Kari Kari Cultural Ballet of Rapa Nui

Kari Kari Cultural Ballet is a Rapa Nui performing-arts group based in Hanga Roa. Its productions combine dance, singing, live music, body ornamentation, and performance costumes to interpret elements of Rapa Nui and wider Polynesian cultural traditions.

The performances photographed in 2006 included coordinated dances accompanied by stringed instruments, percussion, and vocal music. Movement, rhythm, costume, and painted or tattooed designs contributed to the visual presentation of cultural identity and inherited artistic practices.

Kari Kari describes its purpose as preserving, developing, and transmitting Rapa Nui dance, melodies, and cultural knowledge. The organization also trains children and young performers through its Ma‘aranui academy. Such instruction allows performance traditions to remain active expressions of contemporary Rapa Nui identity rather than surviving only as records of the past.