Kent Ghirard

Kent Ghirard
A great love for the hula brought Kent Ghirard from the Mainland to Hawaii where he established himself as a kumu hula and choreographer of hula productions.


We were the first Hawaiian group to tour Japan, in 1955. We performed in Nichigeki Theatre in Tokyo and the audience was jammed into the hall and they were cheering us like we were The Beatles. We had one singer, four dancers, and myself backed by scores of Japanese girls in cellophane skirts dancing on white tiers that stretched up to the ceiling.

I was born in San Francisco, California on September 1, 1918. I was twelve when I first became interested in the hula. My parents came over here on the old Malolo on a regular tourist vacation. Even at that age the minute I saw the hula I loved it. It was the Bray family that I saw and I just took right to it. I bought some old 78 RPM hula records and I even bought a hula skirt. During my college years I learned how to play the ‘“uke” from Hawai‘i students up at Stanford and I learned how to sing from listening to the records. I came over here in 1938 for summer school at the University but it was just an excuse to get over here.

In those days the Kodak Hula Show had just started and I was there every week. Every Boat Day I would go down and watch the dancers and listen to the music. That’s when I started to pick things up on my own. The first person who taught me anything was Marguerite Duane who had danced hula professionally on the Mainland and was a very good friend of Hilo Hattie. I was twenty-one at the time and we both were living in San Francisco. So it was through Marguerite that I got my foundation and once I got the basics I just fell into it. I felt it inside, and as long as I could get a translation I could make up the rest because I knew the basic motions.

In 1947 I came to Hawai‘i to stay and Marguerite and I took lessons from the Bill Lincoln Studio. At that time Bill Lincoln was the premier writer and singer of hula songs. Everyone was dancing to Bill Lincoln’s songs. My teacher was Alice Keawekane Garner and it is this type of dance that I am carrying on.

During that same year I began teaching at the Betty Lei Studio. It was located in Waikiki and movie stars like Shirley Temple would go there to learn hula. Marguerite was living there and helping owner Dorothy Campbell teach hula and I was working in a Waikīkī Hawaiian record store. I would hang around the studio because of Marguerite and I began to sit in on her classes. I began to pick things up, suggest ideas and then help put on her little recitals.

After about a year I began to teach groups after hours at the record store when we closed at five o’clock. I never really made any money teaching but I enjoyed it so much. I was interested in putting on a good compact Hawaiian show that was appreciated by a receptive audience. The Kent Ghirard style is the style of the 1930s and 1940s. It is a very simple style that keeps close to the basic steps. When I first saw hula performed I was attracted to the groups that relied on a very simple style. I felt it gave the dancer more of an opportunity to express emotion without being able to rely on the gimmicks of a fast pace and complicated motions. Of course today all of that has been turned upside down. The new kahiko of today is exciting and vital and I’m all for it, but it should be clarified and classified in a category all its own, otherwise what has been passed down from generation to generation and what has been created last month, will become hopelessly muddled.

I never had a wealth of knowledge of Hawaiiana. What I brought to the hula was all heart, and a love for the music and dance. I had seen hula at some of the big hotels and I felt there had to be a higher standard for the tourists. I did away with jewelry, inconsistent costume, differing hairstyles, and tried to bring in a more professional style of staging. My greatest thrill still today is to perform in front of Hawaiians and be accepted, although I am Haole. When I hear the old songs of my era played in the old style with a steel guitar and a high-lead voice, it still brings tears to my eyes.