Meki's Tamure Polynesian Arts Group

About the Artist

Aloha and welcome to Meki’s Tamure Polynesian Arts Group, Inc.! We were founded in 1969 by Meki & JoAnn Toalepai who were performers at Baltimore’s most famous tiki restaurant – The Hawaiian Room in the Emerson Hotel. Meki is an immigrant from Western Samoa performing across the United States in the early 1960s when he met JoAnn who was a Baltimore native that practiced hula as a hobby. They met when Meki’s group had a contract with the Emerson Hotel to provide entertainment. The Hawaiian Room closed around 1970 and the Emerson Hotel was demolished in 1971. The couple had married in 1966 and formed Meki’s Tamure Polynesian Arts Group a few years later. Tamure is a Tahitian term for “dance festival or party”. Meki’s Tamure Polynesian Arts Group is still run by the Toalepai family and continues its mission to use the cultural group to entertain, educate and instruct audiences in Maryland and surrounding states with regards to the art forms of Polynesia. Polynesia is defined as the geographical region within a figurative triangle formed by Hawaii (North), New Zealand (Southwest) and Easter Islands (Southeast). We share the songs, dances, instruments and costuming of the islands of Fiji, Hawaii, New Zealand, Samoa, Tahiti and Tonga as part of our full scale productions. We have delighted audiences of all ages for numerous occasions for 50 years…and we’re still going strong!