Hawai'i

Moloka’i kamaʻāina (locals) and culture-keepers welcome Yo-Yo and guide first encounters with the mana (power, spirit and strength) of the ancient island. Yo-Yo spends the day honoring the ways this community continues to fiercely protect its abundant home through intimate interactions with the ʻāina (land), including an ‘awa tea ceremony and an offering of chants and music to honor the ocean and all living things.

Yo-Yo visits the Kalaupapa peninsula, a place that has served as both prison and refuge. More than 8,000 people, from 37 countries but mostly Hawaiians, were painfully relocated to Kalaupapa due to Hansen’s disease (leprosy). Yo-Yo joins the Kalaupapa community in a special musical offering at Papaloa cemetery – where kūpuna (ancestors) of so many families in Hawai’i are buried – to honor the cultural survival and sacrifices of the islands. And, the important lessons that the remaining elder patients can teach us in contemporary times about disease, community, and spirit.

Chef Mark “Gooch” Noguchi hosts a small group of next generation Hawaiian leaders for a meal and conversation with Yo-Yo about values, community, and future.

For generations, the people of Hawai‘i passed knowledge of land, sea and community from the mouths of the elders to the ears of the younger generation through ‘Ōlelo (language and spoken word). Surrounded by lava fields that continue to shape this island’s past and future, Yo-Yo joins kamaʻāina culture-keepers at the Kalaemanō Cultural Center to join in this chain of storytelling and learn about their work preserving the coastline, dryland forest, and traditional fishing practices at Ka‘ūpūlehu.

At sunset, Yo-Yo joins navigators and crew members of the Polynesian Voyaging Society (PVS) on the Hōkūle’a canoe to celebrate the call to voyage that connects so many living things. In voyaging, sunset signals the emergence of Pō––the cosmic darkness—that becomes illuminated as the twinkling eyes of our watchful ancestors travel across the night sky into the gateway of the universe.

In collaboration with the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology and PVS, the canoe will bring Yo-Yo to the “road of the whale” to learn about the unique culture of whales during their migration to the Hawaiian Pacific Coast, and explore the common language we have with these animals in sound and song. Yo-Yo will celebrate the whales in their complex and threatened navigation through the ocean, sharing music for their journey – and sending a message about the ways we all must voyage in new, healing ways in our collective journey forward.