Nazreen Melissa Luke's Page

Mauri Naz and lovely to hear from you.

Terimoa has been with us at work all day and I haven't even had a chance to talk with her yet as we have been so busy, but will follow up soon with your email.

I'm sorry I haven't heard of the Pacifika Festival in NZ but can image it is a festival celebrating all the different cultures of Pacific communities now residiing in NZ. The first step is to see if they have a website as all the contact details for the organisation will be there. Ken and I have been asked to be invovled in a similar festival here in Queensland but this one is focusing on all the issues of the Pacific with Global Warming and enviromental issues. They asked us if we had a Banaban dancing group here in Australia who could perform at the function. We had met one of the organisers who was involved in one of the Pacific conferences Ken and I attended in Brisbane, and she ended up publishing one of our papers in a book she was working on... so that is how she knew us. I think they are going to get us to participate in some other way with a presentation etc. not sure what we will put together yet, but a good opportunity to promote the Banaban cause!

Unfortunately there is only Ken who is the dancer amongst the mob living here and it takes a lot to persuade him to dance in public now. For you there in NZ the first step is to try and put together a local Banaban dancing group as they won't have the money to usually bring in overseas dancers. One tip is that I suggest the group there in NZ tries to keep as traditional as possible with the costumes and dancing. Te I-Matang really value seeing the REAL cultural performances! So try an avoid all the usual te I-Matang type clothing and decorations... We have seen Maori groups preforming here in Australia and they are always beautifully dressed in tradtiional costumes.

Also another problem you wil have is that because Banabans are only a minority group the organisers probably have never heard of the Banabans and will have a tendancy to put you into the Fiji or Kiribati groupings. You will have to explain why the Banabans have played a major role in NZ history. Go to the article I wrote in Ken's debate in the FORUM as it has all the facts and figures and reason why NZ (like Aust) need to RECOGNISE the Banabans and the crucial role they played in NZ farming history.

All you need is to try and get the organises to support you. It always helps if you have some video footage of your dancing group you can put on a CD or even upload a small snippet on YOU TUBE you can then just then send them a link on email. It's amazing how easy it is to make contact online with these type of groups and promote your local Banaban cultural group.

Hope this gives you some ideas to get started... and please let me know if there is anything else we can help you with from this end.

Regards Stacey