The Pacific Arts Alliance

Live Performance by artist Shigeyuki Kihara
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
1000 Fifth Avenue, New York
October 19, 2008, 3pm

You are invited to my solo performance of 'Taualuga- The Last Dance' held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Reviews:

'The intensity, beauty, and emotional power of this work is significant.'
Dr Virginia Lee Webb, Curator, The Metropolitan Museum of Art , NYC 

Dressed in a dark, 19th-century, full-skirted dress with tight bodice, she appears as a strikingly beautiful and graceful figure, lit by a single beam of light from a low angle so that her shadow fills most of the frame of the DVD recording that is projected continuously for the remainder of the run of the show.

In a graceful series of arm and wrist movements, Kihara's dance is "inspired by the role of a 'taupou' (ceremonial village lady)" and based on a "journey through the underworld where she visits the 'future', which is hidden in the past".

Kihara belongs to a New Zealand performance group called the Pasifika Divas and makes photographic works that critique Western stereotypes of "exotic" Pacific island maidens. Does it make a difference to your looking to know that Kihara is a transgendered person? Suddenly, the ground shifts beneath your feet as "the body that was not hers" appears as the wonderful construction of her art. Restraint was never more meaningful.'

(Exhibition review of 'The bodies that were not ours' group exhibition, Linden St Kilda Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne, Australia 2006)
The Age, Melbourne

The 'Taualuga; the last dance' solo performance by artist Shigeyuki Kihara has been previously performed in venues including:
4^th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art, Brisbane, Australia
Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, New Plymouth, New Zealand
Haus der Kulteren Der Welt, Berlin
Musee du Quai Branly, Paris

Sunday at the Met-Taualuga: The Last Dance

October 19, 2008
The Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium
Shigeyuki Kihara, visual and performance artist
Free with Museum admission

Samoan-born artist Shigeyuki Kihara performs 'Taualuga: The Last Dance'. In a traditional Samoan context the taualuga is a dance of celebration. Kihara utilizes the principles of the taualuga as a form of storytelling to reference history and mirror what is happening globally today. The artist's fictitious character, loosely based on Salome, dances deep in grief wearing a Victorian mourning dress. The performance combines photography, dance, audio, and historical costume to form a tribute to the many leaders and people of Samoa.

Virginia-Lee Webb, research curator, Department of the Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas, MMA, introduces this special and unique dance performance.

The "Taualuga"; The Last Dance' is held in association with Shigeyuki Kihara's solo exhibition entitled 'Shigeyuki Kihara; Living Photographs' - an early survey of Kihara's art practice held at the Lila Acheson Wallace Wing, 1st Floor at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

For more information please visit: http://www.metmuseum.org