Pictures from the Pavillion

The Pavillion is a dear place to me. This is where, every Christmas, we sing for the governor and his wife. This is required for all people working the government of American Samoa, although same palagi are excused. I love doing it, because I am such a bad singer that when I was a boyscout (no girl scouts exist in Italy) they often asked me to just lip-sing. Now i feel as important as Caruso.
During the festival, every evening different groups from the islands would perform typical dances and singing. The diversity of the show would keep you fascianted and interested for the whole 3 hours, it is just hard to have enough of it!!!PNG permorfers getting ready for the stage. (Yes, PNG women were topless. I loved this respect for cultures that extremely conservative Samoa showed during the festival).
No recorded tapes or CDs for this show. All music and chanting is done for the group on the stage.



The women chests and backs and legs were totally tattooed. Men had no tattoos.
The Papa New Guinea group was actually formed of many different groups, showing the variety that PNG has in its land. The groups were incredibly different between themselves... and in a way, maybe, the less influenced by the outside world. Their dresses hardly consisted of weaded clothing, but mainly of grass skirts and long shells necklaces and feathears, including the precious feathers of the heaven's bird... I loved them, maybe my favorite group.
I think this guy was actually from Australia.... I will check soon...

Kiribas: If you read the book "the sex life of the cannibals", you just love this place unconditionally.

Australia. This was such an interesting number. The guy on the floor pretended to be dead, and the guy on his knees did some kind of ritual and brought back to life his companion... They really looked like they were in a trance...

uhmm, Tahiti? Need to check!!!
Taiwan: this was such a fun number, just for the excitement of the presenter, that keep on saying "yeahhhhh" to the public... I was surprise to see Taiwan present here, but the presenter explained how people from polynesia came from there. Although, customs are incredibly different from the ones weared in the "-nesia" countries, the dancing did recall their style in a way.