MOKOREA (Ote'a amui) [excerpt 2] / 2004

Choreography Makau Foster Delcuvellerie
Dance performance Compagnie Tamariki Poerani

« Mokorea » was created by Makau Foster Delcuvellerie for the 2004 Heiva i Tahiti. It is based on a legend from the atoll of Makemo in the Tuamotu archipelago.Long ago, inhabitants would live off fishing and coconuts.
…The man waits for her to reappear and come out of the hole in the reef. Eventually his companions come back from the village and he tells them about the woman and the hole in the reef. They think he‘s gone mad, until one day she comes out of the hole. She is captured by the workers, but the man who first saw her asks them to release her as she looks so sad and frightened. She explains that in her underwater world one of her friends is about to die giving birth to a child. So she gives him the ability to breathe underwater so that he can come help save that woman's friend. Once their mission accomplished, they will both come back to our world.
That woman was a Mokorea, a legendary being who lives in an underwater world.
The hole can still be seen on the islet and is now known under the name of “Mokorea”.

Sources : Marc E. Louvat

Credits

Tamariki Poerani
Choreography Makau Foster Delcuvellerie (Tamariki Poerani company)
Video direction TNTV technical means Tahiti Nui Télévision
Production TNTV
Produced in july 2004
Heiva i Tahiti 2004 was organized by Heiva Nui.

Updating : July 2011

Makau Foster Delcuvellerie spent the first years of her life on the atoll of Hao and was brought up, as customary in those days, by her grand parents. They were very simple folks who lived like their parents, and the parents of their parents before them, to the soothing rhythm of the islands, fishing and foraging. Then she had to go to Tahiti for school and to Hawai'i for a college education.

Whenever you start a conversation with her on that period of her life, she remembers the Paumotu (inhabitants of the Tuamotu islands) whom she says taught her everything and had been living in Hawai'i for the longest time, teaching young Hawaiians the traditions of the South Pacific Islands. Their classes were hard, very demanding for these youngsters who had been brought up according to the “American way of life”. She always seems to get a bit emotional when she talks about these moments. She remembers the pain of the long warm up training sessions when yours body does the talking and tells stories. She didn't learn in the books but from the oral tradition that allowed generations to preserve the knowledge of their ancestors.

« At the age of 16 I was already dancing on stage at the Polynesian Cultural Center in Hawai'i. For years I travelled the world extensively to dance and finally came back to Tahiti to keep on learning from Coco Hotahota, the famous choreographer and director of the “Temaeva” dance company. Then time came for me to start teaching “Ori Tahiti” (Tahitian dancing) and to create my own dance company Tamariki Poerani  ».

Since then the company has created various productions: "Munanui" (1999), "Merehenua" (2001), "Te ariki Tuohea" (2003), "Mokorea" (2004) et "Mono'i" (2009).
Choreographies by Makau Foster Delcuvellerie have been recreated by different “Ori Tahiti” dance companies in Japan, Mexico and the USA.

Source : The company Tamariki Poerani 's website

More information

tamarikipoerani.com