Oct. 28, 2026

Ikaika Mendez KSM’19 has a big kuleana to carry in his first year as kumu of literature, language and performing arts at Kamehameha Schools Maui, stepping into a role once held by his former kumu and mentor, Kalei Aarona-Lorenzo KSK’85.
 
Though he went on to study ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, music and theater at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Mendez traces his love for performance back to the campus where he is now a full-time teacher. As a freshman in Hawaiian Ensemble, he remembers Kumu Kalei’s approach as purposeful and interconnected.

“Every class that I took with her, it built up to something,” Mendez said. “There’s this connection between... performance, literature and language. What she taught me is how all those all coexist in this thing we call mele.”

Years later, while completing his undergraduate studies, Mendez turned a senior project into his first original theatrical production, “ʻAʻapueo.” Still connected to KS Maui, he worked with Hawaiian Ensemble to bring it to the stage, writing 10 original compositions and guiding haumāna in telling the moʻolelo of the very ʻāina where they learned each day.

“When I was in school, we just knew [the campus] as ‘Maui.’ We had no idea of the story, where the name came from,” Mendez said. “But now, we can proudly carry not just the story, but also the names within the stories.”

What was supposed to be a single performance for Kamehameha ʻohana grew into three full house shows, with some audience members watching from outside the doors. The response showed how performing arts could deepen a sense of identity and connection to place.

That understanding became personal with his graduate production “Lele Wale,” which brought Mendez back to his own family’s history. Both of his grandfathers worked as lūʻau musicians in Lahaina, where his parents also spent part of their early years. Mendez worked there in high school at the Feast at Lele, the same location where his grandfathers had once performed.

Those ties took on new weight after the 2023 fires. The lūʻau site where generations of his family had performed was among the places lost.

As Mendez began considering how to tell a story about Lahaina in the years that followed, he turned to the people and experiences that could reflect the community from different perspectives. For “Lele Wale,” he created five characters whose lives unfold before, during and after the fire: a student, firefighter, lawyer, expectant mother and entertainer. Through them, Mendez continued what he had been exploring with “ʻAʻapueo”: how theater can carry the moʻolelo of a place while allowing audiences to see themselves within it.

“You learn language, you learn history, and then you learn about yourself,” Mendez said. “I hope if there’s one thing you take away, it’s a sense of connection.”

The production, first performed in Mānoa, traveled to Lahaina for the third remembrance of the fires earlier this year.

Now, Mendez is returning to where his own path began, stepping into leadership as his kumu prepares to retire. He hopes to one day to create and direct a production about Ke Aliʻi Bernice Pauahi Bishop, but for now, he’s focusing on the responsibility that comes with leading the ensemble: passing forward ʻike kupuna and giving the next generation opportunities to discover how culture, ʻāina and moʻolelo can intersect in their lives.

“That’s my kuleana: to teach, share the knowledge, and remind you that the knowledge is there,” Mendez said.