Where We Come From
Baluan — The Island We Call Paluai
Far in the north of Papua New Guinea, at the southern edge of the Admiralty Islands, lies Baluan — a small volcanic island roughly five kilometres across, ringed by coral reef and built on black basalt from an ancient volcano. Its people call the island, their language and themselves Paluai. Hot springs still steam along the shoreline, and the rich volcanic soil feeds gardens of taro, yam, banana and breadfruit, while the surrounding reefs provide fish and shellfish.
Baluan belongs to the Matankor peoples of Manus — seafarers of the smaller outlying islands — and most of its villages, including Lipan, Manuai, Perelik and Mouk, cluster along the north coast. Two languages live on the island: Paluai, spoken by an estimated two to three thousand people, and Titan, spoken in Mouk village. It is from the Titan language that the group takes its mantra, “N’dre Best” — to be the best.
Baluan has long been a place where tradition and change meet. It was the home of Paliau Maloat, whose movement reshaped Manus society in the twentieth century, and it remains an island where kastom — customary knowledge, ceremony, song and dance — is actively debated, defended and renewed. Paluai Sooksook was born from exactly that spirit.
1995 · Port Moresby
Born in the Diaspora
By the 1990s, many Baluan families had moved to Port Moresby for work and education — part of a wider Manus diaspora spread across Papua New Guinea. Far from the island, a new generation was growing up who had never danced to the garamut in a village clearing.
In 1995, the late Soanin Kilangit and his wife, the late Karla Kilangit, founded Paluai Sooksook in Port Moresby with a simple and urgent goal: to keep the indigenous heritage of Baluan alive and pass it down to their children. The group drew mainly from Baluan migrants and their families, but welcomed other Manus people among its members.
Success came quickly. Paluai Sooksook’s vivid adaptation of Manus dance and garamut drumming made it a favourite at official occasions, hotels and cultural events in the capital — and soon, on stages far beyond it. From the very beginning the group performed under the motto that still defines it: “Progress through culture.” Culture was never a museum piece; it was an engine of identity, pride and development.
The goal was to maintain the indigenous heritage of Baluan and hand it down — generation to generation — so the drum would never fall silent. The founding vision of Soanin & Karla Kilangit, 1995
The Instrument
The Voice of the Garamut
At the centre of every Paluai Sooksook performance stands the garamut — a large slit drum carved from a single log, its ends often shaped into ancestral and animal figures. Struck with wooden beaters, it produces a deep, resonant voice that once carried messages between villages and across the water, and still opens ceremonies and drives every dance.
Baluan’s garamut tradition is renowned for its complexity. Ensembles of drums play interlocking rhythmic patterns, each instrument with its own role, blending composition and improvisation. The tradition has drawn international scholars — ethnomusicologist Tony Lewis spent years on Baluan learning the drum, and devoted a chapter of his book Becoming a Garamut Player in Baluan, Papua New Guinea to Paluai Sooksook itself, tracing how pieces like “Teapot” travelled from the island to international stages, evolving with every performance.
Paluai Sooksook’s style is proudly its own. The group blends traditional garamut repertoire with synchronized dance, vibrant costume and — at times — contemporary sounds. Some in Manus have called the approach unorthodox. The group’s answer is simple: there has never been one universal way to play the garamut. Every village and clan has its own style — and Paluai Sooksook’s style is to keep the drum alive, wherever its people are.
The Journey
Three Decades on the World Stage
1995
The First Beat
Soanin and Karla Kilangit found Paluai Sooksook in Port Moresby. In its very first year, the group tours Australia — the first of many journeys abroad.
1996
South Korea
The garamut sounds in East Asia as the group takes Baluan culture to South Korea, proving the young troupe belongs on international stages.
2000 & 2005
Return to Australia
Repeat tours across the Torres Strait cement the group’s reputation as one of Papua New Guinea’s most travelled cultural ambassadors.
2004
Europe — The Pyrénées Festival
Paluai Sooksook performs at the 42nd Pyrénées Festival and tours France, Spain and Switzerland. Impressions from European theatre stages later inspire new ideas back home — including combining the traditional Baluan dancing pole (sinal) with a Western-style stage.
2005
Seeding the Balopa Festival
Soanin Kilangit retires home to Baluan and helps launch the first Balopa Mini Cultural Festival during Independence celebrations, under the banner “unity thru kalsa” — extending the group’s Port Moresby motto to the island itself.
2025
Osaka World Expo, Japan
Thirty years after its founding, a second generation of performers represents Papua New Guinea at its National Day celebration at the Osaka World Expo — the group’s biggest stage yet.
July 2025 · Kansai, Japan
Daughters of the Drum
When Paluai Sooksook flew to Japan to represent Papua New Guinea at the Osaka World Expo 2025, the group carried more than instruments. Criticism had erupted from some in the Manus community over the group’s practice of letting women — their sisters and daughters — play the garamut.
Group leader Lungol Popeu answered that there is no single, universal style of playing the garamut: different villages and clans each have their own, and in the atolls south of Manus, women historically beat the garamut in their own way while the men performed. The group chose to answer its critics the only way it knows how — on stage.
On PNG’s National Day at the Expo, the garamut’s ancient voice filled the auditorium and brought the crowd to its feet. When Lungol’s daughter, Popeu Piwen, took over the drum, the hall came alive. Prime Minister James Marape watched from the front row, and group members like Nelilou Kilangit spent time teaching Japanese children to play the garamut — passing the beat to yet another set of hands.
It felt like a huge weight on our shoulders, but we had to bear it and give our best performance at the World Expo in Japan for the love of our country. Lungol Popeu, group leader — The National, 2025
Because of the Expo’s 18-and-over age requirement, the Osaka contingent was drawn from the group’s second generation — while the third generation, already dancing and drumming, waited at home for its own turn on the world stage.
The Living Legacy
Progress Through Culture
Paluai Sooksook has never treated culture as something frozen in time. From its earliest years the group absorbed what it saw on tour and wove new elements into its performances — a living tradition, changing as all living things do, while its roots stayed deep in Baluan soil.
That philosophy travelled home. The Balopa Cultural Festival that Soanin Kilangit helped spark in 2005 has grown into the largest cultural event on Baluan, drawing the neighbouring islands of Lou and Pam. Its founding idea was Paluai Sooksook’s idea: that culture could motivate young people to learn from their elders, build identity and unity, and put development into local hands rather than waiting for it to arrive from outside.
In a country of more than 800 languages, where traditional knowledge can slip away between generations, that work matters. Every rehearsal is a language lesson, a history lesson, a genealogy lesson. Thirty years strong and now training its third generation of performers, Paluai Sooksook remains what its founders intended: proof that a small island’s heartbeat can be heard around the world — and that progress and culture beat in the same rhythm.