One of hula icon George Na'ope's goals was to introduce hula to people around the globe, something he was able to accomplish when the Merrie Monarch Festival he co-founded with Doris "Dottie" Thompson grew into the world's premiere hula competition.

Na'ope, 81, died yesterday morning at his Waiäkea Uka residence in Hilo after a long battle with cancer.

"His body was just shutting down this past week," said Jacqueline "Skylark" Rosetti, a family friend. Naope last year had a portion of a lung removed and recently he'd been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, Rosetti said.

As news of George Lanakilakeikiahialii Na'ope's death spread through the hula community yesterday, kumu hula who studied under him remembered his significant contribution to Hawaiian culture, referring to him as a hula lo'ea, a hula master.

"He was our last living hula master," Rosetti said.

Kumu hula Rae Fonseca recalled coming to Hilo from O'ahu in the early 1970s to learn hula from "Uncle George."

At the time, George Na'ope's Hula Studio was on the second floor of the KHBC radio station building on Keawe Street across from the downtown Hilo KTA store, said Fonseca, kumu hula of Halau Hula O Kahikilaulani.

By then, the Merrie Monarch Festival had begun to take off in popularity, especially after male hula and hula kahiko, or ancient hula, became part of the weeklong event.

Fonseca said Na'ope was a bridge between the hula masters of the past, such as 'Iolani Luahine, Lokalia Montgomery and Tommy Hiona, and the younger generation of kumu hula whose names became popular largely as a result of the festival, such as Johnny Lum Ho, Aloha Dalire and Fonseca himself.

"We were able at that time to meet these great kumu hula and learn from them also," Fonseca said.

Kumu hula Leina'ala Kalama Heine agreed. "As far as I was concerned, he was the last link between that time and today," said Heine, kumu hula of Nä Pualeiolikolehua. "I regard him as a lo'ea. He is one of the great masters of our time."

Rosetti said Na'ope wanted to spread the message of hula throughout the world. Besides helping create Merrie Monarch and other hula festivals in Hawai'i and around the world, Na'ope made it a point to go to places such as Japan to teach hula, Rosetti said.

"That was his mission, to bring hula to the world," she said.

SPREADING A MESSAGE

Etua Lopez, another of Na'ope's students, said Na'ope "believed in the word aloha," and helped spread that message throughout the world through hula.

"He thought hula would help not only the Hawaiian people learn about their culture but he thought it would help people around the world understand their own nation and their languages and cultures," Lopez said.

In 1981, with the help of the Tokyo Hula Association, Na'ope began the Japan Merrie Monarch Hula Festival.

Naope was born in Kalihi on Feb. 25, 1928, and his family moved to Hilo when he was a youth. He began his hula studies when he was 3 under Mary Kanaile Fujii, mother of Edith Kanakaole.

As a young adult, Na'ope traveled the world as the featured chanter for the Royal Hawaiian Review and the Ray Kinney Band.

Besides co-founding the Merrie Monarch Festival with Dottie Thompson in 1962, Na'ope also helped create the Lili'uokalani Keiki Hula Festival and its sponsor, the Kalihi-Pälama Cultural and Arts Society, as well as Kaläkaua Invitational Hula Festival, the Kaua'i Mo- kihana Festival and the Kupuna Hula Festival. There are also hula festivals in the Pacific Northwest and California named after Na'ope.

In later years, Na'ope was known not just as a kumu hula, but as a raconteur, a dapper man decked out in bright clothes and huge rings. A fixture at the festival and its many auxiliary events, he was adored by hula-loving visitors, often seen in a huge peacock-style chair having his picture taken with visitors from Japan.

In latter years, when he crept up the ramp to the Merrie Monarch stage to perform a hula during the finale, the crowd would go wild.

He was called "The Menehune," for his small stature, or sometimes "Dandy," a reference to King Kaläkaua's hula master Dandy Ioane, also a dapper dresser.

Na'ope is survived by a brother, Francis Na'ope; sisters, Aileen Crum, Bernie Konanui and Emma Werley; and hänai grandson, Hoapili Na'ope.

Services are tentatively scheduled for the evening of Nov. 6 and the morning of Nov. 7 at the Afook-Chinen Civic Auditorium, near the Edith Kanaka'ole Tennis Stadium that has been home to the Merrie Monarch for nearly the last half century.