Te Maeva Nui 2013 - Mauke Ura Pau

I didn't make it to the 2014 Te Maeva Nui because I was overseas in Vietnam and Cambodia  as you can probably tell from the last five videos I've uploaded.
However, I never finished editing all the dances from last year so I've decided to revisit Te Maeva Nui 2013 and here is the first of the new set - Mauke's ura pau (drum dance). It's not the whole thing of course, just some of the highlights.
Uura pau are the most exciting of the dances; no doubt that's why the performaces always finish off with one - end up on a high and send the audience away happy.
Next year (2015) is going to be the big one. It's the fiftieth anniversary of independance, well internal self government to be more accurate. All the outer islands will be sending teams, I'm sure the dance competition will last a full week rather than the three days we've had recently, and it's sure to be a sell-out.
In the meantime anyone who wants to buy DVDs of the performances in their entirety should contact the Ministry of Cultural Development (http://culture.gov.ck/ but currently the site is being updated).

The Mekong Unexplored - highlights

This video shows some of the highlights of our recent cruise along the Saigon and Mekong rivers on the RV Angkor Pandaw. The previous four videos show more details of the places we visited.