Photos

Matato’a (the watchful eye of the warrior) is the most famous musical and dance group from Rapa Nui (Easter island- Chile).
This familial group is born in 1996 by the initiative of Kevamatato’a Atan. Its principal motivation is to promote the ancestral traditions, the dances, the costumes, the body paintings of Rapa Nui.
This perfect fusion of modern instruments (guitars, keyboard, battery) and traditional ones (stones, horse jaws, bombo, etc.) gives various, enjoyable repertories of different music and song styles (Rapa Nui, Polynesian, Reggae, Latino, Rock, etc.).
They mix the styles also in their stage costumes wearing personnel modern clothes, traditional costumes (feathers and natural fibbers) and takona (corporal identity painting) always created by them. They impress, attract and lead to the dance everyone during their show with their dance music, the “HOKO” (dances and songs to express the Mana) and personal choreographies renew at each concert.
In this photo we can see how the main dancer is body-painted. A full view of the painting can be seen here. Here you can see a later view of the show with female dancers, and also another photo of the performance of the main dancer but with another costume.
The photo is not top quality, but I wanted to post it to show more about the culture of Rapa Nui rather than beautiful photo.
I hope you will find this interesting.