As the Island of Hawaii prepares for the annual Merrie Monarch Festival, the weeklong celebration of hula featuring the acclaimed hula competition, the Volcano Art Center welcomes the public to “On Sacred Ground,” an intimate collection of hula images by Dino Morrow.

The exhibit opens March 30 at the Volcano Art Center Gallery in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The public also is invited to an opening reception with the artist that same day from 5-7 p.m. at the gallery.

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“On Sacred Ground” will be on display at the gallery through May 5.

Morrow is a documentary and portrait photographer who specializes in candid shots of indigenous and local cultures. His current focus is to witness and respectfully document Hawaiian and indigenous cultures as an intimate and traditional expression: sense of place, identity, connection, art, values, spirituality and offering.

For Morrow, the ultimate value of an image is given when the participants accept the perspective, composition and feeling to be honorable and authentic. In order to achieve this, he relies on a personal connection with the subject and a keen sense of a deeper understanding from their perspective.

In short, “photography, for me, is trying to see what I feel … with a camera,” says Morrow.

The Volcano Art Center is pleased to have had the contribution of this world class hula and documentary photographer during the 2018 Hula Arts at Kilauea program. His strong visual aesthetic and attention to detail paired perfectly with the dynamic location in capturing authentic hula kahiko performances and other hula-related arts.

Hula Arts at Kilauea offers the following free activities year round: monthly live outdoor hula kahiko performances paired with hands-on cultural demonstrations, weekly Aloha Friday programs that offer short classes on a wide range of hula arts, monthly Hula Voices presentations featuring evening “talk story” sessions with hula practitioners and an annual May Day Celebration.

The performances and hands-on activities given by recognized Hawaii Island resident-practitioners provide a greater awareness of the hula arts as a cultural experience and as a way to feel a deep connection to the environment. The non-performance hula activities provide intimate, hands-on, enriching experiences to participants. All VAC hula arts programs help support cultural practitioners in perpetuating the hula arts and in sharing the aloha spirit.

These ongoing programs also allow Volcano Art Center to continue its long tradition of culturally rich programming.

For a complete schedule of events, visit www.volcanoartcenter.org/hula-arts/ or call 967-7565.

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A special evening presentation by Morrow also is slated for 6:30 p.m. April 18 at VAC’s Ni‘aulani Campus, 19-4074 Old Volcano Road, in Volcano Village, during which he will share the extensive collection of intimate images captured during various hula performances.

Volcano Art Center is a nonprofit organization with a mission to promote, develop and perpetuate the artistic, cultural and environmental heritage of Hawaii through arts and education. For more information, visit www.volcanoartcenter.org.