Passing of a Tolai dance composer
By Dr JACOB SIMET
ON March 09 this year, Kolias ToKonia, also known as ToKulau (Mr. Kulau), passed on; leaving a legacy of kulau dancers and choreographers on Matupit Island, East New Britain province.
ToKonia was given the name ToKulau by a group of young men to whom he had entrusted the art and knowledge of the kulau dance. After his funeral service, the same group of young men carried his casket for more than one kilometer to his grave, to honor his having taught and left them with the knowledge and art of the kulau dance.
Unlike other Tolai male dances, the kulau dance was, and still is, a very important dance reserved for performance only on special occasion.
There are still restrictions on its performance by anyone, particularly young novices.
As a result this dance was not taught freely to young men and in the end it faced the prospect of disappearing from the Tolai dance repertoire, a danger which was very acute on Matupit Island.
ToKonia decided to ensure that this did not happen. So twenty years ago he broke cultural protocol and taught the dance to a number of young men who performed it at his clan’s mortuary ceremony.
As tribute to this Tolai dance composer and choreographer, this story is about Kolias ToKonia’s thoughts and impressions regarding Tolai dance, and culture generally.
It is about his concerns relating to the threat of disappearance of many aspects of Tolai culture, including the kulau dance. He tells this story himself as recorded in an interview with me in 2006.
“As far as I can remember, kulau belonged to our people at Raulaveo, (on Matupit Island). Of course this genre of dance was found in many areas of the Tolai, but each place had its own special variety. At Raulaveo I knew and lived with a number of men who had the knowledge and art of kulau. Some of them were master composers, who held their own against composers of other villages.”
“Wutung (another kind of male dance) on the other hand was located at the northern end of the island, where the master of wutung in all Tolai, ToDepit, lived. ToDepit learnt the art of wutung composition from his father, who was from that end of the island.”
“The other main Tolai dance, the libung, is really related to the tubuan. At Matupit I believe the libung dance was promoted by the people of your grandfather’s clan, who originally came from Raluana in the Kokopo District and nearby villages on the mainland. You will remember that many of the people of your grandfather’s group who lived at the southern end of the island used to speak the dialect of Raluana”
“Tapialai (music associated with the tubuan) and tubuan are an important part of cultural life on Matupit. In the past I remembered tubuan music and dance being comprised of a number of genres of music, such as; kabakavir, and at least another three sub-genres. However, today it is sad to see that we seem to concentrate more on kabakavir and neglect the other genres. Our repertoire of music for tubuan dance has become very poor. Our young must try their best to retrieve these other genres and sub-genres as they are part of the richness of the tubuan culture. As you will know, they are part of the “flare” of the tubuan. Losing this would be a great loss to the cultural and artistic richness of the tubuan. This is happening not only here at Matupit but seems to be the general trend in areas of the Tolai. I hope that through the work which you are doing with the National Mask Festival, you will be able to correct this”.
“My concern with the growing poverty of musical genre is not only in relation to tubuan music. Overall I am concerned about the tendency for only certain dances to be taught to the young at the expense of other types of dances. As you know, part of the reason for this problem is the restriction that our elders used to have on the performance of some types of dances. I suppose our old people were concerned about the loss of cultural integrity of these dances if they were performed out of cultural contexts. In hindsight, I think our old people were right, considering what is happening to a lot of our dances and other forms of cultural expressions today”.
“Many performances I see today are performed outside of their cultural contexts. You have your performances during all kinds of celebrations such as important government days, church and school openings, tourism and of course your school cultural days. I know you know that the old people would not have approved of many of these performances. But I suppose this is the way things will have to be. However one very important observation which I make is that in most of these dances the use of tabu in payments to the performers musicians and choreographers, is still observed and practiced. You know that this action alone holds much of the importance of these performances as the use of tabu holds value in most other Tolai cultural practices.
This is encouraging as it suggests very strongly to me that people are still trying as much as possible to maintain the cultural integrity of these performances, despite their out of context appearances. It is up to you and young people to decide on as to how much of this integrity you want to carry with these dances into the future”.
“This problem I am talking about here is in relation to men’s dances but at the same time it is more acute with women’s dances. With women’s dances, you will probably have noticed that these days we see more of men’s dances than women’s dances. While part of the reason for this problem may be attributed to those who commission dance performances, in not commissioning women’s dances as much as they do the men. The main problem is that most of the capable women choreographers and instructor have gone. Many of our women today do not know where to start. The richness of women’s performances and cultural participation needs to be lifted to the level they were at when my father and your grandfather were alive. Visitor to our parts might think our women have no dances, which is a wrong impression. Quite the contrary, women have a very strong dance repertoire, but unfortunately again, many of these dances are seldom performed today”.
“Out of my concern with this situation I decided to break away from the norm in the 1980s and teach a group of young men the kulau. While kulau was an important part of our cultural expressions and was known by a good proportion of the male population, in recent years it has diminished. I found myself being the only surviving senior adult male with the knowledge and skill of composition, choreography and performance, alive. So I decided to teach the young men this kulau, in the hope that this important part of our cultural expression will survive intro the future”.
“As I have heard you say on at least one occasion, that young people today are lucky in that they are able to learn many of the traditional dances which were restricted to only grown men in my time and even your own time. I remember seeing you and other young boys of your time being taught all kinds of dances, such as Solomon Islands and Namatanai dances when you were asked to perform traditional dances at school or at Government events. This was because the old men did not want to teach these dances to young boys and also did not want these dances performed at non-traditional events. You were right, the young men of today are lucky, in that there is some relaxation on these restrictions. “
“At present I have a problem with the passing on of the knowledge of kulau to the young men of my clan, as this is part our heritage. This problem is that I do not see anyone within my own clan who is interested enough in kulau to be considered as possible recipient of the art of composition and choreography. Someone may emerge in the future but for the moment there is that danger this art may go to another clan I am very happy that you yourself was able to accept that one kulau dance which I gave to you as gift for your father’s mortuary feast last year. I know you will look after this and pass it onto those who come after you. I hope that this action of yours and together with my having taught the dance to those young men in the 1980s, the kulau will remain amongst us for many years more to come. As you know kulau, reflects the creative genius and brilliance of our people and it is one of the things which ‘i wabarbar dat (reflects our humanity) to the rest of the world. We lose this; then who are we?
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