An online night of stories and omens with the Pasifika Storytellers Collective part of Melbourne fringe 2020.
About this Event
Omens, Portents and messages from the other side. Stories of dreams, ancestral spirit visitors and the messages we receive daily as we walk through life. They are often warnings or telling of family events or suffering. A portent of death or of future birth. A warning of impending pain or a harbinger of future happiness.
As Indigenous and First Nations people we walk through life tuned into the spirit plane as well as the living plane. We weave mana and meaning into the things we create and understand that the spirituality of things is integral to its existence in the material world.
This event is hosted by the Pasifika Storytellers Collective in collaboration with Colectiva Abya Yala a as part of a shared series of events “Around the fire”. An opportunity for the two collectives (both housed at Blakademy) to meet 'around a fire', to share and engage in embodied knowledge and poetics that have migrated and traveled through time and territories of the South Pacific.
Join both Collectives for an online evening of sharing poetry, performance and woven words over zoom.
Register here for link.
PASIFIKA STORYTELLERS COLLECTIVE ARTISTS
Veisinia Tonga
Veisinia is a Tongan Kakala artist and Storyteller living in Narrm. With a background inJournalism and Floristry. Her art practice with Kakala (plant material) uses the traditional floristry practices of Tonga/Pacifika. As a writer, Veisinia has been published in various publications in New Zealand. Currently working on screenplays and a play with development funding. Veisinia sees a need for a vehicle to help elevate Pasifika narratives and to empower the Pasifika community to tell their own stories. She is working to facilitate the transfer of stories from elders (knowledge keepers) to the younger generation in order to continue the oral storytelling traditions of our Pasifika cultures, keenly aware of her role as a future knowledge keeper, she takes this responsibility seriously and is actively seeking knowledge and understanding by sitting at the feet of her cultural elders. Co-founder of Pasifika Storytellers Collective and Tongan Cultural group, Manava.
Mele-Ane Havea
Mele-Ane is a first generation Tongan Dutch Australian, who lives, works and creates on the land of the Kulin Nations. She is passionate about the intersection of First Nations wisdom, purpose led business and believes in the immense power of storytelling for change.
Her storytelling is an exploration of the many questions that arise when trying to live and love fully in the space between.
Grace Vanilau
Grace Vanilau is a Naarm based Inter-disciplinary artist and Community Cultural Development practitioner of Samoan descent. She morphs between multiple disciplines; singing, spoken word/oratory, weaving, writing and sometimes dancer - all while balancing motherhood. Born and bred in Otautahi she moved to Melbourne in 1996. She is currently working with Te Pasifika Redevelopment Team at the Melbourne Museums as a Cultural Consultant.
Seini F. Taumoepeau
Seini F. Taumoepeau, a.k.a SistaNative is a veteran professional of Oceanic Arts, Media & Cultural sectors in Australia - Songwoman & Orator.
The Founder of OceaniaX & LELEI Wellness, Seini is an Award winning Performer, International Presenter & Educator and she continues to dedicate her life to empower all peoples, with a specific First Nations focus on the Oceanic region towards Self-Determination.
Marita Davies
Marita Davies is an Australian/I-Kiribati writer. A storyteller at heart, Marita explores Pacific issues including women, health, domestic violence and climate change. She is passionate about recreating the animated and insightful oral storytelling of Pacific Islanders in various forms. Marita is a children’s book author and has written for frankie, The Guardian, The Big Issue and Dumbo Feather.
Lay the Mystic
Lay the Mystic is a lyrical poet, musician and dedicated cubby-fort maker based in Narrm.
His current works are centred around intimacy, all things close being both a lens to understand societal or cultural issues, and a landscape to enact change.
Natalia Mann
Natalia Mann is a Samoan harpist, composer and resonance artist for whom music is a mode of discovery, a language which connects us with the intelligence of our universe. Mann's art tests our perceived boundaries of reality, connecting people with their own subtle consciousness to experience heightened awareness of their environments. Her projects are social, interactive and experimental.
Jessica Taruna Paraha
Jessica Taruna Paraha is a multi-disciplinary artist who likes to look at her practice as a loving act of translation. She is a Ngati Hine Māori woman living on Cadigal land, and her translations come from her whakapapa, through recalling them she pays tribute to her tīpuna and the many lands she inhabits.
She is a member of the Pasifika Storytellers collective, is a current recipient of the Emerging Writers Festival’s at home residency program and currently works as a lead artist at the Youth Arts organisation Outloud, delivering social impact arts projects to young people in Western Sydney.
María José Herrera
Maria Jose Herrera is a Chilean migrant woman based in Naarm (Melbourne). Reader, writer and feminist activist. Currently growing roots in her own garden, evolving seasonally and flowering in Autumn. Her poetry is the result of a long journey of understanding the meaning of life and her own inner world in connection with nature.
Alejandra Marín Oyarce
Chilean Actress and Theatre Director. She has worked in Performing Arts for more than 10 years. In October 2017, she moved to Melbourne, Australia where she has been part of the Company The Bridge - Teatro Latino. She participated at the MELBOURNEFRINGEFESTIVAL2018withtheplay‘Beasts’a tLaMamaTheatre.
During the last two years she has also been doing Drama and Movement Workshops and has been actively participating in the Colectiva Abya Yala and Latinx Feminists Melbourne.
This event has been proudly supported by Moreland City Council through the 2020 Flourish: Arts Recovery Grant program. AROUND THE FIRE
