Huakaʻi Lūʻau
Journey Through Polynesia · About Us
The Story Behind the Show
Huakaʻi Lūʻau — Journey Through Polynesia — was not built in a boardroom. It was built around a campfire, on a stage, in a family kitchen in Hilo, and across the open ocean of a life lived fully in the spirit of aloha. Everything you witness on the Lūʻau Lawn at Kāʻanapali Beach Club — every chant, every flame, every note, every movement of the hands — has roots that run deeper than entertainment. This is the story of a family, a culture, and a calling. And at the center of it all, there are two people who refuse to let that culture fade.
Who We Are
Hawaii Luau Company is the creative force behind Huakaʻi Lūʻau, bringing together Hawaiian cultural experts Kaniala and Melody Masoe with veteran entertainment producers Jeff Gitlin and Larry Pellegrini. Together, we represent more than 20 years of producing the highest-quality Hawaiian entertainment in the islands — not as observers of the culture, but as living, breathing carriers of it.
We are a fully integrated production company — spanning cultural programming, artistry, costuming, choreography, operations, marketing, and hospitality — with a singular mission: to create a lūʻau experience that is as authentically Hawaiian as it is utterly unforgettable. We believe that true entertainment doesn't perform culture. It becomes it.
Our flagship show, Huakaʻi — Journey Through Polynesia, earned a celebrated six-year weekly performance run at the Kāʻanapali Beach Club Resort in Maui, Hawaiʻi, and has since grown into the island's most talked-about cultural evening under the stars.
Our ʻOhana
Melody Masoe
Co-Founder · Hula Director · Choreographer · Cultural Heart of Huakaʻi
If Huakaʻi Lūʻau has a soul, it moves through Melody Masoe. Born and raised on the island of Maui, Melody is not simply a dancer who found her way to the stage — she is a woman who has given the stage its meaning, its shape, and its story.
Melody began dancing hula at the age of 10 under the direction of Napua Greig with Hālau Na Lei Kaumaka O Uka. From her very first steps, hula was not a hobby — it was a language. She competed in prestigious hula competitions and performed at events including Hula O Nā Keiki at the Kāʻanapali Beach Hotel, earning her reputation as a dancer of depth and discipline at a young age. In 1999, Melody was accepted to board at Kamehameha Schools Kapalama Campus on Oʻahu, where she began dancing under Kaleo Trinidad and Snowbird Bento in the performance arts department. It was there that she discovered her true gift: not just dancing, but choreographing — the ability to translate the invisible emotional landscape of a story into the visible, physical poetry of movement.
After graduating from Kamehameha in 2003, Melody moved to Hawaiʻi Island to attend the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo. Her very first job out of high school was as a hula dancer at the only restaurant in Hilo town offering nightly live hula and music. On her first night, she was left breathless — not just by the performance, but by the voice behind it. That voice belonged to Kaniala Masoe. From that night forward, they have been inseparable.
Today, Melody is the architectural force behind every dance sequence in the show. She designs the choreography, writes the scripts, creates the costumes, and speaks fluent Hawaiian — ensuring that every cultural detail is handled with the integrity and reverence it deserves. Where Kaniala tells the story through song, Melody tells it through the body — through the hands, the hips, the eyes, the breath. She trains and leads the entire hula team, building not just dancers, but cultural ambassadors who understand why they move the way they do.
Melody is also the quiet operational backbone of the production. She manages the cultural programming, mentors young performers, oversees costuming and production design, and coordinates the social media presence that brings the spirit of Huakaʻi to audiences across the world. She is, in every sense of the word, the woman who makes the show whole.
For guests watching a performance for the first time, there is often a moment — usually during a particularly graceful hula sequence — where something shifts. Where it stops feeling like a show and starts feeling like a gift. That moment belongs to Melody.
Kaniala Masoe
Co-Founder · Lead Musician · Cultural Director
Kaniala Masoe is not simply a performer. He is a storyteller, a cultural custodian, and one of Hawaiʻi's most decorated musical voices. Born and raised in Hilo on the Big Island, Kaniala was immersed in Hawaiian music and hula from the time he could walk. His parents, grandparents, and extended family were all part of a rich musical legacy — as a family, they recorded three albums together and toured the Hawaiian Islands performing music and hula. He attended Nāwahiokalaniʻōpuʻu Hawaiian Language School, where he deepened his mastery of ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi and the cultural values that continue to guide everything he does.
His accolades tell the story of an artist at the top of his craft: he took first place in the prestigious Kindy Sproat Falsetto Competition, was crowned Mr. Aloha Maui in 2013, won KITV4's Island Idol in 2018, and has received multiple nominations for the Nā Hōkū Hanohano Awards — Hawaiʻi's highest musical honor. He has performed in 47 states and 14 countries, carrying aloha across the globe as a true ambassador of Hawaiian culture. Most recently, he serves as a Cultural Ambassador at Montage Kapalua Bay, is a licensed wedding officiant, and is actively preparing to become a Kumu — a master teacher of hula — furthering his lifelong commitment to perpetuating the culture he loves.
Jeff Gitlin
CEO · Hawaii Luau Company
With decades of experience in entertainment production, Jeff brings the operational vision and strategic leadership that transforms extraordinary talent into extraordinary experiences. Under his guidance, Hawaii Luau Company has grown from a single production into a multi-show enterprise spanning multiple Hawaiian islands.
Larry Pellegrini
Artistic Director
Larry is the architect of the show's visual and theatrical identity. His veteran instincts for pacing, storytelling, and stagecraft ensure that every evening at Huakaʻi is not just a performance — it's a journey that audiences carry with them long after the fire dies down.
A Love Story Told Through Dance
In 2003, on her very first night dancing professionally in Hilo, Melody looked up from the stage and heard a voice that stopped her cold. It was Kaniala. By 2006, they were married. And the show — in every sense — had begun.
Together, they made a decision that would define their lives: to move their growing family from Hilo to Maui in 2009, chasing a dream they could feel but not yet fully see. They walked the shores of Kāʻanapali, listening for the sound of live music and hula. They found it — and then they became it. Kaniala began performing at the Kāʻanapali Beach Hotel and Hula Grill Kāʻanapali, earning the admiration of couples from across the world who fell in love with his voice. Melody brought the children, danced beside him, and quietly began building something larger — a vision for what a real, culturally grounded lūʻau could look like.
In 2015, that vision became reality. Together, Kaniala and Melody launched a full-scale lūʻau show at the Kāʻanapali Beach Club — with their six children on stage, their extended ʻohana of performers around them, and the full weight of everything they had learned, lived, and loved poured into every moment. From 2020 onward, the company expanded to shows in Māʻalaea and Kapolei, Oʻahu. The Huakaʻi Lūʻau in Maui sits at the center of it all — a show that Kaniala and Melody built around their own love story, so that every guest who witnesses it becomes, in some small way, a part of it too.
Every dance in the show is a chapter of that story. Every chant carries the weight of their journey as individuals, as parents, as artists, and as partners. It is Melody's choreography and Kaniala's music weaving together in real time — an indirect and deeply beautiful way of telling the world: this is who we are, and this is where we came from.
The Music That Lives Within the Show
Many of the songs and chants performed at Huakaʻi are original compositions by Kaniala — and that distinction matters deeply. Among the most beloved is ʻO Molokaʻi, a chant written as a tribute honoring Laka, the goddess of hula, and the sacred island of Molokaʻi — considered the spiritual birthplace of hula. Another highlight is Tradewinds of Aloha, a tender hapa haole mele written by Kaniala's mother, which speaks to the aloha spirit and how it moves through all of us like the cool island trade winds sweeping across the Pacific.
Kaniala's first solo album, Paʻa Mau, was released to critical acclaim and earned multiple Nā Hōkū Hanohano nominations. Most recently, he and his eldest daughter Tyra released Oh Lāhainā, a moving tribute honoring the beloved town and the survivors of the 2023 wildfire — a reminder that for this family, music has always been a form of healing, of remembrance, and of hope.
Our Performing ʻOhana
The team at Huakaʻi is not a roster of hired performers. It is an ʻohana — a family of dancers, musicians, chanters, and fireknife artists who share a singular commitment: to honor the cultures of Polynesia with integrity, joy, and excellence. Their unity is visible in every performance. The warmth between them is not staged. It is real, and it radiates — because Melody has built a team that doesn't just perform together, but belongs together.
Together, they guide guests through Hawaiian hula ʻauana, the thundering rhythms of Tahitian ori, the powerful Samoan slap dance, the ancient warrior traditions of Fijian meke, the hypnotic spinning of Māori poi, and the spectacular Samoan fireknife grand finale — a performance that has left audiences breathless night after night.
Why We Do This
Kaniala and Melody have always shared one goal: to live by Hawaiian values and to perpetuate their culture through hula and music. That goal has never wavered. What began as two young people on a stage in Hilo — one singing, one dancing, both falling in love — has become one of Maui's most beloved cultural traditions. A living, breathing celebration of who the Hawaiian people are, where they came from, and the spirit they carry forward into the world.
Melody built the movement. Kaniala built the music. Together, they built a home — and every night on the Lūʻau Lawn, they invite you inside it.
E komo mai. Welcome.
Ready to Experience the Journey?
Reserve your place at Huakaʻi Lūʻau — Kāʻanapali Beach Club, Maui, Hawaiʻi.
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