Kristi Caberto at the "Art and Story" performance at Lana'i Lodge. Caberto's performance is an autobiographical tale of dancing with her Lāna'i hālau under the big-time lights of the Hula Bowl. Photo courtesy SCEP.

Art program helps teens polish
talent and work ethic

By Liza Simon / Ka Wai Ola

Like many other Moloka'i middle-schoolers, 12 year-old Abigail Adachi likes to say with a laugh that recess is her favorite subject. With a little prodding, the 12-year old will admit in her soft voice that she likes math, too. And one more thing—she loves songwriting to the point of telling her friends to "Try it! Just go for it!" This is the outcome of an after-school workshop, where she and other Moloka'i youths received mentorship in the art of songwriting from noted musician and educator Bailey Matsuda. "It was hard at first to know what to write about," Adachi confesses. But then one morning Matsuda's lessons just clicked. "I heard the birds singing and had this good feeling about this place where I live," she said of the experience that inspired her to pen her first tune: "That's Who I Am Inside".

Adachi and two other teen songwriters from Moloka'i will join three teen storytellers from Lāna'i in a concert aptly title YOUNG VOICES, April 25 at the Palikū Theatre of Windward Community College. For up to four years now, the budding performers have been honing their talents with the help of prominent arts educators visiting their islands under the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa Outreach College Statewide Cultural Extension Program (SCEP). SCEP drew on help from the State Foundation for Culture and the Arts, which officially identified the two rural islands as having "adolescent populations with under-served needs in the field of arts education"—thus establishing funding support for afterschool classes at off-campus sites. Those who have watched the SCEP program unfold say it speaks volumes about the benefits of giving youths the opportunity to develop their artistic selves.

"We saw transformation in these kids. We saw them break out of their shells," said Joshua Adachi, Abigail's dad and a musician and a counselor at the Moloka'i Youth Center, site of that island's SCEP program. The elder Adachi echoes praise from other parents and teachers on Moloka'i and Lānai in saying that the youths who took advantage of the SCEP program really "caught the ear of the community" in their original works. He points out the diversity in their chosen themes, ranging from tributes to kūpuna to the cultural impacts of increased development to the tragic losses of teen suicide; instances of the later have rocked both islands in recent years. "I always knew music as something that kept me out of trouble," observes Joshua, looking back at his years in the marching band of Moloka'i High School. But the band is no more. Adachi said the island's public high school hasn't had the means to sustain it. Moloka'i kids still have informal opportunities to learn music in proverbial ukulele backyard jams, but to master performance skills requires help from programs such as SCEP, he said.

Veteran theatre professional Nyla Fujii-Babb, mentor to the Lāna'i youths in the SCEP program, began her stint as the island's artist in residence five years ago as the instructor of an afterschool program focused on storytelling. Fujii-Babb knows a lot about bridging the gap between natural talent that shines in family situations and solid performance skill that sparkles on stage. "I was a pre-statehood baby. This meant no escaping into a TV room. Family activities centered on music and some of my best stories I picked up from standing next to my Hawaiian mom, while she was doing the dishes and I was drying, but I also had help from my mentors at Kaimukī High School and later in college," said Fujii-Babb, who studied performing arts at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa and has taught classes there in folklore and storytelling.

On Lāna'i, she began by assigning students transcripts from a University of Hawai'i collection of island oral histories, rich with references to traditions still preserved on Lāna'i. In the second year, she coached students in crafting "first person reflections of contemporary times."

"They wrote about favorite places for paddling or fishing being closed by the island's new gated communities. They wrote about death in the family. And always with teens there's the favorite subject of romance," said Fujii-Babb, noting that in spite of Lāna'i's traditional character, student work reflected that change has come to their community and is affecting their lives.

To help students add more physical expression to their storytelling, Fujii-Babb brought in Honolulu choreographer Yuki Shiroma. She also championed efforts to tell stories in pidgin, "because the Lāna'i dialect is inseparable from the reality of Lāna'i life." Attendance in the Art and Story program, as it is known, is purely voluntary, but shortly after Fujii-Babb began, classes climbed to capacity with Lāna'i High School teachers stepping in to keep practices going when the ever multi-tasking Fujii-Babb returned to her librarian job in Honolulu. "The strength of the Art and Story program is that we draw from a wide variety of students, including the at-risk ones, though I don't like to call them that. Even if they are, we don't treat them differently. The program was same for all, regardless of background: the chance to be yourself and say something important as a teenager."

By her third year, Fujii-Babb quips that she had a mystery on her hands: "Where were those rascal kids who used to give me so much headache?" Pausing for dramatic effect, she answers: "They had learned writing, interviewing elders, public speaking, critiquing one another, standing up for one another, building ideas, and looking adults in the eye instead of staring down at their shoes. They were wanting to learn. They had so many stories, they were throwing them at me!" she adds, emphasizing that the students grasped the discipline of performance. "It's similar to martial arts. You arrive on time, you bow to show respect and practice an ethic of humility."

As Nyla-Fujii's SCEP residency continued over several years, so did the teens' annual Art and Story showcase held in front of SRO audiences of tourists and locals at Lāna'i's major resort, the Lodge at Koele. The upcoming concert means that for the first time a trio of Lāna'i's young storytellers will face a non-hometown audience when the curtain rises on YOUNG VOICES. Fujii-Babb said the selected works will deliver a slice of Lāna'i life. These include Christie Caberto's autobiographical tale of dancing with her Lāna'i hālau under the big-time lights of the Hula Bowl, Kenny Cabating's adaptation of an oral history about a beloved Lāna'i Ranch, and Tehani Palolo's spoken word tribute to the late Lāna'i kumu hula Elaine Kaopuiki. "The students are ready. They have become fully realized with their potential with the (SCEP) project. One of the biggest rewards is when they come to me and say, 'I going college now. I know I can handle.'"

When the SCEP program was offered to Moloka'i two years ago, a recording studio had just gotten up and running in the Moloka'i Youth Center. The tentative plan was for Bailey Matsuda, a music educator with Kamehameha Schools, to help the youths learn recording software. Matsuda decided there would be more educational value in helping teens learn how songwriting as a means of enhanced communication. " I start with the idea that a song makes an emotional connection, and what better place to look for true emotion than in your own experience." Matsuda asked students to journal about their daily lives and then search their own words for "a phrase, an image—something with special resonant quality."

Noting that students brought to class plenty of raw talent, Matsuda believes that the SCEP program has provided an incentive for students to work towards a goal. "I try to teach that the craft of songwriting is about the willingness to commit to something, to enjoy the discovery of finding clarity in your voice." Like Nyla Fujii-Babb, Matsuda said the SCEP program drew support form Moloka'i teachers and parents. As a result, he said that students have produced material that portrays the special character of a unique island culture with plenty of references to a common Native Hawaiian heritage.

Long after the curtain comes down on YOUNG VOICES, the young performers will benefit from this experience in music education, he believes: "Studying music provides a work ethic that applies to life. There's always a way to get a better rhythm or lyric and not just take the first thing that comes to mind and say, 'Okay, I'm done.'"