VOU Dance To Perform Award-Winning Work
VOU Dance Group will be performing its international-award winning shows at the Border Crossings Origins Festival in London this week.
The festival is a two-week programme of art, spectacle and discussion celebrating the world’s indigenous cultures.
The team will be performing their awarding-winning work themed Are We Stronger than Winston? which received the prestigious Sustainable Practice Award 2016 at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in the UK.
They will stage the performance tomorrow and on Saturday. VOU Dance Fiji Director, Sachiko Soro said: “It is a heartfelt cry of Fijian stories and experiences from the devastating cyclone that had a traumatising impact on many parts of Fiji last year.”
The production looks at the human face of climate change and the hardship that individual families continue to endure “if we do not take action about climate change”. The work was choreographed by Fijian choreographer, Navi Fong, who is passionate about artists being in an important position to be able to effectively communicate about these pressing issues such as climate change to the public.
“We are really thrilled that our hard work has paid off and we get to showcase our Fijian contemporary dance work again to a London audience,” Ms Soro said.
The tour includes going to Austria where they will perform their contemporary Fijian repertoire with other artists from around the world.
“In places like Europe, they really value the arts and treat the performers as professionals as in any other profession.
“The arts and dance can be a very profitable and fulfilling career path for young Fijian artists. “We need to support our children who want to pursue dance as a career because they can become important ambassadors for this country,” said Ms Soro.
Next week another set of VOU dancers head to Shanghai, China and will be there for two months. Ms Soro also called on dancers who wanted to join to sign up for audition.