transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:36] You've crossed over the spook.
Speaker 2:
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Speaker 1:
[01:11] Take the exit, turn right, into the dry-through.
Speaker 3:
[01:14] Nope, I'm making dinner tonight.
Speaker 4:
[01:16] You don't have time, Josh has practice.
Speaker 3:
[01:18] Oh, that's right, I'll just get a salad.
Speaker 5:
[01:20] And fries?
Speaker 3:
[01:21] No, just the salad.
Speaker 5:
[01:22] But salad cancels fries.
Speaker 3:
[01:24] Salad only.
Speaker 5:
[01:25] Fries.
Speaker 3:
[01:25] Salad.
Speaker 5:
[01:26] Fries. Food noise isn't fair, but Mochi Health is.
Speaker 1:
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Speaker 3:
[01:33] Hey, can I get the-
Speaker 1:
[01:34] Fries.
Speaker 3:
[01:34] Salad, sorry.
Speaker 5:
[01:36] Learn more at joinmochi.com. Mochi members have access to licensed physicians and nutritionists.
Speaker 6:
[01:40] Results may vary. Nine years old, sitting in this church, angry. And my parents angry at these brethren in this place, and now their preacher, all puffed up, red face, bug-eyed, steps to the podium, commands us to open your battle to Exodus 32, here. Brethren, Moses climbs the mountain to see God.
Speaker 1:
[02:22] Do the people wait patiently?
Speaker 7:
[02:24] They do not.
Speaker 6:
[02:27] Said they work with their forges, their ovens, with wickedness in their hearts, with evil. Then look right here, look here, look here, look here. They pull a golden calf from the flame.
Speaker 1:
[02:36] What do they do then? The very worst thing you can do. Who needs that other god? When this one gleams golden.
Speaker 6:
[02:55] Then they bow their heads before it blasts me. But know this, brethren, there is no sure way to summon the Lord than to mock him. If you want to see god face to face, you remember that. Later, anger has an idea. I snatch two hangers from the hall closet, bring them back to my bedroom, strip the wires from the hangers, bend them, fashion them, work it just so. and the ever-present noise of my household peek outside my bedroom, down the hall, push the front door open, quiet, quiet, quiet. Pad down the front steps of our trailer, aluminum calf wrapped tight in my jacket, then I run. Out to the middle of the woods, my secret. Fast, fast, run, run until I reach the spot reverently. Still, it judges me unworthy of even a word, even a whisper, answer me.
Speaker 1:
[06:29] Now, how do you wake the god?
Speaker 6:
[06:34] Our next story begins on the spring night in 1986. Thousands of people have gathered in Hilo, Hawaii, not just around the islands, from the four corners of the earth to witness the largest, the most prestigious hula competition in the world. As the sun sets over Hilo, brothers pack Ida Kanaka'ole Stadium, the rafters. Air tastes rich with the smell of kalua pork and the sound of ancient drums. And in the distance, dark clouds roll in.
Speaker 8:
[07:27] Good evening, and welcome to the 23rd annual Merrie Monarch Festival Hula Competition. We are here live in Hilo.
Speaker 5:
[07:34] Tonight, the Kahikko Competition, where 30 Halau's will be sharing the ancient dances of Hawaii.
Speaker 9:
[07:43] Lei-Ann Durant is backstage with the other dancers in her Halau, or hula school. After nine months of practice and preparation, they're about to take the stage and perform their rendition of the three windstorms of Hina.
Speaker 5:
[08:01] The women's chant, Kimo, speaks of the goddess Hina from Molokai and her three devastating winds that were able to bruise skins and devastate lands.
Speaker 8:
[08:13] And so we should get from these dancers, male and female, very strong, emotional Kahikko ancient dances. Should be very interesting this evening.
Speaker 10:
[08:26] And we were all ready to go, and we're standing in a circle. And then all of a sudden, the lights went out. It's pitch black. The storm is going crazy. That's when the dread really comes. Like, I had bad feelings from the very beginning of learning the dance. I was like, okay, what do we do to stop this?
Speaker 9:
[09:01] Lei-Ann has been dancing hula for almost as long as she can remember. As a girl growing up in Honolulu, she learned to dance a version of hula called hula awana. It's an instrumental style of hula that became popular after the Hawaiian language was banned in the islands.
Speaker 10:
[09:18] I grew up in the generation where Hawaiian language, hula was not accepted. During the overthrow of our monarchy, we were illegally taken by the United States. And once that happened, as a people, we weren't allowed to speak our language. Ancient hula was underground because we were not allowed to dance it. And then when I came home from college in 1977, there were things happening here in Hawaii, which they called the first renaissance of things Hawaiian. And it all started with the hula.
Speaker 9:
[10:03] All over the islands, young Hawaiians were reviving hula kahiko and bringing back those traditional dances and chants.
Speaker 10:
[10:11] It looked exciting. So I asked my neighbor if she was dancing hula anywhere. And she said she was. So I went down with her to a hula class with Kumuhula Mapuanadi Silva. She was teaching kahiko, which is the ancient hula. Those chants go back, way back. It tells those stories of our ancestors. What kind of beauty did they see in a flower? What kind of beauty did they see in a rock? What did they do if things weren't right? What kind of battles did they have? And I just fell in love with it.
Speaker 9:
[11:37] One day not long after she started studying Hula Kahiko, Lei-Ann remembers overhearing her kumu, or teacher, Mapoana de Silva, talking about entering the Merrie Monarch Festival.
Speaker 10:
[11:49] I was like, what is that? That's how out of touch I was. I didn't even know about the festival. They started it as a little competition with a few halau, and over the years, it just, by word of mouth, by, you know, more, the Renaissance was bringing more and more halau into being, and it just became one of the biggest things ever, and that's kind of like our big gold star, you know, in the spring is going to Merrie Monarch.
Speaker 9:
[12:29] The first time Lei-Ann went to Merrie Monarch, it was 1981. She was in her 20s and having the time of her life, preparing for the festival with her hula sisters. Her halau didn't win that year.
Speaker 10:
[12:40] But it was just really a fun time. It was a really bonding time. Each halau would have their own fundraiser with their own little signature to it, and, because even though we were in competition, we would support each other. We would go to each other's fundraisers. We would help them. They would help us. It was like a huge, huge family. But it was a lot of work. We'd make our own costumes. We'd make our own lei. We have to raise money to get there and be able to pay for our hotels, our vans.
Speaker 9:
[13:20] Not to mention the hours each week spent practicing the dances they were going to perform.
Speaker 10:
[13:24] They would have a dance of your choice, and then whoever the committee was would choose a dance where every halau danced the same, but each kubo brought their own spirit to it.
Speaker 9:
[13:40] They'd start rehearsing their dances in September and work on them all the way through to the competition in the spring. But for Lei-Ann and the other dancers in Halau, Mohala, Ilima, the point of all this hard work wasn't just to win, although in her first five years with the group, they did win three times.
Speaker 10:
[13:57] What we would strive for was to share our hula and our interpretation with everyone.
Speaker 9:
[14:05] And then came 1986 and the three windstorms of Hina.
Speaker 10:
[14:12] It was about the goddess Hina. She's one of the oldest goddesses in Hawaii. And she was the female that could generate force in Hawaiian cosmology and she was kind of a protector of the land, too. She had this gourd and if the people wouldn't take care of the land, she would open her gourd just a little bit. When she opened that gourd just a little bit, the rain got stronger, the wind started to pick up. And it was kind of like a warning to the people that you better take care of business. And so as the chant goes on, the people still don't heed her call or, you know, pay attention. So she opens her gourd a little more. That's when you start getting lightning, thunder, the rain gets harder, the winds start whipping up. And on the third time, when she opens the gourd, it's the destruction of man.
Speaker 9:
[15:29] Lei-Ann was a really experienced dancer at this point, and she was a mentor to some of the newer Hula sisters. But when she got into the studio to start practicing this one...
Speaker 10:
[15:40] Something was just weird. I remember going to Hula, and we learned the second verse. I, all of a sudden, just felt, I don't know how to explain it. I was a little frightened. I couldn't really explain why, but it was just a feeling I had in my na'au, in my gut. And that feeling carried through the whole, what I call the Merrie Monarch season, starting in September.
Speaker 9:
[16:13] Lei-Ann hoped that with time, she'd get more comfortable with the routine, and the feeling would fade. But it didn't. When the spring rolled around, that uneasy feeling in her gut was still there whenever she practiced. She didn't mention it to her kumu or anyone else in her halau. She just kept pushing, trying to get it right.
Speaker 10:
[16:38] But I just couldn't get it. I couldn't get the dance, I couldn't get the chant. I made mistakes all the time. It just didn't feel comfortable to me. I never had struggles like that, learning O'Hula.
Speaker 9:
[16:58] Finally, the week of Merrie Monarch arrived. Lei-Ann and her Hula Sisters flew to Hilo and checked in to the Nani Loa Hotel. That night, they sat in the audience in Edith Kanakaoli Stadium and watched the Miss Aloha competition. The next day, it was their turn to compete. Cajico night. Lei-Ann remembers waking up that morning to perfect Hilo weather. Blue skies with a cool mist coming off the ocean. The dancers spent the day rehearsing on the hotel lawn before heading over to the stadium. When they got there, they had some time to kill before they had to get ready, and most of the dancers wanted to watch the first groups perform. But Lei-Ann decided that she needed some time alone in fresh air to clear her head, so she made her way back outside.
Speaker 10:
[17:48] I was super nervous because I had a hard time with the chant. I needed to calm my nerves, so I remember going down. I sat on the sidewalk kind of along the fence. I would just keep kind of just taking a deep breath. I would always just tell myself, just let it go. Just let it go once you get on that stage. You're going to forget all your worldly worries.
Speaker 9:
[18:19] As she sat there, breathing in and out, Lei-Ann could hear the first women's group take the stage inside the stadium and start to perform Hina's chant.
Speaker 8:
[18:30] We welcome you, the people throughout the state of Hawaii, from all of the Hawaiian Islands. And now, from Las Vegas, Nevada, under the direction of Kula Hula, Wayne Kanoke. Kula Halau o Ka Hoonei.
Speaker 5:
[18:50] This is our first opportunity to see the Wahine Competition chant, which will always be performed first.
Speaker 10:
[19:19] And then, as I could hear the chanting on the stage, it started to rain. It came so fast, pretty soon it was pouring rain. At first, I didn't think anything because Hilo is unpredictable. It always does things like that, you know? So I went in and I started dressing. And then my hula sisters came. We dressed under the bleachers. So we could hear what was going on on the stage.
Speaker 11:
[19:55] Making their first appearance at the Merrie Monarch Festival, by their opportunity to see Hilo and her devastating ways.
Speaker 10:
[20:22] As I was dressing my hula sisters, I kept watching the rain, and I was noticing the gutters of the tennis stadium was, the water was just gushing out, and it was coming really quickly. All of a sudden, I just felt like, this is the story. The rain kept coming, and the rain kept coming. It seemed like every time I heard the chant, the rain got worse and worse and worse. I was just like observing and thinking, wow, this is like the first storm. Clouds were really dark and heavy, and I could hear the chanting, and I would see lightning or hear the thunder. And then I went to, this is like the second storm. We're dancing about the story, and the story is coming true. Everybody's on stage, like they're chanting, and their energy is there, and they're bringing this to life. So I felt very uncomfortable, and I did not want to go on that stage. What if we were the ones that she decided then and there, let's open the gourd the third time, and it would be destruction of man. And the stadium was full of man. So I really felt dreadful. But I was not going to disappoint my kumu or my hula sisters. Like, I didn't want to be the one that was like, I don't want to do this, you know. Because not performing on Kuhiko Night automatically disqualified us from the competition. And we've worked so hard, you've sacrificed, you know. We've had girls sacrifice being in sports, going to proms, you know, doing all the things that you do as young people. Because we loved it so much. And what if I was wrong? So I talked myself back into it. It's just like, OK, you're here. This is a commitment. You can do it. Intermission was ending. People were going back to their seats.
Speaker 11:
[23:37] Welcome back to Hilo Halei and the beautiful Edith Kanakaole Tennis Stadium.
Speaker 10:
[23:42] We're about to go on. My stomach is in knots. We were all ready to go on. We're standing in a circle, and then all of a sudden, the lights went out. You hear the audience say, whoa! And then there was silence. It's pitch black, and the storm is going crazy. I start to kind of panic, because I felt like the lights were the warning. And I just kept thinking in my mind, we need to break the cycle. We have to do something to stop, to stop the momentum of this storm. And the only way I knew how to break the cycle would be to not dance. And then one of my hula sisters that was standing next to me, she told me that she was afraid, and she didn't want to go out and dance. And several other people came up and told me that. I went into care-nurturing mode. So I said, okay, I'll go talk to Kumu and see what happens. So I left the circle, and I went up to her, and I said, Mopu, I have to tell you something. We don't feel good about dancing. There was no anger. She just said, okay. So she came to the group, and she talked to us, and said, do you not want to dance? You know, of course, everybody's kind of like, oh, what should I say? And then I just said, well, I don't want to. And then the majority of the girls were like, yeah, we don't want to, we don't want to.
Speaker 9:
[25:50] Meanwhile, out in the audience, somebody had started to sing.
Speaker 10:
[25:55] I don't remember what song, but just to take the tension off, I think someone started to sing, and then everyone was singing.
Speaker 4:
[26:05] So despite the festive mood, it was haunting, if not coincidental, to think that the night's intense lightning and thunderstorm literally shook Edith Kanakaole Indoor Tennis Stadium. The storm caused a 40-minute blackout.
Speaker 10:
[26:20] Eventually, the lights went on.
Speaker 9:
[26:23] With the storm raging against the black sky, the announcer got on the mic.
Speaker 10:
[26:28] He says, I'd like to announce our next halau, halau mo, halau ima, under the direction of Ma Puana de Silva. She comes up, goes up the ramp by herself, goes to a mic in the middle of the stage, and nobody knew what she was going to say. But then she said, we have decided that our girls will not be performing this evening.
Speaker 11:
[27:03] My concern and care is first for my ladies. Thank you.
Speaker 10:
[27:15] Then everybody was clapping. I think they were clapping because she made her students number one. It mattered. What we felt mattered to her, and that we were willing to be disqualified. So as Maupona came back from being on stage and making that announcement, the rain just stopped. As we were undressing and putting our costumes away and taking care of everything, it went back to being a light mist with a little breeze. And it was no rain for the rest of the competition. I don't know what would have happened if we went up. There were a whole bunch of halau after us. They danced, no problem. But I felt it's not meant to be danced by us. It didn't matter that we missed this competition, that we got disqualified, none of that mattered. Because I feel that we broke the cycle.
Speaker 6:
[28:49] Thank you, thank you, Lei-Ann, for sharing your story. Lei-Ann told us that even though her group was disqualified from the 1986 competition the next night, they did have another chance to dance. And after all the ups and downs of the festival, they rocked the stage with one of the best performances ever. And Spooked, as you should know, the next Merrie Monarch Festival is just days away. There'll be a link in our show notes where you can learn more. This piece was scouting by Ixchel Lopez. The original score was by Clay Xavier. It was produced by Zoë Ferrigno. For just a moment, let's talk about babies. Tiny little bundles of joy, fat cheeks, that smell, that baby smell, the other baby smell. Makes your heart grow three sizes too big, but long-time listeners to this show know that it often starts at the beginning. And if you know an infant or a small child that demonstrates knowledge, powers, understandings or memories that they didn't learn in nursery school, tell me about it. Spooked that snapped Judgment out of YG because there's nothing better than a spooked story from a spooked listener. Spooked Studios stands century between this world and the next, cloaked by KQED in San Francisco. Don't seek to find it, as it seek to find you. No Snap Studio content may be used for training, testing, or developing machine learning or AI systems without prior written permission. On Team Spooked, the union represented producers, artists, editors, and engineers, are members of the National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians, Communications Work with America, AFL, CIO, Local 51, and Spooked is brought to you by the team that loves to hula dance, except for Mark Vistich. No, Mark refers to dance with the devil. There's Davy Kim, Zoë Ferrigno, Eric Yanez, Marissa Dodge, Regina Berriaco, Miles Lassie, Teo Ducot, Suyi Chu, Evan Stern, Eve Jeffcoat, Ixchel Lopez, Jack Darrow, Doug Stewart, Nicholas March. The Spooked theme song is by Pat Macili-Miller. My name is from Washington.
Speaker 3:
[31:33] And you know, I'm going to my auntie's house. My auntie's place.
Speaker 6:
[31:37] I'm contemplating a little quest for the divine. A search I know she would think was silly. My auntie, she always wanted kids of her own. I think she did.
Speaker 7:
[31:52] I think that she did.
Speaker 6:
[31:56] But it never happened that way for her. So I believe this was my personal stroke of good fortune because when I was in the crazy, at my house, she could sometimes be the escape, the respect, the hug, the hot meal, the field trip fee, the couch to sleep on, the kind word, the new kicks, the gas money, the good book, the screaming from the stands at the graduation, the address to write down when I didn't have an address, the emergency contact, when I didn't have an emergency contact. All these little things, I think about this, walking to her tiny apartment, busy searching for the divine, but here the divine is shining bright in front of me and now the divine is cussing me out, putting all that cold air inside, leaving her door wide open.
Speaker 7:
[32:58] Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, never turn out.