Helobung, a dance troupe composed of Indigenous T’boli people from the Philippines’ Lake Sebu, is on the latter half of its tour through Oahu, where they have been performing to showcase their unique culture through dance, music, song and textiles.

The troupe is on the final leg of their national tour with the Center Stage program to promote mutual understanding between international communities and cultures, said Helobung’s Center Stage tour manager, Diego Bucio.

“The goal of the program is to bring different cultural expressions to the United States in order to learn from them,” Bucio said. “This is in order to know them and to try to resolve from the educational, artistic, cultural side, any differences that we might have with different cultures.”

The Center Stage program launched in 2012 and has since enabled 29 music, dance and theater ensembles from under-represented overseas communities to tour the U.S. The program is funded and put on by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs diplomacy initiative.

Each year Center Stage holds auditions to select one or two outstanding overseas groups to participate in the tour, Bucio said. Those selected are often from communities that lack the funds to promote their Indigenous cultures on their own. The parts of the country that they tour typically depend on the nature of the group itself, he said.

In the case of Helobung, Center Stage decided to focus on touring the group through small communities with their own Indigenous populations, similar to that of the T’boli people, Bucio said. So far they have traveled and performed in Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Richmond, Va.; Yakima, Wash.; and will wrap up their monthlong tour on Oahu.

“It’s not like a musician performing for an audience, but it’s the music and dance based on community,” Bucio explained. “They perform and play the instruments with a community goal.”

In Helobung’s performance, one may discover the uniqueness of the T’boli culture, which is surprisingly different from other cultures in the Philippines, said Peter Rockford Espiritu, the founder and artistic director of Tao Dance Theater, which is hosting Helobung while they are on Oahu.

“When you see (the dance), you hear the chants, you hear the drumming and the footwork, it’s like nothing you’ve ever seen before,” Espiritu said. “You probably wouldn’t even know it was Filipino.”

In light of October being Filipino American History Month, Espiritu also emphasized the timeliness of the Helobung tour, which has enabled the individuals in the Helobung dance troupe and the Filipino communities they’ve visited in the U.S. to exchange cultural connections between one another.

“As cities encroach on everything, a lot of culture is lost,” Espiritu said. “So the importance of the preservation of culture, and to share it with other cultures, is invaluable.”

Performances this week are free to attend, and will include a showing today at Leeward Theatre at Leeward Community College’s Pu‘uloa campus from 1 to 3 p.m., as well as a second performance Friday at the University of Hawaii at Manoa’s Barbara B. Smith Amphitheatre at 7:30 p.m.

Linsey Dower covers ethnic and cultural affairs and is a corps member of Report for America, a national service organization that places journalists in local newsrooms to report on undercovered issues and communities.