A 30-year dream came true for the people of Maui, when in 1994 the Maui Arts and Cultural Center (MACC) first opened its doors. The success of the MACC is not accidental. It began with thousands of people contributing more than $32 million to make the non-profit Maui Arts & Cultural Center a reality. And it also takes more than 2,900 volunteers giving more than 207,000 hours of their time, to the value of $3,185,730.
The MACC has become the place where the community could gather and celebrate the best Maui had to offer, a first-class venue to showcase the world's most exciting artists, and a place where educational resources could be brought together to serve people of all ages.
Among the core values held by the MACC are that:
- people have an inherent need to create
- the arts are meaningful expressions of cultures
- the arts have the power to build and transform communities
- learning takes place through live arts experiences
- arts are essential to complete the education of children
- the Hawaiian culture is vital to Hawaii’s identity.
The goal of the MACC is to provide a place where beauty can reveal itself through the freedom of expression in many forms. Thus, the MACC hosts nearly 1,800 events annually which includes major music and theater productions, symphony and ballet performances, hula, taiko drumming, children’s art, and much, much more. It additionally serves as a gathering place for community meetings and school events.
Indeed, the MACC considers itself Maui’s largest classroom by providing professional development classes for teachers and teaching artists. Workshops featured include dance, drama, visual and literary arts, and more. Teachers earn continuing education credits when they implement the workshop content in their classrooms.
Many of the activities are ongoing programs such as the:
- Hawai’i Maoli Series, which features the works by Pacific people with Pacific themes
- Local Voices Series, which are spoken word productions by, about and for the people of the islands
- Mele Series, which is music, song, and diversity of the islands
- Story-telling Series, which includes both traditional and contemporary Hawaiian story-telling
- Generation Series, where talents and talk-story is passed along from one generation of artists to the next.
Truly, “the Maui Arts & Cultural Center is a presenter – the dynamic connection between artist and community.”
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