Rotuman Identity Through Storytelling
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2024-05
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Living Moments with Jay-J
Abstract
This creative scholarly project documents my creative work with Rako Pasefika for over ten years alongside fresh work created for this MA Portfolio research. Rako Pasefika is a company of performers and creatives living in Fiji who have been reconnecting with their homeland of Rotuma through diverse performative media in dance, poetry, spoken word, chant and oratory. The Armea bird, a black and red feathered Honeyeater symbolic and endemic to Rotuma has been the practical, affective, spiritual and symbolic focus of this reconnection. Creative works in music, dance, war cries, poetry and spoken word, summoning and deploying the hanuju (stories) of the Armea are highlighted in, and have illuminated my journey of reconnection. This research work is important because it contributes to understanding the potential of creative critical scholarship to support the interdisciplinary breadth of Pacific Islands Studies and because it demonstrates the critical value of interweaving academic scholarship and performance art as a way of reconnecting back and empowering my Rotuman identity towards diverse goals from environmental conservation and the everyday politics of sustainable living, to Indigenous leadership in place-based management of valued local natures represented by the Armea bird, to the role of performance in creating and maintaining potent relationalities between artists and communities and their shared home(is)lands.
This MA Portfolio has four integral parts: a scholarly essay, a performance booklet and artistic statement, Living Moments with Jay-j, a collection of “Tiny Desk” performance videos capturing the expressive contribution and accomplishment of the creative contribution of this work, and a concluding reflection. The scholarly essay opens with an exploration of the concept of story contextualizing my creative journey with Rako Pasefika, and a discussion of the disconnect, I previously experienced with my Rotuman identity. It then presents archival research and data along with qualitative social science on the Armea bird, Rotuman history and language as a reconstitution, recognition and reconnection through the figure of the Armea. It concludes with a discussion of the integration of contemporary Oceanian and Pasifika critical research methodology frameworks such as the Teu le vā with a Rotuman Performative lens drawing on experiences with my community. I have also incorporated essential communal values and proverbs that are required of me when engaging with my Rotuman communities, chiefs, elders and storytellers. Indigenous methods of documenting these stories orally in performance are key forms of credible history that must be acknowledged and integrated into academic scholarship.
Within each of the components of this cover essay, I have woven intimate letters of gratitude to my Rako Pasefika family, elder and sub-chief, Gagaj Taimanav as well as to the Armea bird. The letters are story bridges, architectures which I hope will strengthen all of the demonstrated relationships and be an important tool for other young Rotuman and Pacific Islander creative scholars who find themselves disconnected as they navigate their paths of reconnection. By documenting my creative journey with Rako, my work with Rotuman elders, my interweavings of performance and critical scholarly work, I hope to better understand who I am as a Rotuman, a performing artist and as an emerging scholar in Pacific Islands Studies. I also hope that this work in its written and performance form will inspire young indigenous artists/ scholars in their own journey of reconnection. Some of the keywords that will constantly appear in this work are:
Armea: the bird of focus and creative inspiration, endemic to Rotuma
Hanuju: stories in the Rotuman language
Reconnection: reconnecting back to my Rotuman identity through performances around the hanuju of the Armea.
Performance: The mediums in which I will perform my work of reconnection through music, chanting, spoken word and dance.
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70 pages
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Rotuma
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