Hula Preservation Society's First Year
by Nona Kapuailohia Desha Beamer and
Maile Kapuailohia Beamer Loo
February 2002

A year has gone by since we shared the founding of Hula Preservation Society with you. We have been busy, challenged, and highly excited! This is a whole new chapter in my life - this entire field of technology- it absolutely boggles my mind! I don't pretend to understand it, but I respect it totally and daughter Maile for her expertise. Can you believe my feelings of awe and amazement that we are engaged in this preservation work to gather hula knowledge for posterity, and to use technology to make this information available for the world to appreciate and enjoy.

Filling our hearts and minds with enriching Hawaiian culture is constantly making me aware and acutely more humble of the unfathomable accomplishments of the ancients. If we can use the technology to classify, cross-index, reference, etc. all the myriad facets of this information, it will be retrievable for every possible study of hula in the future.

We are continuing to appeal to the küpuna to add their hula knowledge to this storehouse of resources, adding their personal experiences as we gather all the tidbits of hula knowledge available to us.

And now, here is daughter Maile to speak further of the joy in the work of Hula Preservation Society. It is fast becoming my passion!

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Hi everyone! These past 12 months have brought a slew of activity and encouragement. In case you're new to HPS, our mission is two fold: PRESERVATION and PERPETUATION. Under Preservation, we seek to capture the spirits and authentic voices of our treasured elders, and document ancient hula using modern technologies. Under Perpetuation, we work to gather these hula resources and share them using technologies such as television, video, the Internet, and CDs or DVDs.

We have three agencies to give a special thanks to. We are grateful to the Atherton Family Foundation for their financial support of the "gathering" effort we are undertaking. They have enabled us to reach out to more küpuna and use digital video to capture their stories and valuable hula knowledge and experiences.

Mahalo to the Hawai`i Community Foundation for their support in developing an Online Multimedia Hula Library. This grant will help us to create a prototype and test sharing these valuable resources over the Internet with our worldwide hula community. Look to www.hulapreservation.org in May 2002 for the Library prototype.

Many thanks to the Nadao and Mieko Yoshinaga Foundation for supporting the purchase of additional digital video and computer equipment. Finally, mahalo to the dozen of individuals who have donated money to HPS over the last year. Every dollar counts, and 100% goes toward this important work.

Over this past year, we have expanded our efforts and the "new" küpuna we have interacted with include Pulu`elo Park, George Nä`ope, Leiana Woodside, Queenie Ventura Dowsett, Mae Kamämalu Klein, Kent Ghirard, George Holokai, Shirley Moss, Thelma Enos Boyd, Emma Kauhi, Laua`e Yung, and Rhea Akoi. We have thoroughly enjoyed the time spent with our küpuna and as my mom said, we continue to appeal to other elders to share their backgrounds and experiences with HPS.