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MASSEY is published by Massey University, Private Bag 11-222, Palmerston North, New Zealand

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Akekeia!

Traditional Dance in Kiribati
Tony and Joan Whincup

It is unusual for a review book to arrive wrapped in tissue paper. It’s odder still when you feel like reverentially rewrapping it between readings. Akekeia! Traditional Dance in Kiribati is an exquisite artefact: a seamless – and bilingual – mix of sociology, anthropology and fine art. You can see why the judges of the 2002 Montana Book Awards described it as “simply beautiful… a painstakingly constructed work of art in itself”, and awarded it the prize in the illustrative section.

In a way the book is almost too perfect, too crafted. There is little sense of the labour that has gone into it away from the studio: the wading ashore through coral to outlying islands; the photographer’s battle with condensation, salt, sand and with the heat that congealed film on to camera sprockets. Nor is there much sense of the 20 years-plus acquaintance with Kiribati that gave authors Tony and Joan Whincup their privileged ‘in’.

Kiribati is a nation of 33 coral atolls scattered about the equator, inhabited by only about 90,000 people. Its economy is based on foreign aid, copra, fish and a dash of tourism.

Tony and Joan went to Kiribati in the mid-70s when it was still a British dependency, Tony’s work as a teacher was financed by British foreign aid. “I went there to teach 6th and 7th formers painting and photography, and to do photographic work for the Government, documenting skills and traditions as well as work for posters and postcards,” he explains. Joan also taught.

They were there on July 12, 1979, when Kiribati became independent, and left for New Zealand in 1984. Their eight years in Kiribati had passed quickly. “It’s a wonderful place if you have something to do,” says Tony. The Whincups had plenty. While there, they authored three books about Kiribati and contributed to a number of others.

It was 13 years on from their settlement in Wellington that a return visit to Kiribati rekindled their interest in dance and prompted the idea for the book. Massey University gave Tony – who in the meantime had gained a MA in anthropology – the time for the research project, Kodak sponsored the film, and, in a philanthropic gesture, Kiribati local Susan Barrie paid for the book’s production.

A flick through the photographs in Akekeia! shows something close to the Gauguin-ideal of a Pacific idyll: coconut palms, coral, aquamarine seas, even a dusky maiden or two. The realities of day-to-day life are different. This is a society of severe resource constraint. Little grows on the dry coral soil and only the fruit of a few hardy plants can be harvested. Most of the land that can be, is cultivated. With the harvest of the sea, a comfortable subsistence is realised, but no more.

Kiribati society has coped with scarcity by becoming conservative. People fulfil their allotted, often hereditary, roles and take pride in the associated sense of identity. Were an islander of several centuries ago to arrive in the Kiribati of today, he or she would be familiar with the way of life, quite unlike, says Tony, say transplanting a colonial American to Times Square.

It is a society with little in the way of painting or carving. In place of these, dance has become the receptacle for oral history, music, poetry, and movement. Dance relates the myths of creation and immigration, and the great battles of Kiribati history, some centuries old, others dating back to World War II, when the islands were fiercely contested by the Allies and the Japanese. Dance, too, is the one opportunity to stand out in a society that discourages conspicuous displays of individual achievement. It gives licence to laugh, shout or burst into tears.

‘Akekeia!’ Traditional Dance in Kiribati, runs excerpts of the transcripts of interviews of dance teachers, performers, costume makers and composers, together with a stunning array of photographs, black-and-white and colour. The photographs are Tony’s; the interviews Joan’s.

Had things changed since Tony and Joan left Kiribati in 1984? Strangely enough, the dance costume had reverted to more traditional forms and materials. (A convenient substitute for a black dyed grass skirt perfumed above a fire is made using strips of video tape and a splash of Impulse.) On the other hand, on the main island of Tarawa, Tony found no trace of the skills he had once documented that are needed to make a particular kind of ball for the game ‘te oreano’. “A lethal thing. I am not surprised they gave up making it,” he says. The Catholic Mass is knowingly incorporating dance into its celebration: an odd spiritual amalgam, for as well as once having been viewed as lascivious, Kiribati dance has strong links with sorcery.

‘Akekeia!’ Traditional Dancing in Kiribati was launched in Kiribati in 2001 on the anniversary of Independence Day. “Presenting the book to President Tito was a special moment, a symbolic return of the knowledge that we had been entrusted with,” says Tony.

The book is dedicated to Nei Tieningare, Susan Barrie’s daughter, who died at age three – killed by a falling coconut, a common cause of death in Kiribati. “But she was in bud… still learning, but how she loved to dance. Whenever we couldn’t find her we would look to where dance practice was happening, and sure enough that was where she was,” reads the dedication.

Joan is an early childhood teacher at the Correspondence School. Tony is now head of Photography in the School of Fine Art. Julia Parkinson, the book’s designer, is a former Massey lecturer.