{"id":15896,"date":"2011-10-17T20:23:33","date_gmt":"2011-10-18T03:23:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/?p=15896"},"modified":"2011-10-17T20:23:33","modified_gmt":"2011-10-18T03:23:33","slug":"pacific-islanders-dance-for-sea-rise-awareness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2011\/10\/17\/pacific-islanders-dance-for-sea-rise-awareness\/","title":{"rendered":"Pacific Islanders Dance for Sea Rise Awareness"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cJust for you to hear our voices…This is our only hope.”
\n<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Traditional dancers from Kiribati, which is threatened by the rising Pacific<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

In Pacific island cultures, dance can be a form of prayer — which may be why three dozen people from the disappearing coral atolls of Tuvalu, Kiribati and Tokelau are on a fourteen-city US tour with what they see as their futures at stake.<\/p>\n

The message: that what we in the United States do here, affects them there. It\u2019s a performance and educational campaign called \u201cWater Is Rising.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

Instead of looking at bar graphs, we heard the beat of sticks on large biscuit tins. No Power Point here, just artfully synchronized hands and hips, fingers and bare feet.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/em>Along with a boaki<\/em>, a large wooden drum box, they brought one united plea: \u201cBrothers and sisters in the United States, we are losing our land. We can work together to make us free from climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n

The kick-off to their tour started in the Southland with \u201cScience and Art in a Climate of Change: a Dialogue of Nations,\u201d a performance and conversation sponsored by UCLA\u2019s Center for Intercultural Performance, the Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and the Department of World Arts and Culture.<\/p>\n

They had traveled forty hours by boat to Samoa, then boarded a plane for a two-hour flight to Fiji, and then a ten-hour flight to Los Angeles. They came dressed in sarongs and t-shirts and cotton dresses, and adorned with pandanus<\/em> skirts and head wreathes. They brought their dances and their songs to a UCLA stage.<\/p>\n

The dancers sang in familiar three-part harmony while the scientists, students and the rest of us listened in the darkened theater. Mikaele Maiava from Tokelau told us they are losing one to two meters of land a year along their shores. Andrew Semele from Tuvalu says the tuna they rely on for export are getting scarce because the waters are now too warm. Frances Tebau from Kiribati says their well water is getting too salty to drink. \u201cThis is our only hope,\u201d Tebau says. \u201cGo for renewable energy. If you could reduce your greenhouse gases… We don\u2019t want to lose our land. We will lose everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust for you to hear our voices, my brothers and sisters,\u201d says Andrew Semele. \u201cJust for you to know we suffer. We are here to kindly ask, to look for a shoulder to lean on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

They\u2019ll be taking their stories to Riverside, California, this week, then on to Arizona, and then east for performances dates<\/a> in New England, Maryland and a District of Columbia performance at the Kennedy Center.<\/p>\n

In between the dances and songs, the head of California\u2019s Air Resources Board, Mary Nichols (still a part-time professor at UCLA) took the stage along with UCLA’s climate scientists to moderate the conversation. Alex Hall, director of UCLA’s Center for Climate Change Solutions<\/a>, was struck by how irrelevant science can seem in light of the dancing. “This is so eloquent… so interconnected. \u00a0I don’t think people are really listening to the scientists so I really applaud this effort today.”<\/p>\n

Funding for tour has come from UCLA, various foundations, and the National Endowment for the Arts.\u00a0 Inspiration and vision came from Judy Mitoma,<\/a> a former dancer who now heads UCLA’s intercultural Performance Center.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cJust for you to hear our voices, my brothers and sisters…This is our only hope.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1272,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"series":[],"affiliates":[],"programs":[],"collections":[],"interests":[],"class_list":["post-15896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-getinvolved"],"acf":{"template_type":"standard","featured_image_type":"standard","is_audio_post":false},"yoast_head":"\nPacific Islanders Dance for Sea Rise Awareness | Climate Watch<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2011\/10\/17\/pacific-islanders-dance-for-sea-rise-awareness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Pacific Islanders Dance for Sea Rise Awareness | Climate Watch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u201cJust for you to hear our voices, my brothers and sisters...This is our only hope."\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2011\/10\/17\/pacific-islanders-dance-for-sea-rise-awareness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Climate Watch\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-10-18T03:23:33+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/54\/2011\/10\/kiribati_couple_1_blog1.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kimberly Ayers\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kimberly Ayers\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2011\/10\/17\/pacific-islanders-dance-for-sea-rise-awareness\/\",\"url\":\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2011\/10\/17\/pacific-islanders-dance-for-sea-rise-awareness\/\",\"name\":\"Pacific Islanders Dance for Sea Rise Awareness | Climate Watch\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-10-18T03:23:33+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-10-18T03:23:33+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#\/schema\/person\/ae2ac9e7d64b6fd9c370acdd75b474b5\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2011\/10\/17\/pacific-islanders-dance-for-sea-rise-awareness\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2011\/10\/17\/pacific-islanders-dance-for-sea-rise-awareness\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"http:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/2011\/10\/17\/pacific-islanders-dance-for-sea-rise-awareness\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Pacific Islanders Dance for Sea Rise Awareness\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/\",\"name\":\"Climate Watch\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#\/schema\/person\/ae2ac9e7d64b6fd9c370acdd75b474b5\",\"name\":\"Kimberly Ayers\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/ww2.kqed.org\/climatewatch\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/2ea85f7cfcaf6cfd0640f652c2eb52c2\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/08ee5b5027a2e1a24c1ede24f97fdf76?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/08ee5b5027a2e1a24c1ede24f97fdf76?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Kimberly Ayers\"},\"description\":\"Kimberly Ayers has lived in California for more than 20 years, both north and south. 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