Uncles and Aunties: Vicky Holt Takamine, legendary kumu hula

Vicky Holt Takamine rises with the sun every day to do her morning routine. The respected kumu hula and Hawaiian cultural advocate chops apples, cucumbers, bell peppers, cherry tomatoes, romaine lettuce and hibiscus from her garden—the daily meal for Henry, her three-year-old African sulcata tortoise. She feeds the fish in her aquaponics system where she’s growing kale, herbs, starter ti leaves and more. She replenishes her bird feeder; cleans and fills water in Henry’s kiddie pool; tends her luxuriant collection of plants; and cuts flowers, which imbue the kitchen and bathrooms of her ‘Aiea home with sweet scents.

It takes Takamine at least two hours to complete everything — evidence of the discipline and commitment she has displayed throughout a life marked by aloha, community service and visionary leadership. In 2025, she was recognized as a Living Treasure of Hawai‘i for her accomplishments — one of several accolades, both local and national, she has received over the years.

It all began with hula. “My mother was my inspiration,” Takamine said. “I used to watch her dance on the ‘Lucky Luck’ TV show in the 1950s. I begged her to let me go to hula classes, but she said I was too young and that I would quit after a year. I proved her wrong!”

At the time, Takamine’s family lived on Kalihi Street behind Leong’s Cafe, which was owned by John Leong and his wife, Lucy, who danced with kumu hula Ma‘iki Aiu Lake’s Hālau Hula O Ma‘iki.

“Aunty Lucy invited my mother to join her in the adult women’s class,” Takamine said. “Mom asked Aunty Ma‘iki if my sister, Charlene, and I could also dance with her. She said we’d have to wait a year, so we did. Charlene was 10 and I was 12 when we started taking lessons from Aunty Ma‘iki in 1960.”

In the ensuing years, Lake started opening doors in the entertainment industry for Takamine. The summer of 1964, after her junior year at Kamehameha Schools, Takamine and other dancers from Hālau Hula O Ma‘iki performed with Bill Ali‘iloa Lincoln at Aloha Tower, greeting passengers who disembarked from cruise ships that moored there.

The following summer, Lake asked Takamine and a few other dancers to join Alice Keawekāne Garner, Loyal Garner’s mother, at what was then called Honolulu International Airport. “There were only two baggage claim areas,” Takamine said, “and we went back and forth, entertaining passengers as they picked up their luggage. That was my first paid job; I earned maybe $15 per day.”

During the 1960s, she also often danced at the Halekulani with Lake and the Kahauanu Lake Trio.

The 1970s brought big changes. Takamine appeared in Waikīkī with other notables, including Pua Almeida, Leinaʻala Haili and Leinaʻala Kalama Heine. She married, had three sons and graduated in 1975 as part of Lake’s second ʻūniki class, which marked her rite of passage from gifted student to kumu hula. Two years later, she opened her own hālau, Pua Aliʻi ʻIlima (royal ‘ilima blossom), which will observe its 50th anniversary next year.

In November 1978, three months after her youngest son was born, Iva Kinimaka called her with a request.

“He said, ‘I need to put together a lūʻau show in four days, and you’re the only person I know who can pull it off,’” Takamine said. “I said, ‘Okay, I’ll take the challenge.’ Because of Aunty Ma‘iki, I had been in enough shows to learn about the business side of entertainment—how sound, music, lighting, costuming and choreography need to come together in a show that audiences will enjoy but that is also profitable.”

Pua Aliʻi ʻIlima was only a year old at the time, but Takamine called on her dancers to perform in the new show. She also enlisted the help of kumu hula friends and their hālau. A business associate whose show had closed had costumes in storage, and he gave her all of them.

“That’s how the Paradise Cove Lūʻau started,” Takamine said. “I wound up directing it for 10 years before I retired from show business.” (That lūʻau closed in December 2025 after a 47-year run.)

While she was working at Paradise Cove, Takamine returned to college, earning her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in dance ethnology from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. She taught hula there and at Leeward Community College for a total of 34 years.

The impetus for the PA‘I Foundation came in 1997, when Takamine discovered the state legislature had appropriated $2 million to purchase art for the new Hawai‘i Convention Center, none of it created by Native Hawaiians. Offended, she launched a campaign to form an independent organization to support Hawaiian artists, artisans and cultural practitioners.

Takamine established the PA‘I Foundation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, in 2001 “to preserve and perpetuate Native Hawaiian arts and cultural traditions for future generations.” PAʻI is the acronym for Pua Aliʻi ʻIlima. One of its meanings, “sudden impact,” aligns with her vision for the organization to be a champion for causes that serve and uplift the lāhui (Hawaiian people).

Both the foundation and Pua Aliʻi ʻIlima are based at the PAʻI Arts & Cultural Center (PACC) in Kaka‘ako, the result of Takamine’s efforts to provide Hawaiians with a place to practice and showcase their art. Thanks to funding from the Ford Foundation, the PA‘I Foundation was able to partner on the project with Artspace, a Minneapolis-based developer specializing in affordable spaces for artists to live, work and play.

Although it took 13 years to come to fruition, Takamine was thrilled to see PACC open in December 2023 on the ground floor of the eight-story Ola Ka ʻIlima Artspace Lofts, 84 residential/atelier units occupied by Hawaiian artists and their families. PACC hosts classes ranging from featherwork and lei making to lauhala weaving and ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi. Concerts, storytelling, poetry readings, panel discussions, film presentations and other special events also take place there. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Not one to rest on her laurels, Takamine points out the need for constant reflection. “How can we continue to strengthen our lāhui?” she said. “We’ve accomplished a lot, but there’s still much more to do. I’ll say to my hālau and PAʻI team, ‘I have another idea,’ and they’ll smile and think, ‘Here she goes again!’”

The author can be reached at cct1402@gmail.com.

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