Sau Folu by RAKO - Pacific Dance New Zealand Festival 2023

The last three years the whole world went into lockdown and like many artists all around the world, Rako saw email after email come into their inbox of tours, bookings and projects cancelled. Amid the darkness and chaos of this time, our Rako family turned to our oceans, land, and sky. When usually we would be travelling the world, this time enabled us to return to our island home of Rotuma to return to the land and to immerse ourselves in deep culture. Out of this time of immersion and reconnection back to land, we developed three stories. Three stories are in cultivation and intended to become three major works.

These three stories tell the journey of three Rotuman women of royal blood while they never ascended to power, they are embodiments of our women kings, warrior women that were significant in our ancient Rotuman stories. For it is through the most daunting, painful, emotional times, that the spirit of our Warrior Woman emerges from deep within. It is her spirit that gives our Rotuman women strength, courage, and fierce resilience. A quiet power that comes in many different forms, as a fierce defender, a warrior woman, a mamahanua, mother of the earth, as a daughter in all her purity and mana connected to the land taking on the form of birds or our ocean totems to guide our people. But in all forms, it acknowledges the essential role of women as change makers who embody the watchful eye of the land, the guardian, the healer, and the initiator of justice.