Spectrum Hawaii; Hanalei Slipper Man, Bamboo Ridge, Jazz Preservation Society.; Kailua Madrigals Alumni, Queen Liliuokalani Gardens, The Hawaii Theater, University Lab Art

The following program is a production of KHET in Honolulu, Hawaii public television. The following program has been funded in part by grants from the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts and the People of Chevron in Hawaii. [beach sounds] [folk music] [folk music continues] Spectrum Hawaii visits the editors of a local literary journal then watches a poem come to life. The American heritage of jazz is being preserved in Hawaii today and so are the bulrush slippers created by the eldest man in Hanalei Valley, Hawaii. [footsteps] It is mid-day in the Hanalei Valley on the north shore of Kauai, and the

valley's oldest resident, Kanichi Tasaka, is on his way to gather bulrush reeds for his slippers. [Tasaka] [?They grow in marshland, and they would grow straight up?] But, [?] And that's why the plant is strong. But I have some way up in the valley here that the bulrush is no good. I cannot make because they're big. That's the difference. [Host] He brings his bundles home and pounds the fresh reeds, crushing the strong fiber.

As a child, Kanichi Tasaka would watch his father make bulrush slippers, but it wasn't until much later when he made his first pair. [Tanaka] After I retire...I was working for the county for 39 years. I used to go farming a little while, but I never had no intent to learn from my father. I never learn, so I had a hard time. I was kind of a little sorry that I didn't start real early. I start from 83. Not long, my life is not too long, and I am now 90 years old, so I think kind of a little too late, but I have my hobby. So now we're gonna get...I have to

hold it tight up, this thing, otherwise it will slip off. Now I have it this way, and I twist around, and then I come this way again. Be sure this is tightened up. Then Icome back this way again, and then I... But when you weave, try and get this part always even, otherwise this is gonna be big and smart according to this [?] So I always try. Before I used to... [to self] now where's my measurement? I used to measure all the time. I got to measure, but now I don't have... I don't have to because I'm pretty used to...So before it used to take time. [Host] Today, his slippers are sold in a local art gallery.

Once commonplace in Japan, these slippers are now hard to find as machine-made products replace handcrafted shoes. [Tanaka] Three years ago, my wife and I went to Japan, and... That Japan, they don't have this kind of slipper now. And we went to the hotel in Osaka, and we didn't know that room slipper not supposed to go down the lobby. So we had these two packets, you know, two slipper, one for my wife and myself. Then we walk around in the lobby and around the store. [?The people and ladies?] down there, they follow us. They say, where we got from? I told them, we came from Hawaii, and we bring from Hawaii. They didn't believe it. Yeah. They didn't believe it but... In Japan, now, they don't make this kind of thing because especially the old generation all died, and now all

that new generation, they don't fool around. [Host] The slipper is almost finished. Mr. Tasaka pulls on the cords to close the toe of the shoe, then he attaches the thong to the sole. [Tasaka talks in background] Once worn every day, now considered folk art, the slippers of Kanichi Tasaka of Kauai are like the man himself. Simple. Strong. And ageless. [folk music] The Bamboo Ridge Press is a Hawaii literary quarterly that publishes local poems, plays, and short stories. It is edited by Eric Chock. [Chock] Bamboo Ridge is... it's quite unique, I think. I mean, actually, there are other journals in the country that publish

Asian-American literature, but most of them are struggling, I would say, and don't come out very regularly. We come out four times a year. We've been doing it since 1978, and we get grants from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Coordinating Council of Literary Magazines in New York and from the State Doundation. [Host] And Darrell Lum. [Lum] In eight years, we must have published about 250 different authors. [Chock] People think of him as probably the foremost writer of pidgin literature in Hawaii today. A writer of fiction and drama, and he's an editor for Bamboo Ridge. He has written essays on what local literature is. He has given readings in college classes, not only here but also on the mainland. He has his books and his stories taught in literature classes. He's a, you know, well-rounded person. He does a lot of different things.

[Host] One of those things is acting as an academic counselor at the Special Student Services Division of the University of Hawaii. [Lum] Not in kind of a sentimental way, but you know. [Woman] Do you remember any unusual questions they asked? [Host] Here, he advises a Vietnamese pre-med student who's been invited to attend interviews at several medical schools. [Lum] Don't try to second guess them, you know. Or don't try to be so kind of wishy- washy that the guy won't know what your opinion is, you know. So if he asks you something, just answer, you know, whatever you think. [Lum, in interview] The magazine started out because Eric and I knew a whole bunch of writers while we were in school, who it seems like, after we got out of school, didn't write anymore. Or if they did write, they were getting rejected a lot by mainland magazines, which didn't mean that it wasn't good work, but somehow a lot of the work wasn't appreciated. [Lum, with student] That's a four-nine-nine.

[inaudible talk with advisee] [Woman] I don't know if I should sort of explain why, I got...my grades got worse. and worse over a year. [Lum] I don't think anybody will look at it and feel like they got worse. [Chock] We're trying to advocate a literature which more people will have access to, which more people will want to read and enjoy, and not so much the kind of what you might call ivory tower literature or the kind of esoteric poetry that nobody wants to read because it's so obtuse and nobody understands what it's about, you know. So that's one ideals that we're following in doing Bamboo Ridge, and in promoting the ideal of local literature itself. [Host] One of Darrell Lum's recent plays, entitled My Home is Down the Street, concerns an elderly Chinese man

resisting a transfer to an old folks' home. [Lum] A lot of people responded to it because it seemed to have struck a nerve in terms of...I guess, it's more common a situation than I had realized. Some of them said that it was difficult to watch because they saw their own family situation in the play. The play isn't really about a 78-year-old Chinese man. It's about us. [ocean sounds] A friend of ours named the magazine because he had just learned how to go fishing at Bamboo Ridge. [Host] Bamboo Ridge was once a popular fishing locale northeast of Hanauma Bay on Oahu. [Lum] He told us about this way of fishing that people don't do anymore, you know. and it seemed right for the magazine. [Host] Seventy-five percent of Hawaii's

population find their ethnic roots in Polynesia or in the Orient. The writing of the Bamboo Ridge Journal reflects these roots. [Lum] A lot of it happens to be based in Hawaii and is about us. It's about the kind of people that live here. [Host] Including people who shaped their lives by ideals. [Chock] What I'm doing with my whole life I think is fairly idealistic. I mean, I'm trying to live the life of a poet Generally speaking, that means that, in order to make a living, you have to do something else. [Lum] I think Eric's poetry is...are some... probably some of the finest pieces of writing I've seen, period. His work tends to be...have specific images, detail. He's almost deceptively simple.

It always tells something of a, of a story. [Chock] You don't generally get paid for writing poems. I get paid for teaching other people to write poems in the poets in the schools program and reading poems to them and inspiring people to understand and appreciate poetry. [Lum] His voice is, I think, real confident and real sure. You know that this writer knows what he's talking about. And I like that in his work. [Host] One of Eric Chock's most popular poems is about the death of his Uncle Bill. It's called Papio, after the fish. [Lum] Because you get the idea that, in this particular poem, that it was his uncle who taught him how to fish. It was his uncle who taught him a lot of things. But then, as well as being sort of a remembrance of, of the uncle, it's...Oh, I don't know what you want to

call it. I guess, a poem about the rites of passage, of becoming a man, learning about death. [Folk music] [Chock, reading] Papio. // This one's for you, Uncle Bill. / I didn't want to club the life / from its blue and silver skin, / so I killed it by holding it / upside-down by the tail / and singing into the sunset. / It squeaked air, three times in a small, dying chicken's voice, / and became a stiff curve / like a wave that had frozen / before the break into foam. // In the tidal pool we used to stand in, / I held the

fish and laughed / thinking how you called me / handsome at thirteen. I slashed the scaled belly, / pulled gills and guts, / and a red flower bloomed / and disappeared with a wave like the last breath your body heaved on a smuggled Lucky Strike [?] in a hospital bed. / You wanted your ashes out at sea / but Aunty kept half on the hill. / She can't be swimming the waves at her age, and she wants you still. // [jazz music] [Host] The sounds that jazz portray today have resulted from years of improvisation by the

masters of music. Combinations of different styles of music such as classical, rock, Afro-Cuban, swing, and many others, have given the world the fusion of forms that continually advance our definition of the word jazz. [song lyrics] The growth of jazz in Hawaii is a direct reflection of the history and the growth of jazz in America. Jazz could be defined as experimental attempts to reach new levels of audio perception, clarity, and excitement. Talented jazz vocalist Ginai Benuska began her singing career

at an early age. [Benuska] I started singing when I was seven, eight. I hit the stage when I was about twelve and I haven't really stopped since. I really enjoy singing, I loved it so much that I just did everything and anything that I could. After I got out of high school I got on a plane, went to San Francisco, did a lot of growing up there, musically. I went to Laney College and I took some classes and I got to play with a lot of different people, mostly jazz influence when I first got there and then a little more funk, you know, played with a nine piece band. And then on... on the other side of the coin I just did little duos with a piano player and myself. Came back to Hawaii and got involved with the pop

influence, top 40, dance music, and that was pretty hot for awhile and I'm still involved with that, except now, kind of running in the background is the jazz influence that I've always had, from when my mother used to listen to all those old records and I used to sing along. And it's really coming together now because I can use the jazz and a pop influence together because it seems like a lot of people out there are doing the same thing, you know, they're taking a little bit of this, little bit of that, putting it together and calling it their own. So that's basically where it all came from. Spirit's here in Hawaii, the energy from the Bay Area, coming back home was a real good idea. [Gary Johnson] Jazz in Hawaii over the last few years has been quite impressive, as far as growth's concerned. And that sort of ties right in with the... the national market. We're seeing an upsurge in jazz principally

because of the, I guess what we call the baby boom generation, it's an overused word getting a little tired, but it's very appropriate. Those are people born between 1946 and 1964. And that group of people, oddly enough, is appreciating some of the old jazz, some of the old bebop, much more so than some of the folks that were around during the swing era. This is reflected in an increase in sales of this sort of music. Also we're seeing this tremendous upsurge of new crossover jazz, where they take the standard jazz improvisation, solos, techniques, and you put it with a solid rock foundation, sort of what's found in Rock and Roll, and you bring it up and you have a new kind of music, a new sort of virtuosity. It really does work. [music] [Host] Unique sounds of Frank Leto and his group Picante add a new dimension and excitement

to the Hawaiian and American jazz scene. [Leto] I think that jazz music is a type of music that's continually changing. It started off as kind of a means for musicians to express themselves. And from that, I think that the musicians are always looking for another means to express themselves. A lot of times when we think of jazz we think of four-four, a swing rhythm, though I think that these musicians were looking for other types of rhythms to express themselves on. [music] [Warren Fabro] Jazz society is made up of a

very special group of people. It mirrors the melting pot of the Pacific as it were called and I think it mirrors what the jazz society is all about. We've got people from all different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, of all types of musical tastes. You know, we cross from classical people to folks who are into Bruce Springsteen and we find a medium ground for them and we find that they're very supportive of music. They're very hungry for the music. [Host] Hilo-born musician Gabe Baltazar has often been referred to as the

godfather of jazz in Hawaii. [Baltazar] Well I really-- that's quite an honor to be called the godfather of jazz, but there were quite a lot of fine people in Hawaii that were instrumental in jazz, you know, such as Trummy Young lived in Hawaii for many years, the late Ernie Washington, the late Ethel Azama. And well, yours truly helped, I think helped in the survival of jazz, so to speak, in Hawaii and kind of keep the flame burning. Being that Hawaii is multi, mixed cultures also, that you have many people from the Europe, European area and many people from the Asian countries all in one area called Hawaii. And there's a lot of mixed taste and lots of taste ad variations of music and jazz is also a very important part of the Hawaiian way of life. [Host] The way in which award winning graphic artist and photographer Ron Hudson captures magic moments in a performance are not left to chance.

[Hudson] The excitement for me of photographing musicians is knowing almost an anticipation of what they were going to do by virtue of having some musical background myself, studying percussion for about eight years. I could hear it coming, so I knew where the crescendos and decrescendos, the soft spots, the hard spots, were going to be. So I could catch them doing what they do best. That high note. The music coming to me in what I do, as a graphic designer / photographer, it's all spontaneous. A lot of the work that I do is not spontaneous, it's quite rigid. So I like the spontaneity of jazz. And I think that's probably what keeps me listening. [Anthony Smart] But I feel like things are happening that the people in our country are realizing that jazz is ours. And that the fact that it is appreciated so widely everywhere

else is coming back. And even the government of the United States has gotten in to the act in the last five to 10 years of realizing that jazz is a universal musical language. [Bailey Matsuda] As a composer- arranger type and not necessarily a front person, I call it, I definitely need Ginai to get my message across if I have one in a song or something like that. I'm not going to get up there and sing. Look good like she can. And she needs me to work out the arrangements and to help her write songs. I think it's definitely a two way street. We we both need each other to survive in this place especially in Hawaii. [Baltazar] The future outlook for Hawaiian jazz, it's gone up and down but I think it's on its upswing

now the Hawaiian Preservation Jazz Society has helped promoting things, and looking also into radio stations that promote jazz and new clubs and especially the coming jazz festivals in Hawaii so to speak. It's starting out a little small but eventually looking forward to making it a big thing because the people in Hawaii really gaining many population people from all over the world even Hawaii now and they have a very large mixture of taste and jazz is one of the biggest questions. Where's the jazz? That's where the jazz is, Hawaii. [Ginae singing]

[Voiceover] Spectrum was funded in part by grants from the people of Chevron in

Hawaii and the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts. The following program is a production of KHET in Honolulu, Hawaii

Public Television. The following program has been funded in part by grants from the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts and the people of Chevron in Hawaii. [birds, waves] [Host] Spectrum Hawaii finds that a little of the old song and dance holds together the alumni family of the Kailua Madrigal singers. A timeless waterfall cascades through Queen Liliuokalani Gardena. An old graceful theater looks for a second chance, and the University of Hawaii Lab School demonstrates why its program for art and education has won awards.

[classroom chatter] [classroom chatter] [classroom chatter] [Teacher 1] Yeah, you can adjust it. Yes we'll have to do very carefully. Use the colors. Bring them in with the tapestry needle and darn them right in here. Think you'll be able to correct that when it's off the loom. [classroom chatter] [Teacher 2] One small problem is the tail is going to break off. So can we attach this to the body a little bit more. And then maybe right around here just have it flip up like that. [Host] Recently the National Alliance for Arts Education singled out the University

Laboratory School in Honolulu for its commitment to music and visual arts education. [Shige Yamada] Traditionally art has been looked upon as a sort of frail or peripheral type of course. As an artist and as an art educator, I don't see it as that. So at this school art has become a required course such as English and science and math. And students take it from third grade all the way through to the twelfth grade. They have no choice about it. [Host] However, it is possible for a public high school student to complete four years of education without taking one music or visual arts course. [Yamada] The emphasis currently is on the so-called basics: math, science, and English and so on. And what that does is courses such as art, music, drama suffer for that. And I think in the long haul students will suffer for it. [Host] This arts program can exist as an ideal, an aspiration, because of the

school itself. University Lab School is not a public school. Instead, it is exactly what its name indicates. Operated by the University of Hawaii's College of Education, the school serves as a living laboratory for curriculum research and development. Its arts program makes several contributions. [Yamada] One of the objectives is to provide an exemplary school program, art program. Exemplary in the sense that it should be a kind of a model that public school teachers might come to look at then, if they can emulate some aspects of it, and to certainly get some ideas from it. [Host] The staff also offer summer workshops for teachers who wish to learn more about teaching art, regardless of their own proficiencies. And they write and conduct research. Teacher Val Krohn-Ching has written the core curriculum guide for the Department of Education for art education, from kindergarten through 12th grade. This guide provides a sequential

approach to the subject. The teachers here are actually university professors, associates, and lecturers in the College of Education. They're also artists and all believe in the value of art education in our schools. [Douglas Doi] We teach a lot of basic skills in fiber and sculpture and drawing, painting, ceramics. We don't teach dogma. We don't say this is forever and this is a fact. We avoid that. It probably isn't as structured as a science class would be, but one presents themselves with a problem. And seeks a way to communicate whatever idea or phenomenon that they've found. And I think the process is very similar. [Val Krohn-Ching] You have basically your exploration, the new skill development in art you go one step further than compared to many other subjects. You have the

individual interpretation and that's what I think is very important for a child to learn, that he is unique. Also art education fosters divergent thinking as opposed to convergent thinking. So every answer is different in an art class. [Yamada] It's a matter of sitting down and using your imagination. Expressing yourself, reaching down into yourself instead of reaching down into a book to find information and answers. Develop the necessary part of the mind, the soul, if you want. And it cannot be separated out and sorted out and left out of education. [Host] And art can also be just plain fun.

Part of the success of the University Lab School's art program is because Yamada, Doi, and Krohn-Ching are recognized artists and can empathize with their students. [Yamada] As a practicing artist I know how important it is for me to be allowed to grow at my own pace, to seek out my own ideas, to express myself the way I want to do it. If I were not a practicing artist, I might not realize how important this is and I might begin to infringe on the rights of the student. To an open experience. [Krohn-Ching] The students also benefit because I'm a practicing artist, because all of

the things that I'm doing at home, exploring in my studio, I might bring into the classroom and share with them or I might have a portfolio of my work and say this is one of the techniques that I tried a long time ago, maybe in your kind of assignment that you want to do, you might try that out too. I'm not saying at all copy it, it's just another exposure to another idea. [Doi] I personally as an artist need the stimulus from my classroom, I need to have that contact with people so I can do my work. And the kids keep bringing in new ideas. I think I'm very much connected to pop culture and they're the ones who the market is totally targeted for. So I developed my work from a lot of conversations that we have in classrooms. [Yamada] At the end of our session teaching sixth graders,

I'm exhausted but at the same time I'm highly stimulated. [Doi] I think the biggest challenge is occasionally you'll have a student that will come into class and they'll say "why should I take your class? The only classes that are important to me," and they've been conditioned from mom and dad, "is science, math, and English," and I try to relate it to the way they live and I would start it out by asking a series of questions, the first one being well, "when you go to a record store, are all the record albums white with just the name of the band and the songs on it? I mean what you're walking into is an art gallery really." Or if you're fascinated with cars, "cars are like moving pieces of sculpture." So I think, you know, it becomes a bit more relevant by approaching it from that point of view. [Yamada] The closest analogy I might draw would be the parts of a face. It's difficult for me to say that my eyes are more important than my nose, or that my nose is more

important my mouth, or my ears are more important than my cheeks, and so on. And I see art or music or drama or that sort of thing in a similar vein. If you remove art from a program, it's like removing, for example, your nose from your face. It's not peripheral. It's part of the whole. You can't cut it up and remove parts of it. And as I said, I think the students ultimately will suffer for it, the community suffers for it ultimately. [Host] At the Nu'uanu home of retired school teacher and founder of the Kailua High School Madrigals Singers, Mr. Shigeru Hotoke, a recently-formed group of alumnae and spouses gather to rehearse their old songs and dances in preparation for an upcoming trip to the mainland. Outside the islands as the sounds of young Hawaii, the Kailua Madrigals have

traveled the four corners of the world to share the spirit of aloha. [singing madrigal] [singing madrigal] [Shigeru Hotoke] I was a teacher in the department of education. Now as I retired two years ago, I felt I still was blessed with having the opportunity to do what I did in the past. I'd like to pay back some of it and I still work with the alumni to give what I've received and I hope to continue to do that

because it's fun. It's not work, it's fun. [Joseph Aragon] In being with this group, Mr. Hotoke taught us all to sing semi-professional. And I think if he can teach me how to sing, I believe he can teach anyone how to sing. [Karen Daugherty Bergantz] The music that we sang all over the world meant a lot to us because it was Hawaii and we got to present that to the world, basically. And I think I'll carry that with me all my life, even though I'm haole I still have a,

you know, Hawaiian heart. And so that makes me feel good that I know a little bit about what makes Hawaii special. [singing madrigal] [singing madrigal] [Grace Hotoke] When he started at Kailua, it was a dumping ground at first, you know, for the chorus, and in no time the chorus grew and grew until he had the largest chorus in the state. And we had up to about 350 kids at the end. And each year he'd bring them home and we'd feed them lunch at least once a year and they'd be all over the house and all over the yard. And then he started the madrigals. Then the traveling started. Each year they would go. It started out with island tours with the larger groups, and then

it expanded to the United States, Canada. And soon around the world. [singing madrigal] [singing madrigal] [singing madrigal] [Shigeru Hotoke] Took the kids around for some 20 years, through every part of the world, and I wish that I could turn the clock back and share, not only with the kids that went with me, but share with the world, what really how great Hawaii is. And have in the sense of a message, a message of aloha. [singing madrigal]

[singing madrigal] [singing madrigal] [singing madrigal] [singing madrigal] [Nani Aragon] My name is Nani Aragon, and I'm the class of '68. And it was an exciting exciting year for me to be a part of this group. And I enjoyed it. So when Mr. Hotoke retired in 1985, it was a chance for us to say "hey, you're retired, we're retired from high school, let's get back together," and I think this is the greatest moment. I always enjoyed being a part of a singing group, enjoying each other, enjoying the people that we entertained for. It was-- it just makes me feel great. [Bennet B. Namahoe] In one word, I can say that it's been the most motivating experience. Being Hawaiian and being proud of being Hawaiian, I found an outlet of expressing myself and being really truly

in real with my heritage. And I owe that to Kailua High School program, their choral program, and Shigeru Hotoke for that experience. [singing madrigal] [singing madrigal] [singing madrigal] [singing madrigal] [singing madrigal] [pause] [Host] Framed by the abundant foliage at Queen Liliuokalani Gardens in Honolulu, a passing waterfall travels a time-worn pathway. From lush mountain heights to the awaiting depths of the blue Pacific.

[waterfall sounds] [waterfall sounds] [waterfall sounds] The intersection of Pauahi and Bethel Streets in downtown Honolulu was once a corner of cultural life. In 1922 the Hawaii Theater was the best constructed play house

in America. Hawaii's greatest entertainers performed here Jesse Kalima, Johnny Almeida, and the soprano-falsetto tones of Lena Machado. This Broadway-size theater could handle a road show or a national touring company. The theater was presented as a monument to the cultural, civic, and artistic life of the city. But now, what is to become of it? Its future is imperiled. Is it an aging beauty with faded charms to be demolished and never heard from again? Or is it to become the architectural landmark of downtown Honolulu and the pride of the Pacific?

[Mary Bishop] The theater is worth restoring and could become a national historic landmark. [Host] Mary Bishop is a theater restoration expert who was a leader in bringing back to life one of the premier play houses in America: The Ohio Theater in Columbus, when it was scheduled for demolition. When we saved the Ohio Theater, you've seen what it looked like and what it looks like today. In 1969 there was many people wanted to tear it down as wanted to save it. All they saw was a dirty, shabby, kind of crummy old movie house. Well th theater has come to be known in Columbus, it's as important as god, mother, and country. [music] [Norman Goldstein] And Mary is known by everybody in the theater district as the

preservationist. [office chatter] [Host] Dermatologist Dr. Norman Goldstein is president of the Hawaii Theater Center and its 34-member board of directors. It's a nonprofit group dedicated to the theater's preservation. [Goldstein] She was very interested because the Hawaii Theater and the Ohio Theater are very very similar. Same problems, same downtown-type problems that we have here in downtown Honolulu. [Bishop] I was brought here to do what they called and asked for: a project focus survey, because of my long experience with matters of this kind, almost 20 years now. I wouldn't be as interested in it if I didn't see the potential there is here, and I've become very interested. You know, I say "we" when I talk about the Hawaii Theater now. [Host] The Hawaii Theater marks a period of American architecture which is no more. [Glenn Mason] I mean,

pre-1940 we're talking about, that's not very old. And this is the oldest of the theaters that still exist that have really any sort of integrity left. [Host] Architect Glenn Mason is chairman of the State Historic Places review board. His firm specializes in downtown restorations. [Mason] And this in and of itself, because it is such a monumental, for Hawaii, beaux arts space, makes this building a very very special building. [Host] It has four levels of 12 dressing rooms, with a suitable emblem for prominence. The lobby is of gray, chocolate, and Tennessee red marble.

A typical 1920s evening consisted of a prologue, a concert, a newsreel, and a silent film. [music from silent film] [music from silent film] [music from silent film] [music from silent film] [music from silent film]

[Ramsay] The detailing on the Hawaii Theatre is truly unrivaled. I had the opportunity to go with Norm to New York to look at theatres that have been restored there. I expected to come back and look at the Hawaii Theatre and be somehow disappointed. [Host] Noted pen and ink artist Ramsay is the wife of Dr. Goldstein and an active supporter of the theatre. [Ramsay] On the contrary, I was extremely amazed at what potential Hawaii has. It's better than most of all the theatres that we've viewed, over 30 in New York. [Host] The Goldsteins hosted a Press Club Gridiron show to demonstrate the theater's potential. [Goldstein] So I'm basically a physician. But when I found out what the theater had to offer and when kids came into the Hawaii Theater for the Ho'olaue'a, for example,

the kids would walk along holding their parents hands and say "hey dad look at that, hey mom, wow." The eyes of the children of Hawaii, their eyes just popped out and I realized that we had to save this, not just for this generation, but for future generations. [Bishop] The theater isn't safe by any means. I would really say more than anything else, time has been bought while we try to marshal forces to save it. [Ramsay] Well, the hourglass is running on the Hawaii Theater. It's tragic to think that it could be lost to Hawaii.

[Host] Bishop Estate is the present owner of the land and theater. A benefactor is needed. Is there a major benefactor in the house? It's not going to be merely a darkened movie house, rather a performing arts center of multiple purposes, inviting glee clubs, symphonies, chamber orchestras, choirs, and barber shoppers. [Barbershop quartet singing] [Barbershop quartet singing] [Host] A restored downtown theater and related developments could promote jobs, a broader tax base, and higher property values. [Bishop] But the community has to step forward and say it has to happen.

I see it is as requiring 10 years, maybe 12. [Barbershop quartet singing] [Barbershop quartet singing] [Barbershop quartet singing] [Barbershop quartet singing] [Barbershop quartet singing]

[Barbershop quartet singing] [Barbershop quartet singing] [Barbershop quartet singing] [Barbershop quartet singing] Spectrum was funded in part by grants from the people of Chevron in Hawaii and the Hawaii State Foundation on Culture and the Arts.