Scenario for an imagined ballet
by Gary Winter

Kaua‘i, Hawai‘i. 1890.

Scene 1. Pi‘ilani’s ‘Auamakua

1. Pi‘ilani awakens from a nightmare: an owl (pueo) being shot by careless hunters. 
2. Pi‘ilani hears the cry of the pueo, leaves her hut and walks into the forest.
3. A shadow of a giant pueo leads her deeper into the forest.She finds the pueo lying on the ground, its wing clipped by a hunter’s buckshot.  
4. Pi‘ilani wraps the bird in a kapa blanket (traditional kapa cloth was made from pounded bark), and carries her into the forest to heal.
5. The moon god Hina comes out—her moonbeams begin to heal the pueo.
6. Hina tells Pi‘ilani that the pueo is Pi‘ilani’s ‘aumakua, or family guardian. Hina tells her that by rescuing the pueo she will survive a terrible ordeal to come.

Scene 2.  Jack London and Louis Stolz Arrive in Hawaiʻi.

1. Jack London sails from San Francisco to Hawai‘i on the back of a turtle. He wears a white suit and carries his typewriter.
2. Louis Stolz (a white man), is a puppet. He rides in on the back of a shark.
3. Stolz waves to London and fires his rifle in the air as he passes him by.
4. The turtle lets London off on Kaua‘i.
5. London is met by Pele the fire goddess, who escorts him to her volcano.
6. Once inside the volcano London sets up his typewriter so he can write the story of Pi‘ilani and Ko‘olau while watching events unfold on a wall of flames. 

Scene 3. Paniolo

1. Ko‘olau and other paniolo (cowboys) on Vladimir Knudsen’s Waimea Valley ranch.
2. Ko‘olau holds a steer down with one arm and brands him with his free hand.
3. The shy Pi‘ilani, who has come to the ranch to buy milk, watches Ko‘olau from behind a fence.
4. Knowing the beautiful Pi‘ilani is watching him, Ko‘olau breaks a wild horse, one of the hardest things a paniolo can do.
5. Afterwards, Ko‘olau takes out his guitar and plays a sweet love song. Unable to resist, Pi‘ilani comes out of her hiding place and goes to Ko‘olau.
6. Ko‘olau and Pi‘ilani go into the forest and make love all night long under Hina’s moonlight. 

Scene 4. Ko‘olau and Pi‘ilani’s Wedding

1. A luau with hula dancing and lots of traditional food and music.
2. Outside, a commotion. An old beggar woman has been trampled by a herd of wild pigs.
3. Ko‘olau rushes outside with his rifle to shoot the pigs. When they are dead or gone he goes to help the woman. When he cleans off her wounds, Ko‘olau sees that the beggar has leprosy.
4. Pi‘ilani, who has been watching from the lanai (porch), screams for Ko‘olau to stay away from the beggar.  
5. Ko‘olau tells Pi‘ilani that he is too healthy to catch leprosy.  He puts the woman on his horse and takes her to the hospital, where she dies.

Scene 5. Affliction

1. Louis Stolz, now Sheriff Stolz, rides in on a toy horse. He is followed by a small army of puppet soldiers on toy horses.
2. Stolz and his men do the Manifest Destiny Hula.
3. Stolz visits Ko‘olau and Pi‘ilani in their home. Ko‘olau is wary because he knows Stolz wants Ko‘olau to help him round up lepers to be taken to the leper colony on Moloka‘i.
4. Stolz gives Ko‘olau a warrant ordering him to see the doctor in town to determine if he has leprosy.  As he is leaving, Stolz points to Ko‘olau’s rashes.
5. Ko‘olau goes to the doctor and learns he has leprosy.
6. Ko‘olau and Pi‘ilani and their son Kaleimanu go to the forest to hide. 

Scene 6. Refugees

1. Sheriff Stolz tracks Ko‘olau in the forest and tells him to give himself up so he can be taken to the leper colony. He will be separated from his family.
2. Ko‘olau shoots Stolz and many of his men.
3. Ko‘olau and his family run deeper into the forest to hide.
4. Once in the forest Ko‘olau and his family are met by refugee lepers like themselves.
5. The lepers show them where to get fresh water and gobi fish. The once despised lepers are now their friends.
6. Ko‘olau and his family live off the land, in hiding, for two years. 

Scene 7. Death in the forest

1. Kaleimanu and Ko‘olau die of leprosy.
2. Pi‘ilani buries her husband and son.
3. Pi‘ilani is alone for the first time in her life.
4. Pi‘ilani mourns her husband and son.
5. Pi‘ilani gets lost in the forest. She is terrified. 

Scene 8. Flight and Return

1. A pueo lands in the forest. It is Pi‘ilani’s `aumakua that she rescued earlier.  
2. Pi‘ilani gets on the pueo’s back.
3. The pueo flies out of the forest.
4. While in the air, Pi‘ilani sees the grandeur of the natural beauty that is Hawai`i: sandalwood trees, birds, koa trees, pigs, ocean, waterfalls, pali (cliffs).
5. Pi‘ilani is comforted and humbled, knowing that nature has remained constant amidst the hardships she has endured. Nature is sublime and bigger than any of us. She begins to see her place in the world, as being part of nature.
6. London packs up his typewriter and walk out of the volcano.