Who we are

About Hawaii Luau Company

Quick answer

Who is Hawaii Luau Company?

Hawaii Luau Company is a Maui-based Hawaiian entertainment, production, and wedding company co-founded by Hawaiian cultural experts Kaniala and Melody Masoe together with show producers Jeff Gitlin and Larry Pellegrini. The company produces private lūʻaus, corporate events, wedding entertainment, and private hula lessons on Maui, Oʻahu, Kauaʻi, and the Big Island, and created the Huakaʻi Lūʻau show at Kaʻanapali Beach.

We are a working family of musicians and dancers, joined by two producers with decades of live-show experience. Together we have produced Hawaiian entertainment for more than 20 years.

Call (888) 582-8858 Meet the team

The Masoe family performing group of Hawaii Luau Company — The Masoe family and performing ʻohana.

The company

A family of performers and two producers.

Hawaii Luau Company was co-founded by Hawaiian cultural experts Kaniala and Melody Masoe and veteran show producers Jeff Gitlin and Larry Pellegrini. We handle the whole production: the performers, the planning, the sales and accounting, and the show itself.

The company created Huakaʻi – Journey Through Polynesia, a weekly lūʻau that has run at Kāʻanapali Beach since 2015. Aloha Wailea Lūʻau in Wailea is our second ticketed show.

Private events are the other half of the business. Families, wedding couples, and companies book us for their own guests and venues on all four islands. The same performers and the same standards apply.

The people

Who you work with

Kaniala Masoe

Co-founder · Lead musician · Hawaiian cultural expert

Kaniala Masoe was born and raised in Hilo on Hawaiʻi Island. With musician parents and grandparents, he grew up around music and hula and first joined his parents on stage at age three.

A graduate of Nāwahīokalaniʻōpuʻu, the Hawaiian-language immersion school, Kaniala speaks fluent Hawaiian. In 1992, at eight years old, he recorded his first album with his parents as the group Aukahi Pride; their second album, Surfing With The Dolphins, followed in 1997. In 2003 he won the Kindy Sproat Falsetto competition on Hawaiʻi Island.

Kaniala composes original songs and chants performed in our shows, including ʻO Molokaʻi, a chant honoring Laka and the island of Molokaʻi.

Melody Masoe

Co-founder · Hula team leader · Hawaiian cultural expert

Melody Canto Masoe was born and raised on Maui. She began dancing hula at age ten under Nāpua Greig with Hālau Nā Lei Kaumaka O Uka and competed in hula competitions including Hula O Nā Keiki at the Kāʻanapali Beach Hotel.

In 1999 she was accepted to board at Kamehameha Schools Kapālama, where she danced for Kaleo Trinidad and Snowbird Bento in the performing arts department and discovered her love of choreographing hula. She graduated in 2003 and moved to Hilo to attend the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo.

Her first job out of high school was dancing hula at the one restaurant in Hilo with nightly music, where she met Kaniala. Melody leads our dancers, designs costumes, and writes the hula and scripts for our programs.

Jeff Gitlin

Co-founder · CEO · Marketing and business development

Jeff was a talent agent and manager in Los Angeles in the 1990s, representing well-known performers and working in television and film development. Before that he worked for the president of Warner Bros. in New York.

From 2001 to 2019 he was executive producer of the interactive comedy Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding on Maui at the Hyatt Regency, in Las Vegas, and in New York, and produced a run across Norwegian Cruise Line’s Hawaiian fleet.

In June 2011 Jeff and Larry Pellegrini co-founded Paradise Activity Company, which runs the activity departments and entertainment programming for resorts across the United States. Jeff was also VP of Marketing and Business Operations for Huakaʻi Lūʻau at Hilton Vacation Club Kāʻanapali Beach on Maui, running since 2015, where he led operations, marketing, and a seven-figure sales department. At Hawaii Luau Company he leads marketing, group sales, accounting, and resort relationships.

Larry Pellegrini

Co-founder · Creative and artistic director

Larry is the creator and director of Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding, the longest-running Off-Broadway comedy, and has created and directed four original interactive shows for Off-Broadway and Las Vegas.

His Hawaiʻi credits include corporate shows at the Grand Wailea and Kauaʻi Marriott, Leo and Lili’s Luau (writer-director, a benefit production for Hiccup Circus on the Big Island), and producing Huakaʻi Lūʻau at Kāʻanapali Beach, running since 2015.

With Jeff Gitlin he co-founded Paradise Activity Company and serves as creative director for Hilton Vacation Club Kāʻanapali Beach and The Point at Poʻipū.

Two smiling performers on a bamboo-backed stage — From our family’s performance collection.

Our story

From Hilo to Kāʻanapali.

Kaniala and Melody married in 2006 and started their family in Hilo. In 2009 they moved to Maui to grow Kaniala’s music career. Not knowing where to start, they walked through Kāʻanapali looking for live hula and music. Kaniala began singing at the Kāʻanapali Beach Hotel and Hula Grill Kāʻanapali and was introduced to the wedding industry, where couples from around the world booked him and his music.

Melody and the children joined him as hula dancers, and the family grew into a production team of dancers and musicians who share one goal: to live by Hawaiian values and perpetuate the culture through hula and music. Many of the dances and chants in our shows were written by Kaniala or his mother and tell the family’s own story.

Ke Kani Mālie

The Family Chant

Kani kani na leo o na kupuna eI wahi mo’olelo o ka wa kahikoI pa ‘olu’olu ia e ka makani maiI pa ‘olu’olu e ka ua mai eHo’olono i na leo kani a ka ipuNa makou ka wa’a ‘o Ke Kani MalieNa ke kupuna e alaka’i ia makouMe he ‘ohana la e‘Ohana la e, ‘Ohana la eMai na pua i ke kupuna e‘Ohana la e, ‘Ohana la eEo e Ke Kani Malie

Written by Kaniala, this chant expresses who the family is as a performing group and where they are headed. Like voyagers paddling a canoe, Kani and Mel have built a vessel in which audiences can see true Hawaiʻi, feel true aloha, and witness stories of ʻohana, friendship, and hope, as the family works to perpetuate Hawaiian culture for future generations.

See what we can plan for your guests

Before you call

A few useful answers

Where is Hawaii Luau Company based?

On Maui, at 104 Kāʻanapali Shores Place in Lahaina. Events are produced on Maui, Oʻahu, Kauaʻi, and the Big Island.

Who performs at your events?

The Masoe family and their performing ʻohana of trained hula dancers, musicians, Tahitian dancers, and fire knife performers, led by Kaniala and Melody Masoe.

What shows has the company produced?

Huakaʻi – Journey Through Polynesia, a weekly lūʻau at Kāʻanapali Beach running since 2015; Aloha Wailea Lūʻau in Wailea; and corporate shows at properties including the Grand Wailea and Kauaʻi Marriott.

How long has the company been producing Hawaiian entertainment?

More than 20 years. The four co-founders’ individual careers go back further: Kaniala first recorded in 1992, Melody began hula at age ten, and Jeff and Larry produced Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding from 2001.

Work with us

Tell us about your event.

Private lūʻaus, weddings, corporate programs, and hula lessons on all four islands.

Call (888) 582-8858