culture

The once-empty New Caledonia hale at the Hawai‘i Convention Center's Festival Village is now decorated with gifts from Pacific Island delegates at the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture.

After a Native Hawaiian group pulled out a 50-foot Macaranga tree in Waimānalo, the highly invasive plant became part of the last hale for FestPAC. Nearly 30 hale, or houses, will dominate the Festival Village at the Hawaiʻi Convention Center. Each Pacific nation or territory will have its own structure. HPR's Cassie Ordonio has more.

A festival celebrating Filipino culture will be held this Saturday at the Filipino Community Center from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Shelly Lowe, a citizen of the Navajo Nation, heads the federal grantmaking agency that supports culture, heritage, education and civic work across the United States. Lowe will be in Hawaiʻi from April 22 to April 26.

The First Nations Writers Festival gives writers in the Pacific a chance for their books or short stories to win a cash prize or possibly be published. Book award winners may receive a cash prize of up to $5,000 in Australian currency.

Boys Of The Ocean, also known as Boto Bangaz, is a local rap group striving to make a name for themselves, creating music about their experiences growing up local in Hawaiʻi.

In the last several decades, tango has broken through stereotypes of who leads and who follows. Tango instructor Gaby Mataloni hosted workshops in Hawaiʻi earlier this year. She hopes to flip the script on gender roles in dance. Read and listen to the full story from HPR's Cassie Ordonio.

As Hōkūleʻa sails around the Pacific, a Molokaʻi member of the canoe's original crew reflects on the 47th anniversary of their voyage. On July 4, 1976, Penny Martin and her fellow crewmembers set sail from Tahiti, bringing the canoe back home to Hawaiʻi. HPR's Catherine Cluett Pactol talked with her.

The state wants to remove the historic ship, which is the only surviving iron-hulled four-masted full rigged ship in the world, from Honolulu Harbor. To do so, it must also delist Falls of Clyde from the State and National Register of Historic Places.

The Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation said it cannot move forward with issuing a Request For Proposals to remove the historic vessel from the harbor until it goes through the planning and entitlement process.