Classroom lesson · Festival · 🇸🇧 Solomon Islands

Kastom Dance

Living tradition through movement, costume, and story

Photo · Wikimedia Commons

What is it?

Kastom dance is the name Solomon Islanders use for their traditional dances — 'kastom' is the Pijin word for 'custom' or 'tradition'. Each island, and often each village, has its own unique dances, costumes, and songs that have been performed for generations. These dances tell stories, celebrate important moments, and keep communities connected to their ancestors.

Tell me more

The costumes for kastom dance are extraordinary. Dancers wear headdresses made from feathers, shells, and woven fibre. Their bodies are painted with patterns of red, black, and white, each design carrying meaning. Shell jewellery — often made from tradeable shell money, a traditional form of wealth in the Solomons — rattles and chimes as the dancers move.

Each dance has a purpose. Some welcome visitors or celebrate a harvest; others mark a young person's coming-of-age or the completion of a canoe. The movements, rhythms, and songs all carry the knowledge of the community — stories about the sea, the forest, the ancestors, and the right way to live together.

The Festival of Pacific Arts, a huge celebration held across Pacific nations in rotation, gives Solomon Islanders and their neighbours a chance to share their kastom dances with each other and the world. Dancers from remote villages travel to perform alongside groups from across Melanesia, Polynesia, and Micronesia, creating a joyful showcase of Pacific culture.

In the classroom

Walk your class through this in 15 minutes.

Talk together

Discussion prompts

01What is the difference between dancing for fun and dancing to tell a story or celebrate something important? Have you ever done a dance with a special meaning?
02Why do you think different villages in the Solomon Islands might each have their own unique dances?
03The Festival of Pacific Arts brings many different cultures together. What might be the best thing about watching dances from many different islands all in one place?

Try this

Classroom activity

Create your own class kastom dance in four steps: choose what your dance is celebrating (a harvest, a friendship, a journey), invent three simple movements, decide what costume or prop each dancer holds, and give your dance a name. Perform it for another class.

More about Solomon Islands

Other things that make Solomon Islands special

Want your class to meet Solomon Islands?

Pick Solomon Islandswhen you register and we’ll show you the time-zone feasibility.

Register your classroom