Tonight I went with my beloved to watch '1918' a dance theatre production by Le Moana dance and storytelling group on a one night show showing at the Q Theatre on Queen Street in the city. I'd heard about it on Facebook and decided to watch their rendition of this devastating story as a part of Samoan history.It's one of the last shows with only 3 more to go for this year and it first was in Mangere Arts centre in 2015 of which I missed (hadn't heard about it) and it's been to USA, Samoa and has been shown in different centres with many positive reviews.
For me, going to watch it is a part of the research that I'm doing both as it will feature in my Doctoral thesis but also in that I'll be releasing a book in commemoration of this event in having lost my great grandfather during this time.
For the actual production, it was interesting in the dance routines but disappointing in the storytelling. Considering that it was a very traumatic story in that Samoa lost about a quarter of its population at this time, the storytelling of the production was very light on the information that lead up to the devasting event.
After the show, there were many comments but it was the last comment of the last commentator who spoke about the elephant in the room in being that it was the New Zealand administrator at the time who in fact allowed sick people to go to Samoa which brought about genocide of a people that resulted in Samoa being the first Pacific nation to become independent and that theatre can be a vehicle to make political statements.
It's also the reason for why our next book to be released will be in December in commemoration of this traumatic event and memory of many of our ancestors who lost their lives through no fault of their own. Lest we forget...
No comments:
Post a Comment