Global Weekends

Island Beats: Festival of Oceania

A member of the Kahurangi Moari Dance Theater
Credit: AMNH/C. Chesek

Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples, third floor

Ticket Info

Free with Museum admission

This program will introduce audiences to Pacific Island cultures through vibrant performances, workshops, demonstrations, and films for the entire family. Highlights include an introductory hula lesson, dance and song from Hawaiii, Aotearoa (New Zealand), and Australia as well as a Rapanui (Easter Island) carving demonstration and contemporary art displays from throughout the Pacific.

Program Schedule

Opening Events
Noon
Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples, third floor

Traditional lei greeting, art tables open, and Rapa Nui Moai carving demonstration begins with Santi Hitorangi and Konturi Haumaka Solar-Guzman.

Hula Workshop
12:15 pm
Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples

Members of Polynesian Dance Productions will lead visitors in an introductory lesson in this renowned and ancient dance form.

Songs from Aotearoa
1 and 2 pm
Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples

Ataahua (Ata) Papa will sing a selection of Maori songs a capella and self accompanied on guitar as well as with guitarist Charley Buckland and percussionist Donna Kelly.

Aboriginal Australian Cultural Demonstration
1:30 and 2:30 pm
Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples

Cameron McCarthy will present song and dance performed during a Corroboree (traditional gathering) as well as selections on the didgeridoo.

Dances of Polynesia
3 pm
Kaufmann Theater, first floor

Polynesian Dance Productions will perform dances from the islands of Hawai’i, Tahiti, and Aotearoa (New Zealand).

Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar Performance
4:30 pm
Margaret Mead Hall of Pacific Peoples

Andy K?lana Wang and Claudia Kanile’a Goddard perform Hawaiian slack key guitar or k?h?’alu, which literally means “loosen the key.” K?h?’alu was developed in the 1830s by Hawaiian cowboys who “slacked” the strings of guitars brought to Hawai’i by Mexican and Spanish cowboys.

Programs are subject to change.

This program is co-presented with the Australian Consulate-General, the New Zealand Consulate General, the NGO Committee on the International Decade of the World’s Indigenous Peoples, and Ha-la-wai.

Support for Global Weekends is made possible, in part, by the Ford Foundation, the May and Samuel Rudin Family Foundation, Inc., the Tolan Family, and the family of Frederick H. Leonhardt.