Meet Elia Moïse Kueiesine, a New Caledonia dance leader

New Caledonia is an overseas territory of France which officially annexed the group in 1853. The indigenous peoples of New Caledonia describe themselves as Kanaks, a term which actually originates from the Hawaiian word kanaka and used in a pejorative manner by Europeans during the colonial period. The French government refused to recognize customary land tenure, confiscating most of the fertile lands and transferring them to settler farmers and thousands of convicts who were sent to New Caledonia from 1864.

Elia Moïse Kueiesine: About our dance and our culture — When you listen, listen with your soul or your heart, with your feeling... then you will understand.

The dancers aren't professionals. They don't make a living from dancing. They're farmers, they fish, they hunt. Others work in administration or for the provincial government. So we're just like everyone else. The return to tradition is a myth. The future is in front of us, not behind. So the challenge for small traditional societies like ours, we, the people of the Pacific, is to find a symbiosis between tradition and modernity. The question is how can I be myself while being a man of today?

Ordinarily the choreographer does not exist. Because choreography is a western way of seeing things. In other words, the choreographer is outside the group. But here there is a chief of the dance, who can at the same time be a drummer and a dancer. The dance for us is a way to express our deepest thoughts.

Elia Moïse Kueiesine as he appears when painted, participating in, and serving as chief of the warrior dance.

The Feroah is a dance we perform on very special occasions. But, in the past, this war dance was a dance to psychologically prepare us for battle. When we watch the dance, we must look at the entire ensemble because it's the spirit of the group that needs to emerge. When we dance, we don't dance with our feet, we dance with our guts. With groove, with feeling.