Anchorage

Photos: Music festival brings Hawaii to Anchorage, along with lots of musubi

By Emily Mesner
Updated: July 3, 2022 Published: July 3, 2022
summer, culture, festival, north anchorage

Matai Saunoa, left, and Keoni Wong, right, perform with the Alaska Tamafai Kids Ministry dance group during the Aloha in Alaska Music Festival in Anchorage on Saturday. (Emily Mesner / ADN)

A parking lot in northeast Anchorage was transformed Saturday into a small festival venue featuring Polynesian cuisine, dance groups and musicians.

The Aloha in Alaska Music Festival began in 2015 as a way to bring the best of Hawaii to Alaska and to share the culture and aloha spirit with the Anchorage community, organizer Tasha Kahele said. She and her family own local businesses Lei’s Poke Stop, Da Poke Man Express food truck and Kahele Investments.

The event, held outside Lei’s Poke Stop at Tikahtnu Commons, was blessed during a Wah Ngai Lion Performance and Dedication and was followed by numerous dance performances and a musubi eating contest, where contestants tried to eat as many of the rice, seaweed and Spam snacks as they could in five minutes. The popular Hawaiian band Maoli was featured as their headliner.

Check out more photos below.

summer, culture, festival, north anchorage

People participate in the Wah Ngai Lion Performance and Dedication at the start of the Aloha in Alaska Music Festival in Anchorage to bless the event on Saturday. The lion was brought to Alaska from Malaysia. (Emily Mesner / ADN)

summer, culture, festival, north anchorage

Elsie Mahi looks to the stage as people prepare to compete in a musubi eating contest. (Emily Mesner / ADN)

summer, culture, festival, north anchorage

People embrace as they watch the Ladies of the Pacific Dance Group perform. (Emily Mesner / ADN)

summer, culture, festival, north anchorage

Members of the Ladies of the Pacific Dance Group perform during the Aloha in Alaska Music Festival. (Emily Mesner / ADN)

summer, culture, festival, north anchorage

Haaheo Kanohokula lifts his daughter, Healani Faaaliga-Kanohokula, in the air. (Emily Mesner / ADN)

summer, culture, festival, north anchorage

Trays of musubi are brought to the stage as people prepare to compete in a musubi eating contest. (Emily Mesner / ADN)

summer, culture, festival, north anchorage

Stunna Iakopo drinks water as he competes in a musubi eating contest for $250 and other prizes. (Emily Mesner / ADN)

summer, culture, festival, north anchorage

Youths reach for a tray of leftover musubi from a contestant. (Emily Mesner / ADN)

Emily Mesner

Emily Mesner is a multimedia journalist for the Anchorage Daily News. She previously worked for the National Park Service at Denali National Park and Preserve and the Western Arctic National Parklands in Kotzebue, at the Cordova Times and at the Jackson Citizen Patriot in Jackson, Michigan.

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