Original maori Haka dance

At the ninth Festival of Pacific Arts in Palau, male dancers from Kiribati, clad in shell necklaces, traditional skirts, and brandishing colorful spears, dance to ancient drums and chants. They are on a stage fringed with gelled spotlights, amplifiers, monitors, and stand-up Cerwin-Vega speakers. It’s a moment in Dances of Life that captures the dichotomy between Pacific Islanders’ earliest cultural traditions and the modern world in which they live today.