The Pacific Muse

Choreographer Tepaeru-Ariki Lulu French Performed at Tempo Dance Festival 10th & 11th October 2013 Performers Dasha Tarasova, Karin Amituanai, Ashley Hunt Fidow Videographer Tempo Dance Festival Music Extracted recordings- Drums Across the Lagoon "Mana"- Robyn Loau/Anthony Copping Last Voices from Heaven:Siva Pacifica, "Ei Raro i te tumu nu"- The Great Music of The Cook Islands,"Otea Tavevo" & "Te to'a e" - L'Apelle Te Tiaoro (Grand Prix Du Haiva I Tahiti 1997), "Aitutaki/Pukapuka Beat Remix"- Drum beats of the Pacific vol.3,"'Akameitaki ia Iehova"- Heimana Studios I wanted to create a dance piece which incorporated different modes of Cook Islands dance to create an overall body of work which explores and challenges Western-colonial notions and representations of Pacific bodies. Particularly, the stereotypes and images of the 'Dusky Maiden' and the ideas surrounding a highly exoticised Pacific 'feminine mystique'. Emphasis are placed on the traditional and contemporary dance forms and techniques of the tamure also known as the ura, from the different islands of the Cook Islands. The choreography is structured through the natural elements; Air, Water, Earth & Fire; re-examining the stereotypical ideas and structures from our colonial past; and importantly how, through their perpetuation, these ideas reveal the workings or power play between or in active/passive, subject/object, coloniser/colonised dyad. Air & Water: Cloud breakers, History Revisited and Voyages made. The clashing of cultures with the arrivals of the Victorianism of European settlers/visitors and missionaries with their repressive ideals and values illustrated in the 'caging of our sex and sexuality'. The literal and metaphorical meaning which directly connects to the physical encasing of the crinolines; but also the stereotypical motifs and narratives which have 'bound' women of colour as titillating objects for white consumption. Earth & Fire: Grounding and Security. Breaking through the romantic representations of Pacific women by discarding the 'caging'. Pacific women are 'unbounded', and retake ownership of their bodies. Therefore reinterpreting and move beyond the stereotypes which pigeon-hole us as one-dimensional.