Matari'i - Journey to Taputapuatea

URA TABU Pacific Dance has been invited to represent Samoa from Aotearoa in Cultural Immersion Tahiti 2025 which is a rare opportunity to reconnect with ancestral homelands, deepen Pacific performance practice, and celebrate unity across Polynesia.

This journey takes us to Taputapuātea, the sacred cradle of Polynesian civilization, where we will join artists from Hawaiʻi, Tonga, Rarotonga, Rapa Nui, Tahiti, Samoa, and Aotearoa. Together, we will take part in sacred ceremony, workshops, performances, storytelling, and cultural exchanges curated by Tahitian cultural leader Moenau Virau, with whom we share a long-standing relationship.

Our team of dancers will represent the soul of Samoa through performance and knowledge exchange. This experience will enrich our creative practice, strengthen Indigenous ties, and allow us to bring home ancestral knowledge to share with our communities in Aotearoa.

We are seeking support to help cover travel and touring costs, ensuring that this once-in-a-lifetime cultural voyage can take place. Your contribution will directly invest in the preservation and evolution of Pacific performance practices and the strengthening of Indigenous relationships across Te Moana nui a Kiwa.

Ura Tabu is a leading female Pacific dance collective founded in 2008 in Tāmaki Makaurau, Aotearoa. Our mission stems from a collective response to reignite the sacredness of Pacific dances as a way to re-establish interconnectedness, collective well-being, and unity. We cultivate bold creativity, fine performance art, and female empowerment—guided by the principle “E sui faiga ae tumau faavae” (methods may change but the foundations remain).

Our creative practice is holistic, cross-cultural, and collaborative, informed by our diverse Pacific roots, mixed bloodlines, and Indigenous value systems. We treat dance as a sacred gift (tapu) of immeasurable value—an act of courage, healing, and resilience that connects communities across Te Moana nui a Kiwa and beyond.

The Ura Tabu Collective – Cultural Immersion Tahiti 2025 Delegation

Our team for this sacred journey reflects both our long-standing leaders and the next generation of Pacific dance practitioners:

• Charlene Tedrow – Founding member and Creative director, known for her depth of cultural knowledge and artistic innovation.
• Veronic Tulafasa – Core member, choreographer and cultural advisor, specialising in oratory and Samoan frameworks that shape our practice. Ina is a graduate of PIPA and a tutor for Polyfest.
• Lahaina Toleafoa – Core member and facilitator. Through dance Lahaina encourages herself and other women to embrace cultural identity, build confidence, and foster a deep sense of belonging. 
• Kolopa Simei-Barton – Lopa is a core member and theatre expert who uses dance to help diasporic Pacific women ground themselves in culture. With over a decade in Pacific dance and 15 years in theatre, she empowers women to embrace their roots and reconnect with their motherland.
• Teuila Huges - Teuila Hughes is a dance artist, teacher, and researcher with ancestral ties to Vaimoso and Manono, Samoa. She is passionate about revitalising Indigenous wisdom through embodied and creative practices that nurture spaces for healing, community-building, and cultural continuity. She is currently pursuing her doctoral studies at the University of Auckland, with her research centred on Siva Samoa embodied knowledge.

This intergenerational team embodies Ura Tabu’s mission: to honour our roots while evolving in contemporary contexts, to share sacred dances as acts of cultural leadership, and to create necessary, meaningful experiences that uplift our people.

Through Cultural Immersion Tahiti 2025, our team will carry the soul of Samoa from Aotearoa into the spiritual homeland of Polynesia, returning strengthened and ready to enrich the Pacific arts landscape at home.

We are fundraising to help cover the essential costs of our Cultural Immersion Tahiti 2025 journey. Every contribution directly supports our collective in representing Samoa from Aotearoa at this sacred gathering.

Your donations will go towards:

• Accommodation – staying on Moʻorea, Raʻiatea and Tahiti during the immersion.
• Transportation – inter-island travel and ground transfers for our team.
• Food – daily meals to sustain our dancers, orator, and attire specialist throughout the trip.

By contributing, you are helping us meet the basic costs of this once-in-a-lifetime cultural exchange, ensuring we can focus on carrying our stories, dances, and voices with strength and integrity.

We are raising funds to support six URA TABU practitioners in a transformative cultural immersion across Raʻiatea, Tahiti, and Moʻorea during Matariʻi i niʻa—a sacred time that marks the rise of the Pleiades and the beginning of the season of abundance in Tahiti.

This project is about more than travel. It is about deepening ancestral reconnection, strengthening Pacific performance practices, and fostering cross-cultural exchange. By returning to Taputapuātea, the spiritual cradle of Polynesian civilization, we will stand on ancestral ground where knowledge, ceremony, and navigation once flowed across the Pacific. This journey will empower us as Indigenous artists to carry forward living traditions, expand our creative practice, and bring enriched knowledge back to nourish our communities in Aotearoa.

We are honoured to have been invited as the only collective representing Samoa from Aotearoa, joining artists from Hawaiʻi, Tonga, Rarotonga, Rapa Nui, Tahiti, and Aotearoa. Our carefully selected team includes four dancers, one orator, and one traditional attire specialist, ensuring that we can represent Samoa with integrity through movement, storytelling, and material culture.

This malaga (voyage) has been carefully curated by Tahitian cultural and language expert Moenau Virau, a leader with whom we have a long-standing relationship. Moenau has published Tahitian language resources that have shaped our own teaching and practice of Tahitian dance since our earliest days, and our collaboration with her is built on deep respect and reciprocity.

Activities & Experiences

As part of the immersion, our team will:

• Take part in a sacred ceremony at Taputapuātea marae.
• Join Himeme (hymn) workshops and cultural exchanges.
• Network with the A Nui Taputapuātea Association.
• Perform at the Hura Tapairu Manihini dance event.
• Engage in immersion with Tahei Association.
• Participate in stargazing and storytelling nights.
• Visit sacred sites and collaborate with leading cultural practitioners.

This journey is more than a performance trip — it’s about reconnecting with our ancestral homelands, learning from Indigenous leaders, and bringing that knowledge back home to share. By supporting us, you’re helping keep Pacific culture strong and alive for future generations.

For Auckland and Aotearoa, the impact will be huge. We’ll return with fresh knowledge to share through workshops, performances, and community events, enriching the Pacific arts scene with ancestral depth and authenticity. Our youth will grow into future leaders, our women will continue to be empowered through dance, and our communities will benefit from spaces that nurture wellbeing, belonging, and cultural pride.

Most importantly, this trip strengthens Indigenous connections across the Pacific — weaving ties between Samoa, Tahiti, Hawaiʻi, Tonga, Rarotonga, and Rapa Nui. Your support makes it possible for us to stand together, carry our stories with integrity, and bring this abundance back to our people.