“O le tama’ita’i Samoa, e tumau, e fa’avavau”

Friday, 9 April, and Saturday, 10 April saw the opening of the school’s gates to the community in celebration of its 60th reunion. In preparation, we had managed to form a Samoan group consisting of 17 girls all just as eager to learn more about their culture as they were performing for the school and wider community. With that, we had poured in hours of lunchtime practices and produced two dance items with a personal and underlying significance to Samoan women or a tama’ita’i Samoa.

As always, we definitely felt the nerves going into the performance as we were a much smaller bunch among the other cultural groups. Nonetheless, our determination to visually express the pride we had within our Samoan culture as well as showcasing to the community one of the many beautiful Pasefika backgrounds the school had to offer, took precedence. In hopes of conveying the importance of the role a tama’ita’i Samoa plays within our families and communities, we allowed the graceful motions of our palms to speak the tale of our aganu’u Samoa on our behalf.

Special appreciation to our tutor Unnah Suena for choreographing both items as well as teaching us to appreciate more of our unique culture through her passion for siva Samoa. The proud response and applause from our families as our performance came to an end, spoke volumes of the success of all the hours we had contributed individually, and nothing could have topped the feeling. In saying that:

Ia manuia le atoaga o le onosefulu tausaga !