Kia Mau Festival Brings Hana Keaka (Hawaiian Language Theatre) to Aotearoa: “Puana” by Tammy Haili‘ōpua Baker

In the opening scene of Puana, a musical play written and directed by Professor Tammy Haili‘ōpua Baker, a curious young man sifts through a trunk of memorabilia in his family home. As he examines old photos, film reels and LP records, grainy black and white images flicker on a gauzy screen, revealing images of a urbane vocalist of the 1930s, singing old mele (songs) in Ōlelo Hawai’i, the Hawaiian language.  This is the young man’s kupuna kāne kualua (great, great grandfather), a legendary singer/composer who left Hawai‘i in his 20s and took Hawaiian culture and music to the stages of the world.

This production of Puana was a special event for Wellington theatre – the first performance of Hana Kaeaka (Hawaiian language theatre) in our city. Professor Baker is one of Hawai‘i’s leading playwrights and founder of the Hawaiian Theatre programme at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Since the 1990s, she has led the work of revitalizing Kanaka Maoli mo‘olelo – Indigenous Hawaiian narratives – through Hana Keaka. Not only has she created numerous theatre works in ‘Ōlelo Hawai’i, she has passed her linguistic and theatrical skills on to her students who are in turn growing the canon of Hana Keaka works.  Her works are persuasive acts of resistance against the traumatic legacy of colonization in Hawai‘i and the wider Pacific region, but the integrity and positivity of her work is empowering and fosters a real sense of hope for the future. In June last year Professor Baker’s company travelled from Honololu to perform in the Kia Mau Festival, a biennial contemporary Indigenous arts festival led by Māori and Pacific creatives that is re-defining how we think about arts festivals in Aotearoa.

Left to right: Kawohi (Joshua “Baba” Kamoani’ala Tavares), Nae (Theo Kāneikoliakawahineika‘iukapuomua Baker) and Hale (Ikaika Mendez) in Puana written and directed by Tammy Haili‘ōpua Baker. Photo by Hezekiah Kapuaala.

Joshua “Baba” Kamoani’ala Tavares plays the young man, Kawohi, with thoughtful integrity. He is joined by his musician friends Hale (Ikaika Mendez) and Nae (Theo Kāneikoliakawahineika‘iukapuomua Baker). The three actors have a lovely sense of play amongst them, bouncing off each other with infectious energy. Most of the dialogue in Puana is in ‘Ōlelo Hawai’i, without any surtitles. I don’t speak the language, but I love hearing it spoken, with the beautiful sounds and rhythms of the language opening our minds and hearts to the linguistic heritage of this ancient Pacific culture. There is an openness and generosity of spirit in Baker’s playwriting. Although I don’t know the meaning of the words, the dynamics of the relationships between these three characters are clearly conveyed by the actors through action, intonation and body-language. Together Kawohi, Hale and Nae are the band Puana, and they are consummate performers, their singing characterised by thrilling harmonics. All have star quality yet work together seamlessly as a committed ensemble.

Throughout the play, the spirit of Kawohi’s Kupuna appears in the room, as if conjured up by Kawohi’s curiosity. As Kupuna, Kaula Krug seems to come from another era, effortlessly embodying the mana of the famous singer. Dressed in a snappy white suit, he has a quietly compelling stage presence and a slower rhythm than the other actors, exuding an uncanny ghostly quality: the composed composer, speaking mainly through his haunting music. As the ghost shadows Kawohi in the house he has inherited, he gradually bonds with his ancestor and absorbs his spirit into himself and his music. There are some laughs as Kawohi can’t work out why the old phonograph bursts mysteriously into life as the ghost (invisible to him) plays his old records.

Kupuna (Kaula Krug) and Kawohi (Joshua “Baba” Kamoani’ala Tavares) in Puana written and directed by Tammy Haili‘ōpua Baker. Photo by Hezekiah Kapuaala

Tensions emerge between Hale, who favours traditional Hawaiian music, and Nae, who wants to compose contemporary music in new genres. We see them rehearsing, composing, singing in a bar. Their creative conflicts resonate with the travels of Kupuna, brought to life as Kawohi reads his journals (written in English) and watches the old film clips. Kupuna’s journals reveal that his international success makes him feel like “a settler on foreign soil” who is “celebrated for his exoticism”. Writing from freezing conditions in New York his senses yearn for his island home. He witnesses the erosion of Hawaiian culture and mourns for the generations to come because they will not know what they have lost. This melancholia contrasts with the spirit of Kupuna’s music which preserves the integrity of Indigenous aesthetics, while the passionate creative debates between the younger present-day musicians reflect the politics of Oceanic art production: the need for productive interplay between a rich cultural heritage and future-focussed creative renewal.

The overlapping timeframes in the play create a dialogue between past, present and future, with Hawaiian music the unifying factor. The compositions by R. Keawe Lopes Jr. and Zachary Alaka‘i Lum are integral to the dramaturgy, full of gentle rhythms, lyrical melodies and soaring harmonies that often draw spontaneous applause and cheers from the audience. Their music transports us to island spaces and illustrates the evolution of Hawaiian music over the past century.

Kupuna (Kaula Krug) and dancer Ka‘ōnohikaumakaakeawe Lopes in Puana written and directed by Tammy Haili‘ōpua Baker. Photo by Hezekiah Kapuaala

The scenic design (by Christopher Patrinos and Antonio Hernandez) looks magnificent in the expansive space of Te Whaea Theatre, with the more naturalistic scenes taking place downstage close to the audience, a full band materialising on an upper level upstage against a sweeping cyclorama, and a gauze screen in between. These contrasting spaces facilitate the overlapping realities of the script and are clearly characterised by the bold lighting created by Tyler Kanemori and projection design by Noelani Montas and Marcus Goh. Early in the play Kawohi dreams about his Kupuna’s performances, which vividly come to life in the upstage dream-space, where Kupuna sings his mele in smoke-filled nightclubs accompanied by the full band and hula dancers. I am intrigued by the shadowy spaces between, the ambiguous spaces, the grainy spaces, the memory spaces, where Kupuna merges from film image to reality, from past to present and back again. The vibrant colours, textures and dynamic lines of the costumes designed by Theo Kāneikoliakawahineika‘iukapuomua Baker and Maile Speetjens vitalize the stage imagery, adding to the celebratory tone as the narrative moves to its conclusion.

Hale (Ikaika Mendez), Nae (Theo Kāneikoliakawahineika‘iukapuomua Baker) and Kawohi (Joshua “Baba” Kamoani’ala Tavares) perform with Kupuna (Kaula Krug) and the full band in Puana written and directed by Tammy Haili‘ōpua Baker. Photo by Hezekiah Kapuaala

The show ends with a spectacular concert integrating traditional and contemporary music. The Puana bandmates take centrestage, the audience cheers their sublime vocal dexterity and Kawohi sings a moving duet with his Kupuna which elegantly merges their creative pathways. While Puana evokes a sense of nostalgia for a past era, the interwoven story of the modern musicians uses this memorialising productively to imagine the future of Hawaiian cultural identity that is youth-focussed yet grounded in the achievements of the ancestors. All of this colour, this life, this gentleness, this mana, contests the devastating effects of American imperialism and the illegal occupation of Hawai‘i that began with the coup against Queen Lili‘uokalani in 1893 and continues to this very day.

Although Hawai‘i and Aotearoa are more than seven thousand kilometers apart, their visionary, inventive, Indigenous artists connect them spiritually, emotionally and politically. As Professor Baker wrote in our local newspaper:

When we engage in the practice of storytelling, we celebrate our language, identity, cultural values and our ancestors– inclusive of akua (God), natural elements such as land, ocean, water, wind, animals, sea life and fellow kānaka (people).

The act of performing our stories in ‘Ōlelo Hawai‘i (Hawaiian language) is an act of self-determination that re-normalises our language and re-indigenises the performing arts.[i]

Puana is both a homage to the legendary musicians who took Hawaiian music to the world, and an exploration of how creative production is evolving in Oceania. The ultimate testament to the theatrical impact of Puana was that a group of small children in the second row were transfixed by the show throughout. Congratulations to the Kia Mau Festival for bringing such a beautiful, ambitious, celebratory and mind-expanding production across the moana to light up our stages in Aotearoa. Mahalo nui loa!

Puana written and directed by Tammy Haili‘ōpua Baker

Presented by Ka Papahana Hana Keaka Hawai‘i – University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa

Kia Mau Festival, Te Whaea Theatre, Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand

11-14 June 2025

[i] Tammy Haili‘ōpua Baker, “Why Festivals Like Kia Mau Matter”. The Post 3 June 2025.