Details

Latitude

-4.356205

Longitude

152.2875

Start Date

1993-08-23

End Date

1993-08-23

Tape#1, Traditional Music and Dance Performances and Events Participations of Henry Tavul and Culture Group Side A&B Henry Tavul was born in 1923 and was well known for his traditional culture performance of music and dance of the Tolai people. The interview of Henry and ToPolos Pultima at Kutnapit, Bitavavar Village in Vunamami area of Kokopo District were about conversations on the various Tolai traditional culture performances at various festivals and events in the ENB Province, around PNG locations and possible overseas trip to Australia that did not eventuate. The journey and experiences of these cultural engagements and participations are from pre-independence 1975 and post-independence events from publicly Government/Churches organised provincial, national and regional festivals of arts and culture for exhibitions to tourists, competitions to private and corporate organised festivals and events. Examples of these public festivals include local Kokopo, Rabaul Shows, local Tolai Warwagira, Methodist and Catholic events and travelled to other provincial centres such as Lae and Port Moresby Shows amongst others and to the regional South Pacific Festival of Arts in PNG. Other privately arranged festivals such as Ok Tedi Mining in Tabubil, Western Province was upon invitation, where he taught the dance called "Balus" about the introduction of aeroplanes carrying passengers and actions of how it operated taking off and landing. It was based on the Tolai dance of "parpari" and other PNG people living in Tabubil were taught the performance other than the Tolai dancers so it embraced other people from different cultures so was an inclusivity way of engaging with Tolai culture. Details of the dance were explained. Types of Tolai song and dance that Henry was involved in other performances included "libung, vutung, pinpidik, kulau, tabaran, tapialai and tubuan". Henry was an artist and craftsman in preparations of costumes for head dress and body dress for the various traditional performances. Henry also describes choral history of the pioneers in choirs from missionary influence in the German and Australian colonisation in early 1990s'. The first choir master of Vunamami (Kokopo District) was Beniona ToKarai in the same time as Ephraim Tami of Matupit (Rabaul District) and first female was IaMatatau and IaLo (Rabaul/Kokopo Districts) and Esau Teko long Kabakada area, North Coast (Gazelle District). Other details in conversations can be through interpretation of the Tok Pisin language. (Steven Gagau, July 2019)

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