in January 2020, I was invited back with the medical team for a second creativity workshop for family caregivers It was another heart opening, welcoming encounter with a wonderful new group of family caregivers....sharing poems, skits and dances about the who they are and the challenge and courage it takes to care for others. And our team was so welcomed and cared for!
and THANKS especially all the students who wrote, moved, danced, shared and connected... faraway is close thank you fafetai tele lava to be continued...
0 Comments
 la is sun sami is ocean langi is sky Manuia is morning timu is rain one morning, the rain stopped, the sky cleared and the sun came out over the ocean.  What to say about Reggie Meredith ....Siapo artist (ancestral Samoan bark cloth art), performer, dancer, singer, fine arts teacher, visual artist... her bio is too short to encompass the breadth of who she is, but it's a start: Reggie Meredith is a Professor of Arts, at American Samoa Community College and also a fourth generation Siapo maker. She has traveled the globe promoting the art of Siapo and has been a guiding force to keep the art alive. She lives in Tutuila, Amerika Samoa. More about Siapo here For inquiries about her work, please email her at ra.meredith5@gmail.com Connecting with her is one of the truest gifts of my time in Amerika Samoa. SIAPOS by Reggie Meredith It's fitting I spend my last day in Amerika Samoa with her, in her studio, listening, sharing, collaborating on helping her develop a performance she is creating on embodying siapo... What to say about deep rivers... What to say about the deep rivers of art and performance, story and song that run in her.. best to show you her pounding the bark of the u'a, the paper mulberry tree
best to share a short audio of her performance text (I tell her that I am dreaming of her performing this as a longer solo play - along with The Good Manners of Colonized Subjects as part of a women's solo festival I want to curate in the future: the voices of indigenous women of art, fear, colonization liberation celebration, strength The dream is to do it next year,,, I see it, she says, and I too see it) best to share a poem about her.... ... and the Sunday I also spent with her and her husband Su'a, a master tattoo artist and their friends. we shared toana'i the Sunday afternoon lunch.  That day, Reggie performed excerpts of another short performance she had done inspired by the origins of tattoo, the first sight of the Samoans, That day, I began to hear the story of so many origins. All this inspired the poem....  tattoo instruments of Su'a   from Siapo, Bark Cloth Art of Samoa, an oral history by Mary J Pritchard, Reggie's aunt and teacher. Reggie learned siapo from Mary and her sister Marilyn. and finally, best to share an interview with Reggie... about connections, creativity and what matters to her now, here.... (in the interview, we reference how we met last year, when I shared excerpts from The Good Manners at American Samoa Community College Reggie wrote a moving response to seeing it)  this is a beautiful record of my last day, this time, this trip, in Amerika Samoa. in my voice, I hear the blessings of faraway being close, of following what calls, of connections of heart and art, in time and out of time, and how much it matters to cultivate and celebrate the story only you can tell, how at peace I am when I spend time with kindred spirits who feel the fullness of their story and live it, sing it, dance it.... this, to me, is revolution, one voice one dance at a time together we create a network of resonance and healing like that así aisa faafetai tele lava, thank you very much to Amerika samoa. I am grateful. I am grateful.  Fatu Siapo by Reggie Meredith Reggie's art class and Kuki's speech class and special guest Tisa.... everyime I perform, mera nam, my name, it feels different. I heard my voice echo today in a different way - - later One by one, everyone came up and spoke the story of their names... short prose and deep journeys inwards... A COLLECTIVE NAMING SONG from my great great grandmother who loved the smell of lily it didn't suit me so I changed it trying to live up to water of life can be miserable I might as well live with it and enjoy never stop never scared of anything as in archangel I am not the same runs deep in my family like the roots of the coconut tree binding   A bit surreal to hear voices saying “colonization” just as the car drops me off on the lawn outside classroom A-1 of Pacific Horizons School. It’s afternoon, The rain has stopped for a spell. In the green humid air, voices fade in and out. As I enter the classroom, I see Mary Bordonaro, teacher of the 7th grade creative writing class and her students discussing my work, with images and poems from my website projected onto a screen. …everyone should feel so welcomed!!! . A lovely afternoon of laughter, sharing and writing, drawing on Mahmoud Darwish’s “I come from there” poem and my “mera nam” choreopoem from the Good Manners which I performed for them. Many of the students shared hand written pages as I left - folded and placed into my palm...I treasure them. I was also really blown away by the beautiful reception and the depth and nuance of the writing,,,selections below.   In response to the opening of The Good Manners….they wrote The Hand movements moved through the wind telling me a story, a vision through the language of Dance I tasted the whiskey that your Uncle drank. I saw the Land of India. Becoming free. I smelled the cold dry musky wood pine air. And in the church I smelled the smoky incense of the high priest. I was amazed, mesmerized… I smelled a scent of….unexplainable feelings. Never have I ever… As I dip my feet in water, I smell the scent of water the feeling of cool water the feeling of being calm refreshed  I come from there the there that is dry the there that is long and flat the there that has roaring red mountains And that there? is there place I would like to be the place of history at its finest or at its worst the place littered with walk ways and heat the place I was not born but the place I would rather be ---------------- I come from a place with wonderful trees with a small little park and birds that will sing it’s a place full of love where your heart can’t be sealed I come from a place known as ‘Fairfield’ It’s filled with adults and filled with kids I love it because “home is where the heart is.” ---------------- I come from there. I was born unlike any other child. But my birth mother gave birth to me there. A place of disbelief, false, a place where I was left to die. A place where I found a new home in the arms of my newfound mother, she said ‘you come from somewhere special.’ ---------------- I come from there a beautiful country called China there are 56 nationalities there and I’m one of them over there it’s noisy in the morning over there, it’s noisy at night I mean I don’t like quiet places I love my country for ever ---------------- I come from there and I get flashbacks flashbacks to my childhood it was dark and gloomy yet it was the happiest time of my life ---------------- I come from there where the horses run and the dogs bark, where the leaves fall and the ice melts. I come from there where the sun shines and the flowers bloom. ---------------- I come from there tall buildings and nice patterns wooden and stone houses clean glass and a farm plants and animals the taste of sweetness and a relaxing feeling I come from there a place with my family ---------------- I come from there, a place I call home, where peace is what I see, where is love is what I feel, I come from Fiji I come from there, a small country over the ocean where beauty is in our name, where battle cry is in our blood and humans we once used to eat. I come from there an island called Fiji. ---------------- I come from China, a place where flowers grow, and happiness everywhere with people spreading joy ---------------- I come from there An island. That is warm. Humid and bright. With hundreds of birds that fly across the salty bay. Where the beaches have many different colored sand. Where the animals roam freely around the green, rainy forest. I come from there. Where you can even smell the rain. I come from there. Where at night the wind is clean fresh and cold. Looking up with thousands and more stars you can count. And where the bats fly around the night sky. And yes, I come from there. Thank you, Shebana, for inspiring me to write, listen and learn American Samoa, January 21, 2020      Today in ASCC, we explored land and feeling, textures of living on island, traces of colonization The students shared skits in sound, song, story, dance, feeling. Thanks to the students for such open hearted sharing and Kuki for inviting me to facilitate the creativity writing sessions for the classes...  on the island we smell coconut oil freshly baked palo sami from the umu the breadfruit roasted and pungent smells of the starkist company… we see the high tide waves from the ocean where the fautasi races start every year in the month April  thinking of colonization in samoa we smell the smoke from the naval ships coming into the bay we taste the tears of our ancestors flowing in the rivers those fighting to protect and keep our land oil spilled and materials burned gunpowder blood dirt money queen liliuokalani captured by the American government the guards walking by… taste bitterness… smell the salty ocean…    Every morning I wake to the blue sky it gives me courage to move on and then I hear my mother’s voice get your ass ready for school and then eating grandma’s pancakes which she makes every morning I get ready, thinking oh my god I’m going to be late for class and then the bus passes by because I was smoking.    Everyone who comes to Pago Pago sooner or later (more likely sooner) hears about Tisa and Tisa’s Barefoot Bar. She's a formidable talent and presence. Everyone hears about the umu they have at Tisa's on Wednesdays. where meats and vegetables and fruits are slow cooked in hot stones covered with banana leaves, in the traditional way,  CandyMann, her partner, is originally from New Zealand. He came in his 20s to Samoa, to Sava'ii, to work on roads and drainage. For an umu that is opened at around 7pm, he starts at around 6 am, he says making the fire to make the stones hot...and then later, putting all the meats and veggies and fruits. everything cooks sloooowly... Barefoot, Tisa said to someone at dinner who asked about the name of the bar, because of that feeling of going barefoot as a child. I believe she’s in her seventh decade She grew up in the village where the bar is. You don’t read that much about the ancient history of Samoa, Tisa says, because it’s still only spoken. At funerals she says when the talking chiefs (who are the ones who talk for the paramount chiefs) speak about their relationship to the deceased, then you really hear the whole history again, all the relationships from time immemorial. One morning we share a late breakfast Beside the sea, on a day of rain and wind, I perform the opening of The good manners,,,, the part about dance being the first language, mera nam kya hai, what’s my name… Performance is calling to her, she says, a way to manifest embody all her stories and especially her passion for the environment. She speaks with pride of her warrior passion to keep the seas free of poachers, of the trouble it has caused, of her commitment to conserving the natural environment, Everyone was going one way, she said pointing towards the sea and indicating civilization, things of the modern world, "and I was going another way." The Samoan spoken before the missionaries was peremptory, she said, full of commands. But with the missionaries, it softened. she speaks the difference. The old language was soul talk. Now that’s a title I say, Samoan Soul Talk. Before I left, I asked her for a few words about this place in her life where she is now and she said: (the sounds you hear in the background are the wind, the rain and the sea...)   On our last visit to Samoa in 2019, I remember we visited a tree with thousands of bats hanging upside down. This time, CandyMann tells a story about bats and the tsunami of 2009. He says there was a special small kind of cave bat and for some reason, before the wave hit, they flew in droves – in thousands - to underwater caves on the north side of the island. Seeking safety. But then the wave hit and not a trace of them has been seen since. Something about the image of them, the underground caves, the force of water. Maybe because here and there, I keep hearing stories that build on the tsunami, the scale of the loss of those bats feels operatic almost. January is cyclone season.   Nick King in Poloa
|
in Samoa
dispatches by SUPPORT THE WORK If you appreciate my work, if you find comfort, curiosity and connection in this project, or if you just appreciate the Faraway is Close workshops /cross cultural encounters and my performances, consider making a small monthly or one-time contribution Make a one time donation
ArchivesCONTACT
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed