22 MONTEREY COUNTY WEEKLY MAY 21-27, 2026 www.montereycountynow.com As a kumu hula, she directs practice for a range of skill levels. At a recent practice, she and her team adjust children (keiki) who are on the left foot when they should be on the right, directing them to move in unison. There’s also the story they need to keep in mind. “Laka is the goddess of hula. That’s who you’re honoring,” Sumler tells the children about this dance. “Choreography is taught once the students are versed in the basics,” she says. “When choreography comes in, the purpose of hula is to embody whatever story we are trying to tell. That’s where the emotion behind your motion comes in. It’s no longer just smiling through the whole song, because not every song is happy.” After the young dancers wrap up, Louella’s husband, Stephen Sumler, leads Tahitian drumming. At a recent practice, about two dozen drummers gather in the studio with a variety of instruments including tall, skinny traditional toere played with big, wooden sticks; the taller tupai hand drums, played from a standing position; and the tari parau, a big bass drum. There is no talking, just the power and intensity that vibrates through the studio and everyone in it, except when Stephen Sumler calls out a toma, announcing there are 16 beats to the end. They power along, all playing different parts, until a triumphant and sudden ending. “Polynesian island culture is very intentional,” Louella says. “You don’t just pick a red dress because you like it—you might pick it because you are talking about a red flower.” Nā Haumāna’s drummers and the dancers learn to make their own costumes for performances. Tahitian-style feather helmets—ornate, towering headgear—are still in use from last year’s big performance choreographed around a warrior theme, inspired by Kamehameha I, the first unifying ruler of the Hawaiian islands. The feathers used to adorn only royalty, Sumler says: “It is about who gets to adorn themselves in feathers.” Marieta Wata grew up in Suva, the capital city of Fiji in the South Pacific. Life in the capital is very much Westerninfluenced, the result of colonization, Wata says, but her education included annual trips to small villages where she would see people still using outrigger canoes and bamboo rafts, similar to stand-up paddle-boards called bilibili, for transportation, but it was never part of her life until about a year ago. In adulthood, Wata left Fiji and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and then five years ago to Monterey, where she first tried outrigger canoeing with Hi’ilani ’O Ke Kai. “I grew up on the island, surrounded with water, but I never really paddled,” Wata says. “Once I got into the water, there was just a connection for me. It reconnected me to my roots.” Now it has become a regular part of her life, with twice-weekly practices for races. Wata paddles in seat 4 or 5, “the engine room.” “It’s like the powerhouse of the crew,” she says. It takes all six people to move an outrigger canoe. Delgado—who first joined mostly motivated by fitness goals, which he has long since fulfilled—sits in seat 3, reading the water while paddling and calling out directions to the crew on when to change sides, known as calling the hut. (The command begins with a warning, “hut,” followed by “ho,” the change call.) Part of the task from seat 3 is studying the water—cresting over the swell and into a trough between waves, turning corners on a race course—and also reading the crew, how fatigued they are and whether they need to switch sides sooner, or maybe they can push to a 16-count stroke. “As you approach a swell you want to keep that energy up—you are climbing that mountain, and that mountain is moving and you are moving,” Delgado says. “There is an art and a science to it.” Art and science meet discipline in paddling, with all six paddlers synced up, each filling a specific role—setting the pace in seat 1, transmitting that pace from seat 2, steering from seat 6. “Everyone in the canoe should look straight forward,” Delgado adds. “It is not a sightseeing trip. If you look back, you go out of sync immediately.” The outrigger group opens up to the general public for rec paddle the first and third Sunday of the month, welcoming anyone to join in (although there is instruction and an expectation that all participants follow the rules and protocols). Some will try it once, others will become lifelong members, racing competitively and joining the ohana. They celebrate this growing family and spirit of aloha with the annual Hoe Wa’a outrigger race, that opens with a hula performance. Wata will be among those racing, but outrigger canoeing is about something much bigger. “I always think of home when I am in the water,” she says. “When we launch, I feel I am one with my people.” Hoe Wa’a outrigger canoe race and cultural celebration takes place from 8am-2pm Saturday, May 23 at Del Monte Beach, Monterey. $25/paddler; $100/crew; free/ spectators. For more about Hi‘ilani O Ke Kai, visit paddle. kekai.org. Nā Haumāna is located at 3170 Vista Del Camino, Suite J, Marina. More at (831) 275-0301, nahaumana.org. Clockwise from top left: Young dancers practice at Nā Haumāna’s hula hālau studio in Marina. In keeping with tradition, dancers and drummers make their own costumes for performances and ceremonies. Nā Haumāna’s Tahitian drumming class includes a variety of drums and drummers of all ages. SARA RUBIN SARA RUBIN
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