Maui County Arts & Culture

What comes to mind when you hear the word "culture"? Is it a hotel luau on the beach as the sun sets with the hula drums starting their seductive beat? Is it the ethnic festivals and other celebrations put together by armies of volunteers in the community each year? Is it the art societies, music and film at the MACC, or the performing arts? Is it the crafts fairs and shows and art exhibits? Is it museums? Storytelling, maybe?

Or, is it the swoop of a manta ray gliding through water and that clever, slippery octopus at the Ocean center at Maalaea or the crispy twinkle of stars up above the Haleakala Crater. These qualify as "culture" too if you consider all the neurons that get fired up in your brain as your imagination starts swooping and sliding and soaring along too.

Could be that "culture" is just a garage party in the real old-style when the aunties get up to dance the hula while Junior Boy and his friends kani kappila and make the music sweet.

To preserve and present the history and heritage of a time, place or people, as a museum does, is another form of "culture." Maui has buildings and compounds that are formally named museums - The Alexander & Baldwin Sugar Museum or the Bailey House Museum - that can help you step back in time. And then there are other places - some of them without walls that can transport you to somewhere else.