Upcoming Hawaiian festival, Oct. 15-16, designed to rebuild human connections after two years of isolation
“I kū mau mau, i kū wā! All at once! All together! Don’t miss out! I encourage you to participate, come ignite curiosity and the intention of this season! Pohā kōʻeleʻele!”—Kekuhi Kealiʻikanakaʻoleohaililani
By Susan Enright/UH Hilo Stories.
After two long years of living with isolation, masks, and quarantine mandates, a two-day festival designed to re-engage the island community in “interconnected awareness” with people and the natural environment will be held at ʻImiloa Astronomy Center, an educational outreach center located on the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo campus, on Oct. 15-16, 2022. The festival is free and open to the public.
The ʻIkuwā Festival is an extension of the center’s annual Wayfinding Festival held during October, but with emphasis on activities that help repair and rebuild human connection.
“This ʻIkuwā Festival is [meant to] weave the web of relationships,” says Kaʻiu Kimura, executive director of ʻImiloa.
There will be demonstrations about canoe training, activity booths, take-home arts and crafts, live entertainment, presentations and storytelling, kūekeolioli keiki oli (children chant) competition, Makahiki games, local vendors, and food.
Co-sponsors are Lonoa Honua, a local group with a mission to connect people, places, and energies to one another through “Hawaiʻi Life ways,” and ʻOhana Waʻa, another local group advancing collective health through traditional voyaging traditions and Native Hawaiian protocols. The ʻIkuwā Festival is made possible with the support of the Ama OluKai Foundation.
“Participants [at the festival] can expect to re-engage our local community creatively, and enhance island consciousness, what it means to live and think like an island community, and recognize what impact you have on this ʻāina,” states the media release about the Ikuwā event.
Traditionally, Ikuwā is the time of transition from calm summer weather into the rainy season.
“ʻIkuwā is the month when great storms arise, dark clouds form, the sea roars, thunder rolls, birds squawk, and the resounding energy of the honua vibrates,” says Kekuhi Kealiʻikanakaʻoleohaililani, founder of Lonoa Honua. “Let’s explore the spectrum of sound; there is even a breath of silence in this resounding, reverberating month.”
She adds, “I kū mau mau, i kū wā! All at once! All together! Don’t miss out! I encourage you to participate, come ignite curiosity and the intention of this season! Pohā kōʻeleʻele!”
The festival also will showcase waʻa (voyaging canoe).
“The canoe is a great physical reminder of how connected we all really are, whether it be the community hands that labor on it, the resources used to provision a voyage, or the navigator collecting cues from nature to set course out at sea,” says Pōmai Bertelmann, ʻOhana Waʻa board member. “This festival will be a reflection of these relationships and ʻOhana Waʻa is ready to help share this story.”
Admission
Programs at the ʻIkuwā Festival will run from 10:00 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 15, and Sunday, Oct. 16, at ʻImiloa Astronomy Center, located at 600 ʻImiloa Place at the UH Hilo University Park of Science and Technology.
The two-day event is free to the public and includes access to all festival activities, presentations and live performances in Moanahōkū Hall, ʻImiloa’s Planetarium, exhibit hall, and outdoor gardens. Select crafts, retail and food vendors will require payment onsite.
Donations for the ʻIkuwā Festival can be made at ʻImiloa’s front desk.
For more information, email info.imiloa@hawaii.edu.
ʻImiloa Astronomy Center
ʻImiloa Astronomy Center’s mission is to share Hawaiʻi’s legacy of exploration in many fields through a wide range of exhibits, community outreach, programs, and other forms of informal science education. The center, located on the campus of the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, is distinctive in it’s architectural structure of conical-shaped buildings housing a welcoming lobby, exhibit hall, full-dome planetarium, café (currently closed during pandemic), and gift shop. The center is surrounded by nine acres of native gardens. ʻImiloa is located at the UH Hilo University Park of Science and Technology, 600 ʻImiloa Place, off Komohana and Nowelo streets.
Story by Susan Enright, public information specialist for the Office of the Chancellor and editor of UH Hilo Stories. She received her bachelor of arts in English and certificate in women’s studies from UH Hilo.
