Ceguva

2021

Ceguva meaning ‘to breathe’ in Vosa Vakaviti is a collaborative & explorative storytelling digital residency led by Tokelauan Fijian storyteller, Emele Ugavule.

Throughout this movement residency about process, three expert Oceanic movers and choreographers are invited to be in conversation with emerging choreographers from the Asia Pacific about how to identify the multiplicity of time that they embody – settler time, soil time and self time.

This conversation is foundational for a broader exploration around building a sustainable industry that embeds genealogical wellbeing and blood memory into creative process as a proactive – rather than reactive – response to cultural safety and story sovereignty.

‘Ceguva’ asks – What do storytellers need to breathe? How do we begin, sustain and end creative process that breathes?

Emele is working collaboratively with Deborah Brown, Sela Vai, Tomasi Takotavuki, Daniel Mateo, Amy Zhang, Moemoana Schwenke.

Each storyteller is moving through unique conversations relating to time & creativity including using ancestral lunar calendars, fishing & wind patterns, and intuitive waves to disrupt conditioned notions of time and productivity in creativity in relation to their generational and contemporary movement practices.

2022

In 2022 Ceguva 2.0 Emele works with illustrator and animator, Steffie Yee, and a web developer to create a prototype of an online program that collates time centric data, and creates suggested schedules based on how self, settler and soil time can interact.

Dancers Amy Zhang and Moemoana Schwenke will input and work to implement the schedule with their daily lives.

This work  is foundational for a broader exploration around building a sustainable creative ecosystem that embeds genealogical wellbeing, place specific knowledge and blood memory into creative process as a proactive – rather than reactive – response to cultural safety and story sovereignty.

Illustration: Steffie Yee