not a lot of luck with the photos.