Mid-Pacific Institute recently received $250,000 from alumnus parents Stephen and Gloria Gainsley toward the Pūpūkahi endowment, a fund that supports the private school’s hula program for grades 9-12.
According to the Mid-Pacific’s website, hula students are eligible for the School of the Arts Hula Certificate Program or Hawaiian Studies Certificate Program.
This week, Aloha State Daily attended Kumu Hula Michael Lanakila Casupang's afternoon class with wahine high school seniors. He said he currently teaches about 90 school dancers at different levels from Hula 1 through Hula 4.
ASD asked Casupang more about what his students are working on now, as well as plans to spend the gift and grow the program.
What are your current priorities? We’re working on a show [a spring concert and brunch on May 11, Mother’s Day, featuring hula, song, chant, contemporary and experimental movements, etc.] We chose the theme BTS. What is that? It depends. If you’re into pop culture, BTS is a Korean boy group, it could also mean behind-the-scenes. We plan to take our audience on a journey of five different BTS acronyms, such as Battling The Snow Goddess and Birds That Soar. Storytelling is what hula is about.
For me, I’ve spent my life being a vehicle to bring students to a place where they feel confident about themselves. They learn to find out what drives them and what their passions are – and find the confidence to pursue them. At the end of our show, we talk about Be Thy Self, and it’s important for us, no matter what age we are, to be our authentic selves and not be ashamed. I’m teaching hula, but also about life-lessons. We all come from different backgrounds and can learn to accept, support and embrace others better. That’s what our name Pūpūkahi means, united as one, and that’s what I hope to help our students achieve.
Tell me more about how your program is funded. What do gifts like this allow you to do that you couldn’t before? We are primarily funded by the school’s budget. Some funds are for costumes for performances, but I’m pretty resourceful. I do a lot of the sewing and try to reuse and reimagine what we already have, so that at the same time, we’re being sustainable. I feel blessed to be at a place where I’m supported. With such a sizable donation from the Gainsleys (and because it's to the endowment) hula students will feel that support for years to come.
As part of the program, we travel and go to places that are special in the hula realm. I take their phones away because I want them to connect with each other and the people they meet. So for example, we’ll go to a Neighbor Island to study place names, chants and songs particular to that island and exchange with halaus there. On off years, we’ll go to the Mainland, New Zealand and Japan. Gifts help alleviate the financial burdens on the families to encourage learning experiences beyond the classroom. When we come back from these trips, it’s very eye opening.
How are you looking to expand the hula program? We’re trying to see if we're set up to expand the hula program into our middle school.
For now, I plan to continue to educate students about the culture of this place we call home by how we pronounce things, learning what protocol is or how we can care for the land, among other important teachings. It’s about providing more opportunities for the students, not necessarily getting more costumes or instruments. Like the Gainsleys, we have many people within our community that have been supporting this program, and I’m so grateful for them.
I was hired to teach music back in 1987, but after my first year, I agreed to cover for the then-Kumu Hula, who went on maternity leave for one year. She wasn’t able to come back, so that became my life’s work and I couldn’t see myself doing anything else.
Kelsey Kukaua Medeiros can be reached at kelsey@alohastatedaily.com.
