["Mele Ho'āla Moku" plays]
Hi I'm Jeanette Lomboy. I'm the creative executive for Aulani for Walt Disney Imagineering. I have had the privilege of being attached to Aulani since well before it opened.
I’m Shelby Jiggets-Tivony. I am the vice president of creative and advanced development producing Parks live entertainment.
And back in the way back, I was the creative executive leading the creation of the entertainment program at Aulani.
People always ask how can you be Hawaiian, how can you be Disney, and how is Magic shared between these things.
JEANETTE: There are three things that are very important to the Hawaiians - family or Ohana,
storytelling, which Hawaiians in my opinion, are the finest storytellers in the world. So "mo'olelo."
And magic. There is this very sort of real layer magic that sort of ebbs and flows in every part of the culture. Family storytelling and magic.
It's really easy for us to say that we can still be Disney in Hawaii and respect the culture and the community, and the things that make it that and still be magical at the same time.
So if you're looking for magic at Aulani you might get glimmers of pixie dust, if you will.
I would also say that there's just a lot of fun and whimsy all over the resort. I mean there are just so many things, like things we do in Aunty's house. There are lots of little secrets that to be discovered in Aunty's house.
SHELBY: We have our Disney characters who are present. They are Guests like we are Guests. They're learning right alongside of us.
They're loving the the place the history the culture the music. We have an uncle and an aunty who are Hawaiian, who are hosts, and both the caretaker of the place and the caretaker of the guest.
And that care, that love, that respect is is something that again is both deeply Hawaiian, but also very much a part of any Disney experience.
Well let's talk about the Menehune, the Menehune are the magical little people of Hawaii.
JEANETTE: There's a lot of legends and I don't even want to call it legend because there is a belief that the Menehune do exist.
And there is a lot of facts, and fish ponds, and temples that were built by the Menehune. But essentially they're the magical people who were meant and known to build things overnight.
Right, and so in the darkness of night they would come out and like I said they would build things like fish ponds, and temples, and water waterways, and all kinds of things.
But they were also mischievous in a very magical way. And it gave us the opportunity to give the Menehune a home at Aulani.
So if our guests come to Aulani you might look very hard and find countless Menehune in a hidden in places that you don't expect.
I invite every child, regardless of your age to look for them. Look underneath furniture, look up on the ceilings, look behind things, look at the landscape as you walk through the Waikolohe Valley, because the Menehune are everywhere.
We wanted the resort, your Aulani experience to be holistic. Right, so there would be something in the design, or something and in the landscaping of the resort that would inspire us.
SHLEBY: There's a little through line of the Menehune a at the resort.
So there's a design motif where they're, you know secretive and kind of peeking out because they're very mischievous characters.
So we thought. of course if the Menehune are here, we should tell stories about the Menehune as part of the entertainment.
So we have firepit storytelling that tell Menehune stories. We have nature stories that talk about the mountains that you see, the ocean, that talk about some of the plants that you see.
So we really drew on the myths and legends, but also married our entertainment program to a lot of the same things that Jeneatte and Joe Rhode and that team drew on in the physical place.
Aulani would not have been possible without an entire community of talented individuals who gave their voice.
JEANETTE: I always liken Aulani as like, you know, if Disney is the best possible blank canvas,
It's the Native Hawaiian culture and the community, and all of their skill sets and talents, and the things that they provided to this place that gave it the paint, and that's what made it the masterpiece.
We ended up with these amazing painted murals, and carvings, and a luau that is real and authentic, and based on things that are meaningful.
We were just really fortunate that the community opened its arms to us, and that we were able to bring on our consultants, and our Ohana who were really as passionate as we were about getting this right.
SHELBY: Right, because we knew it would be Disney little D, and Hawaii, big H, and they were as passionate about letting us tell those stories responsibly.