KEALOHA TELLS ‘EVERYTHING’

Kealoha performs his latest poetry show Sept. 26 at Mamiya Theatre RONEN ZILBERMAN PHOTO

The Story of Everything makes its world premiere at 7 p.m. Sept. 26 at Mamiya Theatre in Kaimuki, and Hawaii’s poet laureate promises a creation story that covers 13.7 billion years of history in 90 minutes packed with music, dance, science and slam.

Metro caught up with Kealoha to talk about his ambitious new show, his first brush with poetry and more.

Can you give us a little sneak peek at the show?

For the Big Bang, the main metaphor that I’m using is it’s a war story that resolves into Woodstock, a peace gathering with Jimi Hendrix and everybody just dancing and listening to music, all hippie-like.

The stars, with all the fusion reactions going on there, the way that I paint that picture is by using disco music. Each star is its own discotheque. The protons, as they go in there, it’s Ladies Night, the protons are the women, they’re dancing, they’ll run into each other, and one of them will turn into a neutron, into a dude, and now they start doing the hustle. One proton, one neutron, and that’s a different element. And they start doing other dances: the bump, the hot chocolate, the funky chicken … We’re using the different dances and building out the periodic table.

What was your first experience with poetry?

Dang, I think we’re going have to go back to high school. Local writer Lois-Ann Yamanaka, she came to my school (Punahou). She was promoting this book called Saturday Night at the Pahala Theatre. She came in, was reading passages from it, and I’m sitting there in the audience, right, I’m basically just tripping out. Oh my gosh, I did not realize that words and language could be used in that way.

I felt like she was speaking for me; she was speaking my voice. It basically sent me off on this realization of what was possible with narrative and poetry and voice.

What’s the most memorable performance you’ve ever done?

The White House was definitely cool; that was awesome.

The one that emotionally made me feel like, “Wow, this is bigger than me, this is bigger than us,” is I got invited to perform at Kalaupapa on Molokai for the whole community down there, including the patients. Seeing the joy and the reaction to the performance was really moving to me.

What advice would you give to an aspiring writer?

Write for yourself, write what moves you, and then share it with a friend or someone you trust. Get a general reaction to what you wrote. You don’t need to find someone who is a good writer. See if you’re able to move them, as well; if there’s a reaction you’re looking for or not, then that’ll inform you and help you to keep those pieces going, and then just rinse and repeat.

Tickets for The Story of Everything are $15 at the door ($10 for students). For more information, visit kealohapoetry.com.