The Importance of the Banaban Traditional Dancing

 

There are many significances of the Banaban Traditional Dancing because it maintain the culture and on the other hand the Banaban traditional dances helps the local to compensate the communities . For example, in my Island, there were various groups from different villagers where they used to perform when tourists come to the Island. The performance is to show our culture and at the same time, they received money and this how the Banaban culture dance group managed to earn income and divide among them.

The picture above shows the picture of one group in Rabi Island do the dancing in Savusavu during the carnival festival. The Banaban dancing group belong to the Buakonikai Methodist Church, its a Banaban community in Rabi Island. The group was hired to do a performance in a carnival celebration and the amount of money they received was $300 a night. The group did the dancing for three nights so the money they have around a thousands.

In every communities where the Banaban lives, it is essential for them to know the Banaban Culture.

the group above belongs to  Ketetmane Methodist Church. It is also a Banaban group but they lived in Suva areas.

This group always received a thousands of dollars when they do a performance. They even do the show in big places. for examples, in Civic center, Albert park, SPC and many more. In 2018, the same group but the participants were changed, invited to Nauru 50th Independence to do the performance.

As we can see, there are many important of the Banaban Traditional Dance but the most vital one is to preserve it and keep on practice on it so that we will never caste it away, since we live in multiracial communities, we have to revive our culture not because of money but for our future generation. Being a dancer in these groups its very interesting because its takes you abroad like travelling to other Pacific Islands and to Overseas.

Thanks.

Kam Raba

TM