Polynesian Cultural Center
From The Encyclopedia of Mormonism
See this page in the original 1992 publication.
Author: Fox, Charles Jay
The Polynesian Cultural Center is located in Laie, Hawaii, on the north shore of the island of Oahu. It is a 42-acre visitor attraction owned and operated by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints for the purpose of preserving and sharing the heritage of Pacific island cultures while providing employment, scholarships, and grants to students at the adjacent Brigham Young university-Hawaii.
In seven authentically recreated villages, representative dwellings, furniture, and artifacts from Fiji, old Hawaii, Samoa, Tonga, Tahiti, Maori New Zealand, and the Marquesas Islands are featured in a landscape of island foliage and lagoons. Visitors may observe or participate in demonstrations of arts, crafts, dances, music, games, and food preparation presented by villagers and performers, many of whom come from the cultures they portray. Various kinds of island cuisine are available in restaurants and snack bars. Daytime and evening shows and concerts are held on the grounds and in the 2,773-seat amphitheater. An IMAX theater with an ultra-large screen shows cultural and educational films shot on locations in the South Pacific.
Precursors to the present production consisted mainly of a hukilau -a fishing festival with luau and entertainment. That production was begun by Church members in the 1940s and continued for several years in Laie. In 1959 students and faculty at the Church College of Hawaii (now Brigham Young University-Hawaii) organized "Polynesian Panorama," a production of songs and dances that played regularly to audiences in Waikiki.
In 1962 Church President David O. McKay authorized construction of the present center. Special "labor missionaries" donated their skills, using building materials from Hawaii and the other islands represented. The original 12-acre center opened on October 12, 1963. Hugh B. Brown, a counselor to President McKay in the Church's First Presidency, presided at the opening ceremonies. In 1975-1976 the center was redesigned and greatly enlarged.
The labor missionaries helped realize the dream of Matthew Cowley, an apostle who worked for years with the Latter-day Saints in New Zealand, when he said, "I hope to see the day when my Maori people will have a little village at Laie with a beautiful carved house…. The Tongans will have a little village out there, and the Tahitians and Samoans-all those islanders of the sea!" (O'Brien, p. 73).
The center is a nonprofit organization that attracts almost a million visitors a year. It is administered locally by a president and governed by a board of directors chaired by a member of the Church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles.
[edit] Bibliography
O'Brien, Robert. Hands Across the Water: The Story of the Polynesian Cultural Center. Laie, Hawaii, 1983.
CHARLES JAY FOX
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