The Hawaiian Mission Houses Historic Site and Archives (HMH) invites the community to experience “Mele Tūtū: Songs of our Grandparents”, the next installment of HMH’s acclaimed Mele Program. “Mele Tūtū invites guests to look closely at the memories and songs of our grandparents and great-grandparents’ generation from the 1930s/1940s. Connection to our kūpuna, our elders, helps us to maintain the genealogies, histories, and mana of generations that we revere today. Expressed through mele (song), oli (chant), and hula (dance), Mele Tūtū embodies the enduring principle of Mālama Kūpuna: caring for our elders and those whose wisdom and values we all rely upon in our present day lives.

In the 1930s and 1940s -- the time of our grandparents and great-grandparents -- live music performances and radio broadcasts were important ways of sharing local music not only across the islands, but also to the Continental U.S. and further abroad. Radio shows such as “Hawaiʻi Calls” and “Territorial Airwaves,” its descendant program in the 1970s and 1980s, helped to broadcast Hawaiian music, mele, and culture to people otherwise unfamiliar with Hawaiʻi, its history, or its people. Orchestras playing hapa-haole music, jazz, and other forms of popular Hawaiian music were instrumental in connecting people across the airwaves.

For many kamaʻāina, the mele and hula of the 1930s and 1940s are direct connections to their ancestors who danced hula, played in world-renowned touring Hawaiian bands, and kept the memory and music of previous generations alive in new contemporary ways for the time period. These mele and hula evoke memories of family musicians in the yard or on the lānai, at family gatherings, and times when kūpuna would share the knowledge and history of the family with younger generations. It brings back memories of joy, happiness, fun, and genuine connection between family members.

WORLD-CLASS CULTURAL PRACTITIONERS

Mele Tūtū: Songs of our Grandparents will be brought to life by the renowned musicians and dancers of Hālau Hula Kamamolikolehua under the skilled leadership of Kumu Pōhai Souza, and Hālau Mele under the direction of Kumu Sam ʻOhu Gon III and Kumu Māhealani Wong. Together, these celebrated cultural practitioners will weave historical and contemporary expressions through performances that illuminate the enduring responsibility of every generation to honor and remember the lives of our kūpuna.