Next month’s Okinawan Festival at Kapiolani Park will feature the “best of the best” — performances by Hawaii’s Okinawan performing arts groups and schools as well as top performers from Okinawa. The Festival, which will be held Labor Day weekend, Sept. 4

August 6, 2004

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, contact: Karleen Chinen, Publicity Chair, at 944-0580 (pager: 569-3996), or email: kchinen@lava.net (cc: karleenc@hawaii.rr.com)

TWENTY-SECOND ANNUAL OKINAWAN FESTIVAL SET FOR SEPT. 4 AND 5 AT KAPIOLANI PARK

One of the most eagerly awaited events of summer — the annual Okinawan Festival — will be held Labor Day weekend, Sept. 4 and 5, 2004, at Kapiolani Park. The Festival, which is sponsored by the Hawaii United Okinawa Association (HUOA), is organized and staffed by more than a thousand volunteers from the HUOA’s 52 member-clubs, their friends and supporters. This year’s Festival is being co-chaired by Keith Kaneshiro and Rodney Kohagura.

During its two-day run, the Festival is expected to attract more than 50,000 people — residents and visitors alike, including a large contingent from Okinawa. They will have lots to enjoy: cultural performances, Okinawan and local food, cultural exhibitions and children’s activities, and more. The HUOA will provide free park-and-ride shuttle bus service from Kapiolani Community College throughout the event.

The Festival will begin with a parade that will depart Fort DeRussy at 9:30 a.m. and travel down Kalakaua Avenue to Kapiolani Park, where the Festival’s official opening ceremonies will begin at 11:30. Among those scheduled to speak is U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, who will also participate in the parade. Serving as grand marshalls of the parade will be a number of Okinawan issei, who immigrated to Hawaii in the early 1900s. The Okinawan Festival is a tribute to the cultural heritage they brought to Hawaii from their homeland and passed on to their children and grandchildren. The parade will also feature marching bands, dignitaries, visitors from Okinawa and representatives of the member-clubs of the Hawaii United Okinawa Association, all carrying their colorful club banners and led by 2004 HUOA President Cheryl Okuma-Sepe.

The Okinawan Festival will feature “the best of the best” — performances by Hawaii’s Okinawan performing arts groups and schools as well as top performers from Okinawa. Tour companies in Okinawa are busy at work, signing up people who want to come to Hawaii for the Okinawan Festival. Among the Saturday highlights is the “Celebrity Kachashi Contest” featuring some of Hawaii’s favorite television news personalities. Joining the contestants this year will be Japanese action hero, Kikaida and a few of his friends on Saturday.

The Saturday entertainment schedule will feature performances on a new and bigger stage. The Festival program will run until 6 p.m., followed by the Festival’s popular bon dance, the largest in Hawaii. And then at 8 p.m., one of the top recording and performing bands in Okinawa and mainland Japan — Begin — will put on a free concert. The Begin concert is a score for Hawaii. Tickets for the group’s concerts in Japan and Okinawa are very expensive and hard to obtain. Begin’s performance for the Okinawan Festival concert is supported by the Sheraton Waikiki Hotel and Okinawa businesses, Kokuba-Gumi Co., Ltd. and Orion Breweries, Ltd.

The Okinawan Festival is being supported with grants from the Hawaii Tourism Authority and the City and County of Honolulu, which believe that the Okinawan Festival has the potential of becoming an international cultural festival for Hawaii.

Festival program co-chair Isaac Hokama, who traveled to Okinawa in June to negotiate Begin’s performance for the Festival concert, said the group has wanted to perform in Hawaii since last year and are looking forward to their September performance.

Begin is: Masaru Shimabukuro, Eisho Higa and Hitoshi Uechi — all of whom were born and raised on the island of Ishigaki, located south of the main island of Okinawa. The three have been friends since childhood. They appeared for the first time as a group in 1988 when they performed for a friend’s wedding and were discovered by the owner of a nightclub, or “live house,” as they are referred to in Okinawa. Begin made its professional debut in 1990 with the release of their single, “Koishikute,” which was used as a theme song for the Nissan Motor Company.

The group’s career took off in a big way in the year 2000 following a cameo appearance in the NHK series, “Churasan.” They have released more than 11 albums — the latest, a CD/DVD, “Reef Line,” was released just last month.

One of their more popular tunes, “Nada Sou Sou,” has found a following in Hawaii. Popular Hawaii recording artist and performer Kealii Reichel borrowed the song’s melody for his Na Hoku Hanohano award-winning song, “Ka Nohona Pili Kai.” Reichel credits Begin for the song on his Hoku award-winning album, “Kealaokamaile.” A slack key version of the “Nada Sou Sou” was also recorded by Hoku award-winning guitarist Ozzie Kotani and his recording partner, Steve Sano, on their album, “Omoide — Remembrance.” Kotani, whose paternal grandfather immigrated to Hawaii from Okinawa, and Sano will perform at the Okinawan Festival on Sunday.

Also scheduled to perform at the Festival from Okinawa is the award-winning eisa (Okinawan-style bon dance) group, Naha Taiko, which was organized in 1997 among Naha City employees to perpetuate traditional Okinawan culture through eisa. The group has performed in parades, at hospitals, senior citizen centers, pre-schools and youth and community centers. Members also provide volunteer instruction at elementary schools in Okinawa’s capital city, Naha. Additional performers from Okinawa are still being added to the Festival program.

The HUOA’s “Gratitude in Action” project will partner with KHON TV and the Salvation Army to collect new toys for the Lokahi Tree Giving Project. Donors bringing an unwrapped toy to the Festival Information Tent will receive an andagi treat from the HUOA.

The first Okinawan Festival was held in 1982 at McCoy Pavilion at Ala Moana Park. By 1985, the festival had outgrown McCoy and was moved to Thomas Square, where it was held for the next four years. In 1989 the festival was put on hold for a year to plan for the move to an even bigger venue, Kapiolani Park, for the 1990 Okinawan Festival, which marked the 90th anniversary of Okinawan immigration to Hawaii. The move to Kapiolani Park was made to attract a larger, broader and more ethnically diverse audience and has proven to be one of the most successful means of sharing the Okinawan culture with all of Hawaii’s people.

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