For freshman Megan Morikawa and sophomore Meghan Akim, Polynesian dance is a way for the two to foster a community reminiscent of one 4,000 miles away.
Morikawa and Akim, who are both of Hawaiian descent, met with the help of the Multicultural Center and decided to start a Polynesian Dance and Hawaiian Culture workshop at Duke. A trial workshop was held last week to assess interest, and after seven graduate students and faculty attended, the two have decided to continue the class on a regular basis after Spring Break.
"We decided to start a workshop where we could teach Hawaiian culture, music and dance as well as other dances of Polynesia," Morikawa said. "Also to bring a sense of community that Meghan and I had when we were dancing in our hometowns."
The workshop teaches various forms of Polynesian dance from Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa and New Zealand. Morikawa said their main goal in starting the class is to teach students about Hawaiian culture through crafts, music, food, language and history.
"I thought it would be a good way to bring the [Hawaiian] culture to a place that doesn't really have any presence," Akim said. "We wanted to bring a little piece of Hawaii [to Duke]."
Morikawa said she hopes to teach students about the history and music behind the dance.
"The music is a very integral part of dancing because it tells the story," she said. "It ties everything together and provides the story that tells the history."
Morikawa and Akim both said they would like to collaborate with Leonard Cruz, a visiting professor of dance, who has been practicing Filipino folk and Hawaiian dance forms since he was young.
"With Hawaiian classical dance forms it was a way of telling stories, a way of celebrating the earth," Cruz said.
In addition to providing a place for the workshop, the Multicultural Center is helping with networking for students who are interested in dance, said Vivian Wang, marketing specialist for the Multicultural Center.
Morikawa said although she feels that Duke provides opportunities for minority groups to become visible, she does not think the workshop falls under the category of a minority group.
"I wouldn't call us a minority group but a fusion between art and culture," she said.
Both Morikawa and Akim have been participating in Polynesian dance since they were children. The two said they wanted to bring what had been an important aspect of their lives to Duke by creating this workshop.
"When I came to Duke and came across the country I kind of didn't realize how important [dance] was to me until a whole semester of not having it," said Morikawa. "I really started missing dancing and the culture about it."
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