The Ohana Dance Group is a non-profit, multi-generational hula halau where students of various ages, backgrounds, and abilities are exposed to the Hawaiian culture and music through traditional hula. Because ohana means "family", our goal is to maintain a family-oriented atmosphere where students can enjoy learning about the Hawaiian culture.

The Ohana Dance Group maintains a caring and compassionate approach in all that we do. We explore the depths of hula by learning the mele (poetry) of our songs, because hula tells a story through its motions. By learning the mele, we are able to dance the songs with our inner spirit, with deeper feelings of aloha (love).

Students learn about the Hawaiian culture, music language and dance. Gradually they learn to use some of the implements that the Hawaiians used to portray some of their songs. Students are taught the proper Hawaiian names for the hula steps, which are introduced as they learn their dances, and may also be exposed to dances of other cultural groups.

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We embrace community service and sharing as part of our philosophy of perpetuating the Hawaiian culture and aloha spirit.  Recent activities of ours include performances for schools, churches, and senior residences. We thoroughly enjoyed dancing at Shriners Hospitals for Children, UCD Children's Hospital and eleven libraries in 2011.

The Ohana Dance Group received a grant from the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission (SMAC) which helped to fund a Slack Key Guitar Concert with Kevin Brown and Patrick Landeza in September 2008. A Kevin Brown Slack Key Guitar performance was also provided for students at Luther Burbank High School which allowed us to bring the Hawaiian culture to youth who may not have a chance to experience this art form. We also enjoyed our fun concert/ho`ike featuring Faith Ako in September 2009. In July 2011, several community groups partnered with us to present a successful Ka Pilina presentation that was free to the public.