Shows &events
16th annual ‘Iolani Luahine Hula Festival Friday, Saturday
The 16th annual ‘Iolani Luahine Hula Festival will be held Friday and Saturday at the Sheraton Kona Resort and Spa.
The festival was established in 2003 with a vision to perpetuate the hula, and it also serves as a way to honor the memory of ‘Iolani Luahine and her contributions to the preservation of hula and Hawaiian culture.
This year, the festival will again include hula presentations, and a challenge to kumu hula with a prize for the one who best demonstrates the values of ‘Iolani Luahine: education and Hawaiian culture. In addition, the festival will feature hula workshops. Registration fees and information for the workshops are available at www.iolaniluahinefestival.org.
Hula presentations will begin at 4 p.m. on Friday featuring makuahine, makuakane and kupuna hula presentations. Saturday’s presentations will begin at 1 p.m. and will feature keiki, wahine and kane presentations. The presentations are free and open to the public; donations will be accepted.
Evening musical entertainment begins at 6:30 p.m. Friday featuring Sean Na’auao. Tickets are $15 and will be available online and at the door.
On Saturday, the festival will offer quality Hawaiian arts and crafts by local artisans beginning at 11 am.
Info/tickets: Visit www.iolaniluahinefestival.org.
DMAC’s ‘Faculty Exhibition’ opens Saturday
An opening reception is slated 6-8 p.m. Saturday for Donkey Mill Art Center’s 15th annual Faculty Exhibition.
The exhibit celebrates the recent works of Donkey Mill Art Center’s teaching artists and studio assistants. Diverse in vision, media, and execution, the works exhibited demonstrate visual investigations that form the studio practices of DMAC’s artist faculty.
This exhibition offers students and visitors an exclusive opportunity to view the new work by some of the region’s most dynamic artists and educators representing the full spectrum of areas in studio art and design including traditional drawing, painting, sculpture, ceramics, printmaking and metal work. See how this talented group of artists and instructors confront traditional notions of art, push boundaries and expectations and discover new ideas with humor and passion.
Participating artists are Amber Aguirre, Nanette Bell, Kelly Berg, Robert Corsair, Akiko Cutlip, Peter Durst, Peri Coeurtney Enkin, Gary Eoff, Jon Goebel, Bobby Howard, Keiko Hara, Samantha daSilva, Eirik Johnson, Cris Lindborg, Gerald Lucena, Linda Meyer, Courtney Meiselman, Hiroki Morinoue, Miho Kanani Morinoue, Aidan Murray, Tomoko Nakazato, Erik Omundson, Susan Raber Bray, Laurel Schultz, Claire Seastone, Margaret Shields, Erin Skelton, Sarah Steinwachs, Emi Sundberg, April Vollmer, Gerald Walsh, William Wingert George, Art Arne, Jin An Wong and Carol Zee.
The exhibit is on view at the center between 10 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday through March 24.
Info: Visit www.donkeymillartcenter.org or call 322-3362.
SKEA holds annual membership day, gallery show
The Society for Kona’s Education and Art (SKEA) holds its annual membership day and gallery show Sunday in Honaunau.
The 2-5 p.m. free event will feature live music with Mahina Sanders, Randy Shelor and the SKEA kanikapila group, hula by Mahina’s SKEA hula halau and a silent auction. The show and sale will include a variety of works by SOKO, the South Kona Artists Collective. The silent auction will be held at 4:15 p.m.
The Society for Kona’s Education and Art is located at 84-5191 Mamalahoa Highway in Honaunau.
Info: Visit www.skea.org, email skea@hawaii.rr.com or call 328-9392.
Keawe headlines benefit event for hospital auxiliary
Grammy Award-winning slack key guitarist John Keawe headlines Kona Community Hospital Auxiliary’s annual benefit and silent auction this Sunday in Kailua-Kona.
All proceeds from the 2-4 p.m. event at Old Kona Airport Park’s Makaeo Events Pavilion will benefit the auxiliary’s nursing scholarship fund. The scholarship is geared for West Hawaii residents entering an accredited school of nursing.
Tickets are $20 for KCH auxiliary members and $25 for general admission if purchased in advance. At the door, tickets are $30. Children age 10 and younger enter free. Tickets can be purchased at Clark &Associates in Pine Plaza, the KCH Gift Shop, Friday Bake Sale, by calling 331-1716 or from any auxiliary board member.
Info: Call 331-1716 or visit www.kchauxiliary.org.
Announcements
A Septet of treats for opera lovers
The 2018 Metropolitan Opera Live in HD series launches Saturday with Puccini’s “Tosca.” This production puts the “grand” in Grand Opera, big-time. The setting is Rome, June 1800m in the midst of the Napoleonic wars. The heroine, Tosca, is a renowned singer too beautiful for her own safety or that of her lover, the handsome painter, Caravadossi. Caught in the flames of politics and passions, they are driven to extremes of suffering by that treacherous man, Chief of Police Scarpia. Puccini’s score demands its own extremes of voice and acting, and this new production delivers.
On Feb. 10, the Metropolitan performs Donizetti’s rollicking “L’Elisir D’Amore,” followed on Feb. 24 by Puccini’s gloriously romantic opera of young loves, “La Boheme.” On March 10, Kona opera lovers can hear Rossetti’s “Semiramide,” telling the dramatic events around the tempestuous and murderous Babylonian queen. On March 31 comes another Mozart delight, the cheeky “Cosi Fan Tutti” which this new production sets in Coney Island.
A much-anticipated performance by Placido Domingo will light up the Metropolitan on April 14 with Verdi’s “Luisa Miller.’ Then on April 28, the great mezzo-soprano, Joyce DiDonato, will sing the title role in the Metropolitan’s first-ever production of Massenet’s music for the Cinderella story. Set to fairy-tale music, “ Cendrillion” is an enchanted opera for younger as well as older listeners.
Most performances begin at 12:45 p.m. at the Stadium 10 Regal Theater in the Makalapua Shopping Center in Kailua-Kona.
Admission is $22-$24 for adults. Tickets are available from the box office or through www.fandango.com and www.fathomebents.com.
Encore performances are usually offered the following Wednesday evening.
Film screenings
‘Let the Mountain Speak’ to be shown
Donkey Mill Art Center hosts a free public screening this evening of “Let the Mountain Speak,” a moving five-minute visual poem produced in both Hawaiian and English, featuring the film’s writers and directors/producers Jeannette Paulson Hereniko and Vilsoni Hereniko.
The controversy around Maunakea is similar to many other controversies in other parts of Oceania and the rest of the world. Deep sea mining, fisheries exploitation, strip mining, sacred rivers and hydroelectricity, and the rising of the seas over sacred lands — there is a seemingly endless list of comparable situations and places. By putting the clash over Maunakea under a microscope, the filmmakers hope to bring into visibility various elements, influences and different world views that are in conflict, not just in this one controversy, but in other similar conflicts worldwide.
The film screening and discussion runs 6-8 p.m. at Donkey Mill Art Center in Holualoa. Attendees are encouraged to bring a potluck dish to share.
Info: Visit www.donkeymillartcenter.org.
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