Aloha Island Experience unique way to spend a night at Surfside Beach

My grandchildren enjoyed seeing the Aloha Island Experience hula dancers in 2019 and Tuesday we are going to see the show again. (Larry Vaught Photo)

Any day at the beach is a good day but I think Tuesday is going to be extra special here at Surfside Beach, S.C., because we get to enjoy the Aloha Island Experience again.

You don’t expect to find trained hula dance and fire knife performers on a beach trip to South Carolina but that’s exactly what we are going to see again Tuesday night. We first saw this group in 2018 and again in 2019 but it will be our first time since then.

Owner/instructor Mary Burns says all ages and genders are welcome to the free performance that starts at 7 p.m. each Tuesday during the summer at 3rd Avenue North in Surfside — just a few miles south from downtown Myrtle Beach.

They had their first show of 2022 last week and like always had a big crowd of spectators bring lawn chairs and blankets to enjoy the show.

Burns had friends who went to Hawaii and when she went to visit, she fell in love with the islands. She ended up finding a job as a traveling nurse and staying in an extra room her pharmacist friends had.

Earl Bakken, who invented the pacemaker, built the North Hawaii Community Hospital and she got to help open the small hospital that is still operational.

“The man who became my husband came in to see his father who was on a ventilator. He was a big Hawaiian. He played the ukulele and sang to his dad. We did not really meet that night,” she said. “The first time I really spoke to him was at Christmas and his dad was doing better. We met and became friends.”

“He was very involved in the Polynesian culture and dance. We started dating. He took me to Tahiti. He was a fire knife dance and that’s where the romance really started.”

They got married and their first child was stillborn and her second child was in a neonatal intensive care unit in Honolulu for a month. Four years later when she got pregnant again, they came back to North Carolina where she was from to be with family where more speciality care would be available if needed.

“Our second daughter was born in Chapel Hill. We eventually moved to Myrtle Beach, which was a much better scene for the big Hawaiian. He started a hula school here in 2004,” Burns said. “I took hula from him, his sister and others in Hawaii. I was fascinated with the culture. I did take a couple of Hawaiian language classes to learn about the history of Polynesia when I met him.”

They started teaching hula to young girls in the Myrtle Beach area in 2004 and some of those first students are now helping her teach since her husband passed away seven years ago from a heart attack — and two years later she found out she had breast cancer.

“I asked my daughter and students if I should continue, they said yes. I have done my best to keep the business going. We are one big family,” she said.

She feels fortunate that Surfside Beach officials have continued to hire them to keep up their tradition

“We really are a family oriented show. This year we have a lot of local little girls and folks really like to see them hula,” Burns said.

Polynesian Fire has a 2 1/2-hour dinner show in Myrtle Beach but one of the first knife dancers joins Burns’ group each Tuesday along with another Polynesian dancer who moved to the area a few years ago. Her husband also trained another local performer who still takes part in the show.

“We just love what we do and we have a lot of diversity in our group,” Burns said. “Our shows are supposed to be an hour but the first one lasted an hour and a half but nobody seemed to care. We just try to make people happy and show a little bit of the Polynesian culture to them.”

So if you are going to be in the Myrtle Beach area any time this summer, keep Tuesday night open to be in Surfside Beach for the free Aloha Island Experience like I will be this Tuesday night.