“Going Home,” a program on the cable network HGTV, takes viewers to the hometowns of everyday people every week. An upcoming episode features Kaua’i High School graduate Juni Romuar, who came back home to Kaua’i with a hula halau she
“Going Home,” a program on the cable network HGTV, takes viewers to the hometowns of everyday people every week.
An upcoming episode features Kaua’i High School graduate Juni Romuar, who came back home to Kaua’i with a hula halau she started in Sacramento, Calif.
Romuar, who graduated in 1992, made a family decision to move to Sacramento in the spring of 1999. Hula was such a large part of her life until that point that she decided to keep practicing it in her new Mainland hometown. Romuar, who has danced hula since she was 8, took the advice of her kumu hula of six years, Blaine Kamalani Kia, and started a halau in Sacramento, which now has about 200 students in Oakley and Sacramento.
Because Romuar had a wide ranging network of friends and family, she was able to open the halau with 40 members, said her hula sister of five years, Janil Ke of Kaua’i. The halau goes by the name “The Ladies of Ka Waikahe Lani Malie” and “The Men of Kahulaliwai.”
“Sacramento is very fast-paced. There’s so many things going on that sometimes you just need to stop and take a breather,” said Romuar.
She decided to bring her dancers to Kaua’i for the annual E Pili Kakou I Ho’okahi Lehui hula retreat so they could see where she grew up and why she is “the way she is.”
HGTV camera crews followed Juni to her mom Christine’s house, where they shared an emotional reunion.
“My mom has been there my whole life and she’s done everything she could to support me,” Romuar said. They also took Romuar to old high school hangouts with friends Elise Yoshino and Joann Matayoshi, who both live on Kaua’i; and to a cookout on the beach to mark Juni’s last day on the island.
“I try as much as possible to bring our Hawaiian ways to Sacramento,” Romuar says in the HGTV broadcast.
On the show, the Sacramento hula group gets to dance with Kia’s halau and Romuar is reunited with some of her Kaua’i hula sisters, including Ke. Romuar’s halau presents Kia with a pahu drum, which is an ultimate symbol of respect in the world of hula, according to Romuar.
“He’s not only my teacher, I think he’s become my friend,” Romuar said. She said the presentation was the highlight of her trip, a trip that she said was a rewarding and emotional experience.
“No matter where I go in my life and no matter what I do, I think Hawai’i will always be my home,” she said.
Tune in to “Going Home” on HGTV (channel 51), Friday, May 24, at 4 p.m. Hawai’i time.
Staff Writer Kendyce Manguchei can be reached at kmanguchei@pulitzer.net or 245-3681 (ext. 252).
