Merrie Monarch: Unforgettable Interview with Auntie Dottie Thompson and Luanna Kawelu

All in the ohana

Mother-Daughter team an unstoppable force

By Karen Welsh

Written in 2005 for the Hawaii Tribune-Herald
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A vacuum cleaner hums outside the Merrie Monarch Festival Headquarters, located on the second floor of the Naniloa Hotel on Bayfront Drive in Hilo.

Inside the cluttered two-room suite, Director Dorothy "Auntie Dottie" Thompson, age 84, sits at her desk, writing a thank you letter.

Surrounding this warm veteran of hula are dry-erase boards filled with handwritten names of kumu hula, halaus and times they are scheduled to practice on the stage for the 42nd Annual Merrie Monarch Festival. Long boxes of posters made by local artist Nelson Makua are stacked by one of the three desks already competing for precious space in the small office.

The other room is filled with dozens of boxes. Inside are 4,000 specially made t-shirts. Three tourists stand at the open door trying to make a purchase. Every nook and cranny is filled and the rooms crowded, but somehow the intimate space is open and inviting

For 37 years that is exactly the way Auntie Dottie, a name synonymous with the competition, has wanted her office and festival run while she's been at the helm. To her Merrie Monarch is not a festival unless the atmosphere is warm and homespun, heaped with a small town feeling of aloha.

Day after day Auntie Dottie organizes this world re-known hula competition. She uses a simple spiral notebook with all the plans and arrangements needed for the popular event.

And, year after year the Merrie Monarch Festival becomes more popular, with more than 4,500 people arriving from all over the world come to enjoy the hula competition held at the Edith Kanaka’ole Tennis Stadium in Hilo.

With the celebration of Hawaiian culture starting it would be easy to assume it is a period of stress. Strangely, however, Auntie Dottie is relaxed..

"This is a gliding time for me," she said. "We work year around and try to get everything done before the last two weeks. We do everything that can be done prior to the Merrie Monarch Festival. Otherwise, we could not swing it."

Don’t be fooled, this keeper of hula tradition said it takes a full year to prepare for the next event, but she has developed a routine that has worked well in the many years she has directed the competition.

There is no rest for Auntie Dottie. A couple weeks after the festival is finished, she spends time writing the top halaus from the previous competition to see if they are planning to return.

This matron of the festival also informs the bottom four bottom scoring groups that she is dropping them to make way for others waiting on the list to perform.

Preparation is also made for the first meeting in September, when Auntie Dottie has a meeting with all the kumu hulas and former judges to allow everyone to critique the past year. This gives the hula masters a voice and a chance to question both the Merrie Monarch officials and those who gave them their scores.

This particular meeting is also a time when Merrie Monarch office worker Daisy Komohai allows the halaus to preorder their t-shirts for the following year. Many use the colorful shirts as fundraisers. This year Komohai ordered 4,000 shirts.

Then it is time to order the gifts they give to all the kumu hula and judges, before the office is busy, once again, making arrangements for a second meeting in December. This is a critical time when all the kumu hulas are expected to give the Merrie Monarch officials the names and descriptions of their songs for the upcoming booklet.

The staff takes the time at every meeting to stress the importance of the rules, the judge’s score sheets and give important timelines and deadlines to the leaders.

"We emphasize how important it is to give us the information we need by a certain date," Auntie Dottie said. "They have to give us their songs by December 31, buy tickets for their supporters by January 2 and give us all the pictures of the kumu hula, kane and wahine dancers and Miss Aloha. We can’t emphasize enough how important that is."

Auntie Dottie’s work could not be accomplished alone. Besides Komohai, all of Auntie Dottie’s organizational chores are completed with the help of George DeMello, Francis Saiki and Eva Hirano.

Most important is the work of her daughter, 65-year-old Luana Kawelu, the heir apparent to take her mother’s place as the festival director someday. But, it isn’t always an easy task to please a mother.

"I’m still earning my stripes," Luana said of the 26 years she has worked for Merrie Monarch. "I’m still in training. My mom still rules this with an iron fist and a raised eyebrow."

Luana is willing to do whatever it takes to make the festival a success. On this day she is huddled at a table at the tennis stadium. Even though it is only a few blocks from the main headquarters, it is a world apart, as Luana spends many long hours in the open air making sure everything associated with the physical competition runs smoothly.

Not everything goes as planned. On this particular day, Luana is finally persuaded to go to the doctor for a nagging sore throat and chest congestion. It’s a task that needed to be done more than a week ago, but the faithful daughter simply didn’t have the time.

She has already been to her day job visiting Hilo Intermediate and High School students as a community facilitator with the Queen Lilio'kulani Children’s Center. She has worked there for 35 years.

After her rounds, Luana heads back to the stadium to greet a halau that is scheduled to practice and set up another batch of the more than 1,000 chairs needed for the audience.

She then goes back to various schools in the afternoon to check on more keiki before returning for yet another halau practice.

In the evenings, Luana heads to Keaukaha where she directs recreation and tutoring programs for the children in the community.

Each day is more of the same, affording Luana very little time to sleep. As the festival nears, she has to take vacation time at the center in order to spend most of her waking hours at the stadium. She often arrives between 4:30 a.m. to 6 a.m. and stays until midnight.

During that time Luana coordinates each halau’s rehearsals, making sure each group has a fair amount of time to practice.

She also meets with the ushers, helps the Royal Court practice, meets with the fire inspector to make sure all the chairs are spaced properly, coordinates with the decorators, security guards, cooks, sound people, television crews, telephone company, concession personnel, t-shirt vendors, kitchen people, meet with reporters, makes a namelist for nametags and makes sure all the dressing rooms are ready for each halau.

"You know it’s not the big things I worry about," Luana said. "It’s the small things. If you don’t deal with them it’s disastrous. It’s the leis, food, telephone lines, prizes, the piano, sound system, bass and the back-up generator. It’s all those details. If you don’t tend to them early you’re in trouble."

In all the years since she started helping, Luana has never seen the Merrie Monarch Parade or any of the other festivities going on around Hilo. She is too busy working.

This akamai gal knows she can’t do everything herself, however, and is thankful for the help of the Ho’olulu Complex Supervisor Paul Moffett and his crew. She said each year they clean out the dressing rooms and buff the floors.

She is also grateful for the state workers who go out into the fields to get the Ohia Trees needed for decorations.

Mostly, however, Luana depends upon her friend, Benjamin Spalding, who has selflessly helped her every year.

"He’s my right arm," she said. "He does anything and everything."

This includes peeling the old labels off the metal folding chairs, scrubbing the backs of the chairs and putting new labels on.

"What Luana does, I do," Benjamin said. "I help because Luana and her mom are good people."

All of the planning and effort that goes into the Merrie Monarch Festival is a labor of love for the mother-daughter duo.

Although people have offered a lot of money and have been "chomping at the bit" to commercialize the competition, the women plan to keep it local.

"I've tried to imitate Kalakaua," Auntie Dottie said. "And keep all things Hawaiian."

Her daughter agrees.

"We want to keep it homegrown," Luana said. "It’s a warm environment when we share the Hawaiian culture and aloha. We aloha the halaus. It’s always been my mother’s desire to make just enough money to start the next year. My mother has done it a certain way for many years and its been a success. She has given her blood, sweat, tears and heart to this festival. This is my mom’s legacy and I want to carry on. Why would I want to change it?"