Never been to the annual Prince Lot Hula Festival at Moanalua Gardens?

Saturday's 29th edition of the noncompetitive festival honoring King Kamehameha V and his love of hula has a bit of something for everyone interested in Hawaiian culture. Check out kapa-, hula implement- and feather lei-making demonstrations and learn to play ancient Hawaiian games. Enjoy the food booths. And, of course, sit back on the grass for kahiko (ancient) and 'auana (modern) hula from 10 local halau.

We asked co-founder and longtime emcee Nalani Olds Five Questions on festival history and what not to miss.

Q. How much did Prince Lot Kamehameha enjoy hula?

A. Oh, very much! When the missionaries came in the 1820s, (hula) went underground. ... Here on O'ahu, hula was then taken by the teachers of that time and mostly kept in the families. ... Everyone talks about King Kalakaua being the one who revived the hula during his reign. Well, Lot had done it during his reign (as Kamehameha V) as well, and even before that when he was still a prince. ... Prince Lot wanted to bring back the old traditions, the old culture, and that's what he worked on.

Q. Moanalua, where the festival takes place, has a long association with hula and is also where Prince Lot had a summer cottage.

A. Prince Lot received that property from his brother Kamehameha IV when he passed away. The grounds, the valley, the whole ahupua'a, actually, of Moanalua had been in the hands of the ali'i, and certain ali'i (had) lived on parts of it. ... Prince Lot really loved to have get-togethers and have parties. So that's how he started bringing the hula into the area. He'd go to the old teachers out on the leeward side and ask them to come. ... He didn't have a festival. But he had these parties where he brought the dancers in.

Q. Unlike at the Merrie Monarch Hula Festival in Hilo, where participants dance on a large temporary raised platform, dancers at the Prince Lot Hula Festival perform on a real hula mound — or pa hula — on the grounds of Moanalua Gardens, constructed in the ancient style.

A. We had this humongous, ugly, ugly stage for the first two years! (Laughs.) And I was having this dream of having a hula mound. I even saw in my dream how it should look and where it should go. ... I told my husband (Alan Napoleon), and he kept it in his mind. ... He was the executive secretary to the trustees of the Samuel Mills Damon Estate. ... One day, he was driving toward the gardens to go to a meeting when the Pu'uloa interchange was just being built. They were excavating and had dump trucks lined up that they were filling with all of these huge boulders and dirt. And he just stopped and asked them where they were taking it all. They said they were taking it all the way to Wai'anae or someplace. And he said, 'If I gave you somewhere to dump it, like right here around the corner (for a hula mound), would you do it?' And the (foreman) said, 'I'll do you one better. We'll build it for you if you'll really let us dump it there.' ... The mound was built in a day! ... The groundskeepers planted grass on it. And my children, my husband, the staff of Moanalua Gardens Foundation and I went up into the valley and brought the plants down. So everything that you see that's planted came from mauka, which makes it even more special.

Q. Another big difference: The Merrie Monarch Festival is a competition, and the Prince Lot festival isn't. Have there ever been any requests to change that?

A. There have been some questions by people who just don't understand. But it has never been looked at seriously. ... I don't particularly care for competitions. I grew up hearing that Hawaiians (traditionally) never competed for things. But what they loved to do is go out and show what they knew how to do and how to do it best. ... We usually only see hula performed in a competitive setting where everybody is nervous and uptight. The way I was raised, hula was for pleasure. And so aesthetically, I wanted to see hula that way. To not see the strain on the dancers' faces or the teachers' faces. ... Hula is a wondrous thing to be enjoyed. It's for you to come and do what you know how to do and what you like to do in the best way you like to do it ... and be happy and relaxed and just dance.

Q. What would you recommend first-timers not miss, besides the hula?

A. The gardens. If you've never been to the gardens, then really take the time to look around. ... The Chinese Hall, which was taken apart piece by piece, loaded on a ship, brought here and reconstructed. ... The lo'i kalo — or taro pond — that once had 19 varieties of taro growing in it. ... On the other side of the pond, Prince Lot Kamehameha V's cottage. ... One of my favorite things to do is ask people at the festival, as they are sitting under the monkeypod trees, to take time to lie down if they can and look up and see the leaves and the branches with the blue sky as the backdrop. It looks like waving lace. It's so beautiful.

Reach Derek Paiva at dpaiva@honoluluadvertiser.com.