DAVID HART

Juggles Pros and Cons of His Island Heritage

 

Flames soaring from the tips of three polished steel blades reflect in his blue eyes as David Kepa Hart deftly hurls them close to his taut, glistening limbs and torso. Primal drum beats keep pace with the racing pulses of rapt spectators. The sheer beauty of this South Pacific fire-knife dance is a sure crowd pleaser, impressing even the most unsophisticated viewer with its clear dangers and great skill. 

 

But experienced jugglers can also learn from the extensive research underlying Hart's respectfully authentic theatrical performance, which marries the heritage of his native Hawaii with his hard-earned expertise in "western- style" juggling technique. Although many jugglers fantasize about paying engagements in Hawaii, many also find that booking agents there are reluctant to use their acts. 

 

Hart explained his home state's resistance, and provided advice other jugglers can use to create their own pathways to success. "With one-third the economy being tourism," says Hart, "hotel and nightclub shows must give visitors what they come for - something they think of as Hawaiian. Typically, that's a huge Samoan guy manipulating a heavy baton with fire on both ends. In reality, twirlers and majorettes stateside do it far better technically, but the appeal is having big macho guys doing it with fire and showman- ship." 

 

Hart has incorporated his professional juggling skills with years of training and experience as an actor to provide entertainment that agents now book worldwide. He has played roles ranging from Shakespeare to modern drama and light comedy, and appeared on net- work television in the U.S. and abroad. Crowds have clamored for his repeat engagements at Tokyo's Sanrio Puroland, Lotte World in Seoul, the Osaka World Expo, and a stint at the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas. He has further developed his interests in the entertainment world by creating David Hart & Associates, booking performers for shows he stages at corporate events and promotions, festivals, hotels, and private parties. 

 

More than anyone else, Hart is aware of the paradox at the heart of the Polynesian variety act that has proven to be his most successful performance. Research he conducted at UCLA's School of Theater, Film, and Television, where he received his bachelors degree last year, provided convincing evidence that Samoan fire-knife dancing is not indigenous. "None of the people in the South Pacific had access to knives of steel, nor did they have any petroleum," said Hart. "The fire-knife dance, as we know it now, never existed before 1936, nor could it have been developed without contact and influence from the outside world." 

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But the more interesting point," he continued, "is why there are no juggling demonstrations with true traditional South Pacific roots being performed today? It's because up until now, even though juggling is a centuries-old native tradition in Tonga and other South Pacific regions, it has become associated in everyone's mind with Western entertainment, as something foreign and imported."

 

Combining cultural traditions is not just a life work and career for Hart. It's his very essence. As a 30-year-old blue-eyed Eurasian Hawaiian, he has stood out his entire life, even in multicultural Hawaii. He explained, "Both my parents were mixed. My maternal grandfather, a Kansan of German-Swedish extraction, was stationed in Hawaii after World War II. He married a Hawaiian woman. My paternal grandmother is Dutch, and paternal grandfather is Chinese." 

 

He provides this information matter-of- factly, but the facts are complex. He was put up for adoption as an infant, and worked for years through a professional search firm and the Adoptees Liberty Movement Association (ALMA) to discover the truth about his parents. While he did find his birth mother, he's still seeking the father from whom she had already separated when she was persuaded to give up her son. 

 

A Hawaiian-Chinese supervisor of high-voltage electrical services for the military and his California blonde homemaker wife were happy to adopt Hart. Sadly, his mother died when he was only seven, and his father remarried another haole woman, a Texan. This "wonderful family" supported Hart's efforts to locate and reconnect with his birth parents, but provided less backing for his choice of a career in entertainment. 

 

"Something inside of me always yearned for attention and loved to perform," he said. "It probably came from the need to satisfy the inner child in me who had been abandoned and wanted to 'prove' himself lovable. At school I was always the best speaker and best actor, winning statewide speech and drama tournaments." 

He also traces his love of performing with fire to those early days, when he sat in the front row of his elementary school class enthralled in movies about volcanoes. "I was fully involved with the fire and lava," he said. "I never had a fear of fire. I used to hold fire crackers till the fuse would go down and flick them just before they'd explode. Extremely dangerous. I was good at it, though." 

 

And though he played no organized sports, he also grew up naturally fit. He figured out later that it's a natural result of growing up on the islands. He said, "I remember meeting a guy living at San Salvador, Columbus Isle, who looked like a star athlete, and yet he wasn't doing weight training. He said, 'Think about it. Look at where I live.' He made me aware that growing up in Hawaii, with sunshine year-round, you're always active."