A Friday Visit with Jim Korkis: Auntie Kau’i at the Polynesian

By Dave Shute

Welcome back to Fridays with Jim Korkis! Jim, the dean of Disney historians, writes about Walt Disney World history every Friday on yourfirstvisit.net.

AUNTIE KAU’I AT DISNEY’S POLYNESIAN VILLAGE RESORT

By Jim Korkis

Three months ago, I spent over an hour sitting in the lobby of the Polynesian Village Resort. I wasn’t waiting for anything or anyone. I was sitting next to a genuine WDW treasure: Auntie Kau’i Brandt.

As she does many days, she was sitting at a table as guests rushed by, not paying any attention. She was slowly and carefully making a lei as she has done for many years. And she was very generously talking to me with a big smile on her face.

On the morning of December 7, 1941, Brandt was sitting on her mother’s roof in a town near Pearl Harbor, eating mangoes off a tree with her brother.

“We saw the planes flying overhead. My mom told me, ‘It’s war. Get off the roof.’ I said, ‘What’s war?’ We didn’t know what war was. But, we learned. It was a tough time.”

Brandt grew up during a time when speaking Hawaiian was forbidden and kahiko-style (traditional) hula was taught only in secret. At the time, hula was considered vulgar because of the swaying hips and so was often used for comedic purposes with performers in cellophane skirts.

In 1971, Kau’i Brandt, better known as “Aunti Kau’i”, moved from Pearl City, Hawaii on the island of Oahu to California for eight months to perform in the Polynesian show at Disneyland’s Tahitian Terrace. She had previously been approached three different times in the 1960s by Disney representatives to relocate to Southern California but each time she refused, fearing that once she left she might never come back.

Shortly after coming to Disneyland, she moved to Florida with her husband Pono to open the Kau’i-Pono Polynesian Revue at the new Disney Polynesian Village Resort.

She was the master of ceremonies for the show and remained as a cultural representative at the resort for decades. Among other things as a cultural representative, she would sit in the lobby as she does today and create the authentic leis from real flowers to give to couples celebrating honeymoons or anniversaries as well as stopping occasionally to give children Hawaiian cookies and to give hula lessons.

She was born during a Hawaiian thunder and lightning storm in 1932 and was named “Kauihealani” which means “thundering voice of heaven”. She uses the shortened version “Kau’i”.

“I studied the dances of Samoa, Tahiti, Tonga, Hawaii and the Maori dances of New Zealand,” said Kau’i. “My teachers were always from the islands where the dances are still performed and knew the legends and traditions told in each dance. I taught and I learned. Many of my teachers were from the Mormon Church College on the island of Oahu in Hawaii.

“When Pono and I learned that the Disney organization was looking for a company of Polynesian artists to perform at Walt Disney World in 1971, we decided to put together a show that would be both authentic and exciting.”

In 1972, the Kau’i – Pono company had twenty-eight young dancers and musicians and more than one hundred dances in their repertory. At that time, the company appeared three times nightly in the Papeete Bay Verandah restaurant and at the evening luaus on the beach.

“Guests ask us if we miss our islands, if we ever get homesick for our flowers, waterfalls, mountains and rolling waves,” smiled Brandt. “I tell them that we bring the islands with us in our songs, in our dances and especially in our spirit of aloha – the gift of the islands to all who enjoy life.”

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Thanks, Jim! There’s more on the Polynesian beginning here, and for more about Auntie Kau’i and other Poly cast members see Steve Seifert’s Tikimanpages.com here.

And come back next Friday for more from Jim Korkis!

In the meantime, check out his books, including his latest, More Secret Stories of Disneyland, and his Secret Stories of Walt Disney World: Things You Never You Never Knew, which reprints much material first written for this site, all published by Theme Park Press.

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