Community Calendar

“Yokai Parade: Supernatural Monsters from Japan” is a world-traveling exhibition produced by the prestigious Tokyo-based Japan Foundation. The exhibit presents Japan’s fascinating yokai culture through Japanese scrolls, woodblock prints, toys and films curated by Koichi Yumoto, regarded as one of Japan’s foremost experts on the subject. “Yokai Parade” traces the transformation of these supernatural beings from fearsome monsters to less scary – even charming – figures through contemporary media arts.

This exhibit is a collaboration between the renowned Japan Foundation, the Consulate General of Japan in Honolulu, and the Hawaii Japanese Center in Hilo.

A fascination with yokai traveled from Japan to Hawaii along with the thousands of Japanese immigrants who traversed the Pacific Ocean to work as laborers on Hawaii’s sugarcane plantations in the 1800s to the early 1900s. Taking on a form and identity of their own in Hawaii, yokai are better known in the islands as “obake.”

The importance of legends, myths, ghosts, and the supernatural in general was shared by the many ethnic groups in Hawaii, from the indigenous Hawaiians to Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Puerto Rican, Filipino and other immigrants who settled in the islands.

“Yokai Parade: Supernatural Monsters from Japan” will run from August 2 to August 30 at the Hawaii Japanese Center, 751 Kanoelehua Avenue in Hilo. Public viewing hours are Wednesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, email info@hawaiijapanesecenter.com or call (808) 934-9611.

Dance-scholar/author Halifu Osumare of Sacramento, California, will be in Hilo on Thursday 8/14/2025 for a book reading and presentation at 4pm at the University of Hawaii at Hilo lecture hall UCB 100.

Her latest book, Dancing the Afrofuture: Hula, Hip-Hop, and the Dunham Legacy (2024), explores her two-island lifestyle, transitioning from artist to academic scholar. In the process, she danced from the stage to the page, while negotiating Hawaiian hula as an African American dancer, bringing the Hawaiian and Black communities on the Big Island together.

Dr. Halifu Osumare is Professor Emerita of African American & African Studies at University of California, Davis, and is recognized as a scholar, dancer, choreographer, and cultural activist for over fifty years. As a recognized global hip-hop studies scholar, she wrote The Africanist Aesthetic in Global Hip-Hop: Power Moves (2007), grounding her research on how hip-hop was influencing the Hawaiian islands. After winning a Fulbright Fellowship to West African, she published The Hiplife in Ghana: West African Indigenization of Hip-Hop (2012).

As a dancer in the 1970s, she was a soloist with the Rod Rodgers Dance Company of New York, and a proud protégé of dancer-anthropologist Katherine Dunham. Since retirement in 2016, she has published two memoirs about her life and career as artist-scholar: Dancing in Blackness (2018) and Dancing the Afrofuture: Hula, Hip-Hop, and the Dunham Legacy (2024). Dr. Osumare received her doctorate in American Studies from the University of Hawai’i at Manoa, and lived on the Big Island from 1994-2000. During that time, she studied hula under kumu Ehulani Stephany, and performed hula throughout the Hawaiian islands as a member of Halau Hula Ka Makani Hali’Ala O Puna.

After the book reading and presentation, book signing and reception will follow. This event is free to the public, and is part of the Big Island Dance Council’s 50th anniversary celebration.

“Yokai Parade: Supernatural Monsters from Japan” is a world-traveling exhibition produced by the prestigious Tokyo-based Japan Foundation. The exhibit presents Japan’s fascinating yokai culture through Japanese scrolls, woodblock prints, toys and films curated by Koichi Yumoto, regarded as one of Japan’s foremost experts on the subject. “Yokai Parade” traces the transformation of these supernatural beings from fearsome monsters to less scary – even charming – figures through contemporary media arts.

This exhibit is a collaboration between the renowned Japan Foundation, the Consulate General of Japan in Honolulu, and the Hawaii Japanese Center in Hilo.

A fascination with yokai traveled from Japan to Hawaii along with the thousands of Japanese immigrants who traversed the Pacific Ocean to work as laborers on Hawaii’s sugarcane plantations in the 1800s to the early 1900s. Taking on a form and identity of their own in Hawaii, yokai are better known in the islands as “obake.”

The importance of legends, myths, ghosts, and the supernatural in general was shared by the many ethnic groups in Hawaii, from the indigenous Hawaiians to Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Puerto Rican, Filipino and other immigrants who settled in the islands.

“Yokai Parade: Supernatural Monsters from Japan” will run from August 2 to August 30 at the Hawaii Japanese Center, 751 Kanoelehua Avenue in Hilo. Public viewing hours are Wednesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, email info@hawaiijapanesecenter.com or call (808) 934-9611.

The Waikōloa Biocultural Series brings local experts, practitioners, scientists, and community leaders to the Waikōloa Dry Forest Preserve to share their ‘ike with our community. This series began in 2020 to broaden horizons, connect to place and each other, and provide opportunities for our community to engage with the forest. We are so fortunate to have so many dedicated, passionate, and generous leaders, teachers, and kūpuna in our community that are willing to come to Waikōloa Dry Forest, and share their stories and experience with all of us.

The 2025 talk series is based on “Little Biology” and will include talks about the mini yet mighty and lesser-discussed biology that play big roles in our environments. Presentations will feature speakers who carry kuleana in Hawaiʻi and create a space for sharing knowledge and experiences in a supportive community.

Talks are free, open to the public, and hosted at the Waikōloa Dry Forest Preserve.

OCEAN WITH DAVID ATTENBOROUGH takes viewers on a breathtaking journey showing there is nowhere more vital for our survival, more full of life, wonder, or surprise, than the ocean. The celebrated broadcaster and filmmaker reveals how his lifetime has coincided with the great age of ocean discovery. Through spectacular sequences featuring coral reefs, kelp forests and the open ocean, Attenborough shares why a healthy ocean keeps the entire planet stable and flourishing. Stunning, immersive cinematography showcases the wonder of life under the seas and exposes the realities and challenges facing our ocean as never-before-seen, from destructive fishing techniques to mass coral reef bleaching. Yet the story is one of optimism, with Attenborough pointing to inspirational stories from around the world to deliver his greatest message: the ocean can recover to a glory beyond anything anyone alive has ever seen. The showing is FREE and will be introduced by Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Sanctuary Education Coordinator Andy Collins, who will also have a short Q&A after the film. Time: August 15 and 16 at 7 PM, and August 17 at 5 PM.

Farmers and Artisan market

“Yokai Parade: Supernatural Monsters from Japan” is a world-traveling exhibition produced by the prestigious Tokyo-based Japan Foundation. The exhibit presents Japan’s fascinating yokai culture through Japanese scrolls, woodblock prints, toys and films curated by Koichi Yumoto, regarded as one of Japan’s foremost experts on the subject. “Yokai Parade” traces the transformation of these supernatural beings from fearsome monsters to less scary – even charming – figures through contemporary media arts.

This exhibit is a collaboration between the renowned Japan Foundation, the Consulate General of Japan in Honolulu, and the Hawaii Japanese Center in Hilo.

A fascination with yokai traveled from Japan to Hawaii along with the thousands of Japanese immigrants who traversed the Pacific Ocean to work as laborers on Hawaii’s sugarcane plantations in the 1800s to the early 1900s. Taking on a form and identity of their own in Hawaii, yokai are better known in the islands as “obake.”

The importance of legends, myths, ghosts, and the supernatural in general was shared by the many ethnic groups in Hawaii, from the indigenous Hawaiians to Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, Korean, Puerto Rican, Filipino and other immigrants who settled in the islands.

“Yokai Parade: Supernatural Monsters from Japan” will run from August 2 to August 30 at the Hawaii Japanese Center, 751 Kanoelehua Avenue in Hilo. Public viewing hours are Wednesday to Saturday from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Admission is free. For more information, email info@hawaiijapanesecenter.com or call (808) 934-9611.

OCEAN WITH DAVID ATTENBOROUGH takes viewers on a breathtaking journey showing there is nowhere more vital for our survival, more full of life, wonder, or surprise, than the ocean. The celebrated broadcaster and filmmaker reveals how his lifetime has coincided with the great age of ocean discovery. Through spectacular sequences featuring coral reefs, kelp forests and the open ocean, Attenborough shares why a healthy ocean keeps the entire planet stable and flourishing. Stunning, immersive cinematography showcases the wonder of life under the seas and exposes the realities and challenges facing our ocean as never-before-seen, from destructive fishing techniques to mass coral reef bleaching. Yet the story is one of optimism, with Attenborough pointing to inspirational stories from around the world to deliver his greatest message: the ocean can recover to a glory beyond anything anyone alive has ever seen. The showing is FREE and will be introduced by Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Sanctuary Education Coordinator Andy Collins, who will also have a short Q&A after the film. Time: August 15 and 16 at 7 PM, and August 17 at 5 PM.

OCEAN WITH DAVID ATTENBOROUGH takes viewers on a breathtaking journey showing there is nowhere more vital for our survival, more full of life, wonder, or surprise, than the ocean. The celebrated broadcaster and filmmaker reveals how his lifetime has coincided with the great age of ocean discovery. Through spectacular sequences featuring coral reefs, kelp forests and the open ocean, Attenborough shares why a healthy ocean keeps the entire planet stable and flourishing. Stunning, immersive cinematography showcases the wonder of life under the seas and exposes the realities and challenges facing our ocean as never-before-seen, from destructive fishing techniques to mass coral reef bleaching. Yet the story is one of optimism, with Attenborough pointing to inspirational stories from around the world to deliver his greatest message: the ocean can recover to a glory beyond anything anyone alive has ever seen. The showing is FREE and will be introduced by Papahānaumokuākea National Marine Sanctuary Education Coordinator Andy Collins, who will also have a short Q&A after the film. Time: August 15 and 16 at 7 PM, and August 17 at 5 PM.

Farmers and Artisan market