Mike Foley's blog
The Kamaluwehiokapalai halau hula from Japan
Story and photos by Mike Foley
[First published in the Polynesian Cultural Center blog, February 2017]
As it has for the past several years, the Polynesian Cultural Center hosted its annual Moanikeala Hula Festival on February 4, 2017, in a perfect setting — under the monkeypod tree in the Hawaiian Village. [Read more…]
[Story and photos by Mike Foley: Originally published in the BYU–Hawaii electronic “newsroom” on 27 February 2009]
Cy M. Bridges [pictured at right], Theater Director for the Polynesian Cultural Center and a noted Hawaiian cultural expert, shared his love, passion and expertise on historical and genealogical aspects of modern hula with Brigham Young University Hawaii students during the February 25, 2009, Honors Program colloquium in McKay 101.
“The hula was really our hard drive — our textbook,” said Bridges, who in addition to his work at the PCC is an entertainer, musician, genealogist, kumu hula or master, and periodic judge for the well-known Merrie Monarch Hula Festival in Hilo. “Everything was committed to memory, because there was no written language; so we chanted, sang and danced about our lives.”
One of the side benefits of recently staying at Jacob Lake Inn near the North Rim of the Grand Canyon was meeting the grandson of the founders, John Rich, who used his personal experiences and 40-year career of dealing in hand-woven Navaho rugs to help us understand the concept of hozho. Rich, pictured at left, […]
[Story and photos by Mike Foley, who accompanied the group: Published originally in the BYU-Hawaii “Newsroom” in July 2006] Eleven BYU-Hawaii students and alumni, accompanied by two International Cultural Studies professors and their respective families, recently returned to campus after spending four weeks studying intensive Mandarin in Shanghai and another week visiting historic sites in […]
[Story and photo by Mike Foley: Published originally in the BYU-Hawaii “Newsroom,” April 17, 2007] Elder Gale Bryce [pictured at right], a volunteer service missionary at the Polynesian Cultural Center, explained in the heavily attended April 17. 2007. BYUH School of Computing InForm meeting how two former colleagues used “wordprint” statistical analyses to authenticate Book of Mormon […]
A selection of pictures from Arches National Park near Moab, Utah (go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcZr15dhhq0 if you do not see a video window above) The incredible natural beauty of Arches National Park — which I previously visited only once before in the mid-1970s on a photo expedition to Monument Valley — speaks for itself, but in […]
