The Maohi Native Cultural Festival, now in its fifth season, is all about harmony and healing, promoting wellness through arts and culture. It unwinds Saturday and Sunday at Kapi'olani Park Bandstand, uniting a cluster of popular Island entertainers with cultural cousins from the South Pacific.

"It's a unique cultural experience," said organizer Ka'uhane Lee, "and it involves interaction of culture through language and music, including the arts. The whole mission is about unity, peace, healing and aloha, through all things Polynesian: language, dance, rhythms."

The festival subscribes to the notion of makahiki — a Hawaiian time to "set aside all your differences, political, social or whatever — and to come together in harmony," Lee said.

Maohi, she said, is from an old Polynesian language "meaning native of the land, native of the culture."

And this weekend, the natives will represent a number of Polynesian communities, including Hawai'i, Tahiti Nui, Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Aotearoa (New Zealand), Tonga, Samoa, the Marquesas, Tokelau and other Polynesian and Pacific island cultures.

"We've invited groups who've participated before, but we're also getting calls from people who want to just show up, which is maika'i (all right), and we welcome that," Lee said. "Just leave your political or social agendas at home."

The festival had humble beginnings when kupuna cultural leaders from Hawai'i and Polynesia were honored in a Windward Mall program over two days. About 10,000 attended, said Lee.

Since then, the event has taken a nomadic turn, last year journeying to Tahiti during the Matahiti (makahiki) season. More than 15,000 attended, including a delegation from Hawai'i and the Polynesian triangle, for a cross-cultural milestone. "Even Auntie Genoa Keawe attended last year — her first trip to Tahiti at age 88," Lee said of the treasured songbird, one of the featured artists in this weekend's program.

"She rocked the whole stadium," said Lee, "proving you're never too old to gain a new experience."

Lee said participants are generally selected based on how they "represent their culture through music and the performing arts. It's a belief in the mission of Maohi. And this is to be shared for all, for 'globalnesia,' a visionary word that came to me, embracing all culture, all races."

The Maohi concept has taken off throughout Polynesia, said Lee, making it difficult to keep the anchor in Hawai'i. "This event has become culturally contagious in a good way," she said. "For instance, we've been asked to take it to Rapa Nui next year."

Lee, a partner in the Lomi Shop in Windward O'ahu and Mana Hawai'i Waikiki at the Waikiki Beach Walk, is the daughter of the late singer-composer Kui Lee. She has been an advocate of cultural and spiritual connections through her Ke Ala Olina Hawai'i organization, which literally means "pathway to enlightenment," promoting exchange through activities and teaching.

She said her involvement with lomi lomi, the art of Hawaiian massage, typifies the heart and soul of the Maohi and makahiki spirit — "it is from heart and hand to wellness."

Lee said she hopes the demonstration of traditional cultural, healing and performing art forms will encourage the young to pick up the practice. "It's the past and the present for the future," she said.

PARTICIPANTS

The Maohi Native Cultural Festival assembles a panorama of singers, dance groups and artisans of traditional Polynesian arts: