Stuff We Like
Stuff We Like
Sept/Oct 2006
THEATER
Malaga – The Journey
The Pacific is not often exposed to dramatizations of its own culture, expressed through its own people, ideas and dance. This changed with the University of the South Pacific’s theatrical musical “Malaga – the Journey,” composed and conducted by Samoan Igelese Ete.
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| [photo: Courtesy Malaga] |
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Malaga is divided into six sections in which the story unfolds, from the creation of Mother Earth by the god Tagaloa, to the building of the vaka (an ocean-going double-hulled canoe), through the challenges of “navigating through modern day terrain,” to celebrating the journey the Pacific’s peoples have taken since the beginning of time.
The main segment of Malaga – the part portraying the journey – has seven pieces of music, including “Agi Mai” (Wind Blows), sung in the traditional nasal sounds of Tokelau, accompanied by the beating of a box instrument leading to a crescendo. In “Vanuan Vatu” (Land of Stone), a poem by Grace Molisa titled “Blackstone Milestone” is layered through, leading to the traditional chant from Pentecost.
Malaga leaves you feeling as if you have indeed been swept up in a journey that has its roots in ancient times, pushed along by the winds of traditional and spiritual rhymes and song and put down on the bright sands of present day, with the future looming just over the horizon, beyond the rising sun.
Ete, an internationally renowned music director, recently appointed a USP lecturer in the Faculty of Arts and Law, and who was choral master for Peter Jackson’s blockbuster “Lord of the Rings – Fellowship of the Rings,” teamed up with Allan Alo, who choreographed the piece; Walter Fraser, who was executive producer, and Ian Gaskell and Larry Thomas who directed.
Initially it was a project created by Ete’s wife, Jakki Leota-Ete, to open New Zealand’s Te Papa Museum in 1998. This edition was part of the Pacific Epistemologies Conference held at USP from July 3-7, which included the critically-acclaimed play Vula by Nina Nawalowalo performed in June during the Sydney Biennial. - Richardo Morris, SUVA
BOOK
Island of Angels, The Growth of the Church on Kosrae. Eldon M. Buck. Honolulu: Watermark Publishing. 2005. Pp. 592.
There are no island groups in the Pacific that have not been touched by the missionary experience. But few have been touched as deeply as Kosrae in the Eastern Caroline Islands. The first Protestant missionaries arrived on the island on August 20, 1852. They had traveled from Hawaii on the brig Caroline. Today, Kosrae remains as deeply religious as ever, a slow-paced island of approximately 8,000 where church and the tides still set the pace for daily life.
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The story of the Protestant Church on Kosrae, which is the story of Kosrae itself from 1852 until today, is told with clarity and compassion by the Rev. Elden M. Buck in Island of Angels. Buck and his late wife, Alice Buck, both played dominant roles in the history of Kosrae from the 1950s onwards. Alice Buck came to the island in 1949 as a teenager, the daughter of a missionary.
Buck’s history is a rich recounting of Kosrae’s important role in the both the establishment of Christianity in the Eastern Carolines and Marshall Islands, as well as the role the church continues to play in the lives of Kosraeans. Kosrae for many years was the center of the Protestant Church in Micronesia. Islanders were trained as pastors at its well-known school. Island of Angels takes a reader from 1852 to 2002. Of particular interest is the fact that the book is in both English and Kosraean. It is a most fitting way to recognize that for many decades now, the future of “the church” in Kosrae has been guided by Kosraeans, not missionaries from far away lands. Eldon Buck’s history is highly recommended. - Floyd K. Takeuchi
