Kumu hula Victoria "Vicky" Holt Takamine was presented with the prestigious Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize at Washington Place earlier this month.
The award, valued at more than $450,000, is given annually to someone from any creative discipline who has “made an outstanding contribution to the beauty of the world and to mankind’s enjoyment and understanding of life.”
Past recipients include filmmakers Ava DuVernay, Ingmar Bergman and Spike Lee; poet Sonia Sanchez; and singer-songwriter Bob Dylan.
The Conversation spoke with Takamine about the award and what it means for Hawaiʻi. She said she had not heard of the Gish Prize before receiving it.
Interview Highlights
On learning she was this year's Gish Prize recipient
VICTORIA HOLT TAKAMINE: In the 31 years that this prize has been given, no one outside of New York has received it. So the artists that are on this list, if you Google Lillian Gish Prize, they're amazing artists. It's Merce Cunningham, it's Spike Lee. I mean, it's famous people. For the first time in the history of this prize, someone from Hawaiʻi, a kumu hula, whose art form is hula and from Hawaiʻi, has been nominated and won. I was just in tears when Terrance McKnight, who is actually on public radio, he has a show, he does classical music on NPR, but he's the chair of the selection committee for this year. I was like, "Are you kidding me?" I said, "How is that possible?" He says, "We only give one prize annually, and this was the mission and this is what Lillian Gish had wanted, to give one artist annually, a prize, a cash prize." When he told me, he says, well, depends, this is very casual like, depends on when the check is cut. First, he says, "You've won the Lillian Gish Prize." I said, "I'm so excited." But I said, "I don't know how I got here," because I looked on their website, I don't know anybody on their website. Usually you would know somebody, like a program officer or someone. I knew no one on their website. I didn't know anybody on the committee. I researched the committees, I researched the artists. I don't know anyone personally that would recommend me. And so he says, "Well, you were nominated. You were among 100 people. And we all got in the room. And of course, your name was the last one on the list, because we go alphabetically, and so Takamine was the last one."
On sharing her work on the continent
TAKAMINE: While we do a lot of good work here in Hawaiʻi, that work has to get out across because nobody would have nominated me that's on their committee or that would have been invited to if I wasn't going to New York or going to Jackson, Mississippi, or going to South Dakota or going to Minneapolis. So it's a work that I not only do here, but I do on the continent and bring to Hawaiʻi. So my art space lofts, for example, that we built, 84 units of artist housing — rental for artists to live, work and play in that we built in Kakaʻako, took me 15 years to get that project up and running. We had to raise $55 million for that. We've got 84 units of artist housing and affordable housing for Hawaiʻi. I was just talking to the educators, state Department of Education, and I should go talk to our governor as well, and some of our state Lege because we need housing for teachers. They have housing for teachers in other states, but if we want to keep good-quality teachers here in Hawaiʻi, then we have to provide them spaces to live. So I'm thinking that's one of the things that we need to start to advocate for — is teacher housing, housing for health care, the real resources that we need to make Hawaiʻi affordable and livable for the people of Hawaiʻi so that they can provide the kinds of services that we actually really need in Hawaiʻi.
On hula as a form of resistance
TAKAMINE: I'm really hopeful that it's uplifting the rest of our community, puts Hawaiʻi on the map, puts Native Hawaiians on the map, puts our art form on the map, puts hula up there. We all recognize hula as one of the most prominent artistic practices here in Hawaiʻi, but it doesn't get that kind of recognition across the continent. So now, you know, what it means for me, like I often say hula is a form of resistance. So it has helped to perpetuate our Hawaiian language because in the '70s, when I ʻūniki from Aunty Maʻiki Aiu Lake as a kumu hula, the '70s is when we started our Hawaiian language immersion schools, hālau hula, kumu hula, then ʻūniki. Around that time, all of us were just coming out of, we were all the flower children from the Vietnam War, '60s, but graduating and getting into college and as a graduate of Aunty Maʻiki helping to leverage Hawaiian students in Hawaiian language. So in hula, we perpetuate the Hawaiian language even though that was banned. We perpetuate hula even though that was banned. So hula has always been a form of resistance.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Dec. 26, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1.
