Dancing Earth: Self Care Sunday w/ Elaine Talamaimoana
Date: Sunday, September 28, 2022
Join us this Sunday, 8/28, 10am PST for a special Self Care Sunday to kick off our fall tour festival events with CALIFA leader, community organizer, Elaine Talamaivao, @Tala Mai Moana on IG Live. Take time to practice ways to destress in your everyday life, learn different modes to raise your energy and come back to a deeper sense of self.
Time: 10-11 am PST
BIO
Dancing Earth's Elaine Talamaivao, @talamaimoana , community leader, Pacific Island dancer, choreographer, film maker/producer, community organizer for our CALIFA Honorees. Elaine Talamaivao is a Polynesian dancer, teacher and lover of all cultures and dance forms. Her introduction to Polynesian dance started at her father’s practices in Mulivai Samoa, while he prepared with the Samoan Dance Theatre for their South Pacific and European tours. She would leave Samoa and migrate to Aotearoa, New Zealand, to live with her grandparents, where the Fa’a Samoa traditions were practiced thoroughly in their home.
Eventually, her love for culture took her to lead the Polynesian and Kapa Haka Clubs for Tawa and St Mary’s College, where both High Schools became game changers and power houses among the local High School Poly Festivals in the capital city, Wellington. Her popularity grew in the way she taught both the youth and adults.
Through workshops at Whitireia Polytechnic, she was able to collaborate and learn from Porirua’s leading choreographers and artists. This experience opened a curiosity into the interweaving of contemporary Māori and Pasefika dance styles and traditions. Her love for dance and storytelling eventually led her to the United States to further her education. Though she had moved to three different nations, several things remained constant — her love for culture and dance, but even more so, her love to teach others about the dances and languages from the South Pacific. In her education, Elaine received degrees from both Riverside Community College and the University of California, Riverside.
She continued to collaborate with other filmmakers and choreographers of indigenous dance – growing many relationships in the national and international storytelling world. Elaine has an extensive professional background in the arts. While employed for the City of Riverside, Elaine created the Riverside Arts Academy’s curriculum and schedule. RAA is a grant-funded program that serves the underrepresented in Riverside’s East Side. Under Elaine’s guidance, the program went on to be recognized by the State of California – California Parks and Recreation Services for Cultural Diversity as well as the founding team that assisted with the Academy’s affiliation with The Harmony Project.
Elaine has also performed as a guest at various indigenous forums, including at UCLA, UC Riverside, and the Culver Center. She currently continues to work with the academic community at the University of Redlands. Elaine’s passion in teaching Polynesian culture has stayed constant, as she has watched the growth and success of Tala Mai Moana, @talmaimoana To date, TMM has performed both around the United States and internationally. TMM has now expanded within the City of Riverside to provide Summer Day Camps, workshops and virtual classes that are dedicated to teaching the Polynesian culture to Riverside’s under-served youth, as well as continuing community growth among several homeschooling academies and non-profit leadership organizations. Elaine continues to strive in providing easily accessible Polynesian cultural classes to all.
DANCING EARTH CREATIONS dynamically activates our mission, to create contemporary dance and related arts through global indigenous and intercultural relationships centered in ecological and cultural diversity for creativity, health, and wellness.
“We gather as individual artists to create experimental yet elemental dances that reflect our rich cultural heritage as contemporary global peoples. We strive to embody the unique essences of cultural perspectives by creation and renewal of artistic and cultural movement rituals. Ancient and futuristic, our dances are an elemental language of bone and blood memory in motion.” -Founding Director, Rulan Tangen