HILO >> The journey to the 54th annual Merrie Monarch Festival has been an emotional one for Halau Manaola of Kohala under the direction of kumu hula Nani Lim Yap.

Halau Manaola, a new halau that made its debut at last year’s festival, returned this year with an impressive performance of “Hi‘uolani Ki‘i Ka Ua O Hilo,” a rain dance using traditional foot movements to mimic the elements of the wind and rain, at the kahiko group competition on Friday night.

Dancers, dressed in strikingly colorful, patterned, pleated skirts, were a vision as they entered the stage. Their pa‘u skirts, made from five yards of fabric, were stamped with kukui nut ash and then painted by hand, according to Yap.

While competing at the festival is not at all new to Yap, who with her sister, Leialoha Lim Amina, was kumu hula of the top-placing Halau Na Lei O Holoku that dominated the wahine division at Merrie Monarch in the early 2000s, this year was the first without her mother, Mary Ann Neula Lim, in her favorite spot, watching from high up on the left side of Edith Kanaka‘ole Stadium.

Lim died March 29 at the age of 81 at Kohala Hospital.

Returning to Merrie Monarch is a way to honor her, Yap says, because her mother loved the festival so much. She had a small peek at a practice before the competition but had said she did not want to see it yet so it would be a surprise.

Now, said Yap, she has “the best seat in the house.”

On the last day they spoke, Yim’s mother told her she would give her time to prepare for Merrie Monarch.

When Yap and her sister parted ways, her sister kept the name for Halau Na Lei O Holoku. Yap decided on Halau Manaola after her son, fashion designer Carrington Manaola Yap, who is expected to one day become a kumu hula.

The name Manaola, loosely translated as “life force,” was given to him by his late aunt, former Merrie Monarch judge Joan Sniffen Lindsey, who died in October.

“When I look at halau, it’s not for me, already,” Yap told the Star-Advertiser in an interview before the competition. “It’s time to move it ahead. I was looking for the future and what can I leave for my children, what can I leave for my haumana, the students who have been there for a long time.”

So while the halau is based on a foundation of tradition, its intention is to look toward the future.

This year, Yap brought 27 wahine dancers with her. Her son, Manaola, designed the costumes, of course, and did the choreography last year as well as this year.

“When we choose a mele, as we have always done, it has to be something never seen on stage and something new to share,” she said. “It’s actually traditional, but it’s never been done before.”

Tonight, for auana, the halau will perform “Po La‘ila‘i” — a song written by Mary Kawena Pukui and put to music by Maddy Lam — which speaks of a memorable stroll on a moonlit night, accompanied by the scent of pikake and strums of ukulele, capturing the feelings of being in love. It is a song their late matriarch, Mary Ann Lim, had performed, recorded and loved.