Pacific Identity

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Pacific Identity

• Choreographing Pacific motifs and meanings in the
  arts
• Allan Alo
• Oceania Centre for Arts and Culture, USP

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• What is Pacific?
• What is identity?
• What is my identity?
• What informs my identity?
• What value(s) included in a Pacific identity?

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Pacific Ocean

• Mare Pacificum peaceful sea
• Ferdinand Magellan (1480 1520)
• Artic gtgt Antarctic (north/south)
• Asia/Australia gtgt Americas (east/west)

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Pacific Islands

• PNG west gtgt Easter Island south
• Hawaii north gtgt NZ south
• Small Island nations
• Mostly independent states

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South Pacific

• 3 Pacific Archipelagoes
• Melanesia
• Polynesia
• Micronesia
• The Region
• Forum Countries (Regions premier political and
  economic policy organization)

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What is Identity?

• Fact of being, close similarity/understanding
• Similarity/Difference shapes identity
• Collective/Group Identity
• EthnicNational/Civic
• Symbols and representations
• Ways of knowing
• Values, traditions, beliefs

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What is my identity? Who am i? Who are we?

• Place of origin cultural background
• Culture as a reference point
• Culture defined as social behavior or as
  artifacts and material objects
• UNESCO definition of culture
• The set of distinctive spiritual, material,
  intellectual and emotional features of society or
  a social group and that it encompasses in
  addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways
  of living together, value systems, traditions and
  beliefs

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Forces of Change

• Colonialism - refers to the practice of occupying
  land outside of the main nation-state (colony),
  but under the rule (direct or indirect) of the
  main nation-state.
• Modernization - is the act of making something
  current.  That is, bringing something from the
  past into the present
• Globalization - is a process of increasing
  interconnectedness and it is happening now

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What informs my identity?

• Oceania art as an informant
• Nurture special spirit of originality
• Rooted in our Pacific histories
• Experimental and innovative
• Distinctive Oceania identity
• Autonomous always on the move
• Integration of all mediums of the Arts
• Dance, drama, music, visual and literary arts

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What informs my identity?

• Pacific Dance as an informant
• Like music, story telling, architecture etc
• Dance connects and opens ways for dialogue,
  understanding and appreciation
• Dance evolve through cultural exchanges
• Context, function, process, structures and
  aesthetics

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Rationale for creation of dance

• Great Pacific historical dances
• Drawing from Pacific cultural knowledge and
  motifs,
• Experiences, values and ideas
• Creative processes originality
• Encourage dance as serious and viable career path

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Elements of dance creation

• Each Production is fundamentally structured to
  consist of
• -Original music composition
• - Traditional Pacific motif
• - Supernatural connection to ancestry
• - Youthful and relevant
• - Conflicting social issues
• - Narrative based to communicate themes

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Oceania Dance Theatre serious artistic productions

• Tatau The Art of traditional tattooing
• Pacific tattoo motif - Symbolism
• Empowering totem
• Effeminate man quest for identity
• Ancestral spirits as guardians
• Tattoo Ordeal as reconciliation process
• Psychological, spiritual and cultural
• Pacific connections embedded in oral traditions

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Oceania Dance Theatre serious artistic productions

• Va The Broken Sinnets
• Gender discrimination and inequality
• Aitu o le Aoa traditional spirit of the forest
• Magimagi/afa (coconut sinnet)
• Metaphorical motif
• 3 stories (social issues - themes)
• Teenage pregnancy
• Stigma of divorce and broken families
• Abuse (sexual and psychological)

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What value(s) included in a Pacific identity?

• Universal values
• Supernatural
• Rank and authority
• Kinship relationships
• Concrete and specific contexts
• Restraint behavior
• Christian principles, teachings, doctrines
• Inter alia

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Pacific Identity are in many ways

• Evolving
• Influenced by Colonialism, Modernization,
  Globalization
• Expressed through Arts and Academia
• Symbols and representations
• Tension

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Bibliography

• Crocombe, R. (1980) Cultural policies in the
  Pacific islands. In Pacific Perspectives. 9 (1)
  64 73. (2001) The South Pacific. Suva USP.
• Hauofa, Epeli, 2001. Oceania Centre for Arts and
  Culture..
• Corporate Plan, USP.
• Hauofa, E. (1993a) Our sea of islands. In Eric
  Waddell, Vijay Naidu and E. Hauofa (eds) 1993.
  Towards a New Oceania Rediscovering Our Sea of
  Islands, Suva USP. Pp 126 - 141
• Halapua, W. (2008) Waves of Gods Embrace Sacred
  Perspectives from the Ocean
• Canterbury Press, London. Pp 18
• Thaman, Konai Helu. (2003) Educational Ideas from
  Oceania Institute of Education and UNESCO Chair
  of Teacher Education and Culture, USP Suva Fiji