The Heartbeat of Hilo

The Merrie Monarch Festival — recognized worldwide as the pinnacle of hula celebration and competition — is more than an event. It’s a living expression of kuleana to community, to culture, to ʻohana, and to the generations who have shaped Hawaiʻi’s story.

At UH Hilo’s last Kuleana & Community Talk Story event of the fall semester, Festival President and UH Hilo alumna Luana Kawelu joined her daughter, Kathy Kawelu, PhD, a UH Hilo Anthropology professor and Festival Vice President, to reflect on a history rooted in resilience and responsibility.

“Not only do they have ties to the university,” noted event co-coordinator and UH Hilo Communication Professor Colby Miyose, “but their kuleana to both Hilo and the festival is generational.”

The festival’s beginnings were born from necessity following the 1960 tsunami’s devastation. The first Merrie Monarch Festival took place in 1964 after Hawaiʻi County Chair Helene Hale sent two community leaders, including Kumu Hula George Naʻope, to Maui for inspiration. It was a lively week of parades, barbershop quartets, Kalākaua beard contests, ʻukulele competitions, and even a fish relay race involving a live mullet. It bore little resemblance to the Merrie Monarch Festival we know and love today — but its purpose was clear: uplift Hilo, restore pride, spark economic recovery, and bring people together.

Helene Hale, Hawaiʻi County Chair at the time of the Merrie Monarch Festival’s inception (Photo courtesy: Merrie Monarch Festival)

From the beginning, UH Hilo offered early support through longtime CoBE professor Floyd Swan, who served on the initial festival committee and board.

By 1968, with few willing to take the lead, the festival nearly collapsed. That’s when Luana’s mother, Aunty Dottie Thompson, stepped forward. Inspired by King David Kalākaua’s own cultural renaissance, Aunty Dottie envisioned a festival centered on revitalizing Hawaiian culture. She sought guidance from hula masters — Aunty ʻIolani Luahine, Aunty Edith Kanakaʻole, and others — who urged her to create a hula contest grounded in tradition. The first competition debuted in 1971 with just nine hālau and the first Miss Hula (now Miss Aloha Hula).

Aunty Dottie Thompson, with her daughter, Luana Kawelu, have both served as Merrie Monarch Festival Presidents, cementing a family legacy of service to the Hilo community. (Photo courtesy: Merrie Monarch Festival)

Aunty Dottie’s instincts changed Hawaiʻi forever, and the festival has grown into an unrivaled cultural phenomenon. The festival reached audiences in more than 180 countries last year. Yet despite its global reach, it remains fiercely loyal to Hilo.

“This place loves this festival. The community and the festival rely on each other,” said Kathy, emphasizing that its success belongs to the entire Hilo community. Football teams help with parking. High school baseball teams set up chairs. Motorcycle clubs, fire crews, kūpuna, lei makers, and UH Hilo students volunteer in countless ways.

“We are people of service,” Kathy said. “This is why Merrie Monarch couldn’t be anywhere else,” she explained.

While much has changed since its inception, festival leaders are bound by an unwavering commitment to protect hula’s integrity.

Luana recalled Uncle George Naʻope’s lesson: “Don’t change the rules of kahiko. Look at other places — traditions shifted when people mixed styles. Don’t let that happen to Hawaiian hula.”

Kumu Hula George Naʻope was instrumental to the Merrie Monarch Festival’s early success and a staunch advocate for protecting hula traditions (Photo courtesy: Merrie Monarch Festival)

The competition is guided and judged by strict, traditional hula rules, but Hōʻike night offers a unique cultural exchange. Diverse groups from across the Pacific Rim, including Chamorro dancers, Samoan troupes, Māori kapa haka, and Inuit artists have all performed… but only after Hilo’s own hometown hālau, Hālau o Kekuhi, opens the show and sets the stage.

“We create the foundation on which other people can showcase their art and their practice,” said Kathy.

This spring, Kathy will co-teach an experimental course on Kalākaua and the Merrie Monarch Festival, continuing the university’s decades-long support of the festival. The class will include a service-learning component in which students will help create a database to archive the festival’s rich history for future generations.

Asked what she hopes for Merrie Monarch’s future, Luana’s answer was unwavering. “I hope the love of hula continues, so that our tradition is perpetuated.”

There are no plans to move the festival. “Not on my watch,” she said with conviction.

Through natural disasters, leadership transitions, generational change, and global attention, one truth remains unchanged: Merrie Monarch is Hilo, and Hilo is Merrie Monarch.