mana-caribe

[mana-caribe]

Mana is Maori. Caribe is Arawak. Our oceans connect us.

Mana Caribe is a real Big Ting. Real Big Love. A Big Up! It is for the Brave People. The Valorant Spirits. The Sovereign Land. This mana is conscious of Indigenous Islanders and our Ancestral Exchanges.

(A love note* from Nicolas Del Valle, by Naníki Del Valle)

"This film is an embodied presence of ancestral wisdom and resilience as interpreted by my Two Spirits. Inspired by "The Honouring": a ʻmartial movementʻ of the "sacred martial tradition, Kalinda of Trinidad and Tobago" in Philbert-Kalinda Technique [PKT] (Philbert 2023); this practice offers gratitude and return to a plethora of ancestors that impact my journeys in learning and life.

Mana Caribe offers aloha to my astral crossings that allow me to learn and grow on Hawaiʻi. As my MFA research acknowledges how "Caribbean performance impacts Polynesian expression", I take time to reflect how the knowledge of ʻTe Moana Nuiʻ impacts me as a Caribbean. This is possible thanks to the wisdom shared by Nalini and Manarii Gautier of Tahiti Mana, who I have the pleasure of learning from. Tahiti Mana hosts many ancestral bacchanals, which my ancestors are always enthralled to attend.

Ultimately, I want to mahalo this ʻahupuaʻa of Waikīkī, which fosters me as I learn from many diasporas across these lands. These communities also inspire my own Taino identification as I vicariously discover myself through these experiences. These communities I call family, as shared in the Batek Ceremony of my dear friend, Hercules Goss-Kuehn. Julz Bolinayen, the Tatoo Ritualist of Lakapatiʻs Legacy, shares that these "Batek... allow our ancestors to recognize us in the afterlife". This Ilokano practice honors our ancestors, and brings together my queer family here on Oʻahu."

Please enjoy as I weave these experiences from this land and share the views ma kai of Leahi Kai, ma uka of Mānoa, and improvisations of ʻOri Tahiti, Lua, Philbert-Kalinda Technique, and Hula alongside intimate moments of the Batek Ceremony. I also nod to lessons from Kalikopuanoheaokalani Aiu, who teaches māhū performers the ways they embody the horizon, or in ʻōlelo, "Hoʻokino Hālāwai".

*This station is a concept of consciousness, which Jamie J. Philbert has helped me recognize. With her station of "Love Notes", she reminded our co-hort that all our stations should be a "love note" from all our ancestors. Thank you infinitely for your love, light and spirit, and all your ancestors that have made this possible.

Philbert, Jamie J. (2023) Re-Imagining Station: Frequencies for Healing and Illustrating African Consciousness of Week 1, Sacred Space: Body as Home [martial movement], 5 May 2023, Zoom Meeting and Email.

Bolinayen, Julz (2023) Lakapatiʻs Legacy: Hercules 4th Batek Ceremony [speech], 3 June 2023, Casa Tekun

Gautier, Nalini and Manarii (2023) Tahiti Mana: Student Showcase, ʻŌtea Choreography, Faʻarapu and Vahine Basics [various classes], 1 July 2023, Palikū Theatre, Hoʻokupu Center, Mānoa

Aiu, Kalikopuanoheaokalani (2019) The Horizon is a Dancing Body [performance], 5 May 2019

Nā Puke Wehewehe ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi (2023) Available at: https://wehewehe.org/

The Dictionary Of The Taino Language. (2023) Available at: https://www.taino-tribe.org/tedict.html 

[mana-caribe]

I received my first lei teaching a workshop in Carnival Performance to students at Moanalua High School. The flower is called Pua Kenikeni and it is so deliciously fragrant. Mahalo Jill! It was an honor to teach your class.

[mana-caribe]

Naníki Del Valle - Bio

Naníki Del Valle is a Taino scholar pursuing an MFA in Dance at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. Honoring her Chicago-Rican roots, Nanikiʻs practice has traveled her across Japan, Miami, and now Oʻahu to embody Caribbean Performance Theory and imagine sovereignty through AfroCaribbean and Afro-Futurist pedagogy.

In Hawaiʻi, Naniki is inspired by Kānaka Maoli, and the local communities of Oʻahu that reinforce indigenous futurity, and deserve the autonomy that is theirs.

[mana-caribe]

Etymologically Reducing: Mana Caribe

Mana is Maori. Caribe is Arawak. Our oceans connect us.

Mana Caribe is a real Big Ting. Real Big Love. A Big Up! It is for the Brave People. The Valorant Spirits. The Sovereign Land. This mana is conscious of Indigenous Islanders and our Ancestral Exchanges.

(A love note from Nicolas Del Valle, by Naníki Del Valle)

This exercise of conciousness is introduced by Jamie J. Philbert of the Bois Academy in Trinidad & Tobago. In a series of workshops sponsored by Alanna Morris of I.Am.Arts, Jamie shared her ancestral divinity and wisdom in a journey titled "Re-Imagining Station: Frequencies for Healing and Illustrating African Diasporic Consciousness". "Etymological Reduction" (1) is one practice from Philbert Kalinda Technique (PKT) which observes the consciousness of word choice, intentionality, and verbal manifestation.

(1) Philbert, Jamie J. (2023) Re-Imagining Station: Frequencies for Healing and Illustrating African Consciousness of Week 3, States Of Consciousness: Ritual as Repetition and Fragments/Whole [workshop speech], 3 June 2023, Zoom Meeting.

Mana can mean "Divine Power", "Strength", or "Powerful Nation"

Caribe can mean "Brave People", "Strong People".

My fathers name is Nicolas. That means "victory of the people" in Greek.

Mana Caribe is an embodied honoring of my Father and his legacy. Nicolas was a Chicago-Riken Casike, aliʻi of the Latin Kings. He was also known as Kato. His life was taken one year after my birth, but heʻs always lived through me and entrusted me to carry his legacy. In a delightful zoom conversation with Jamie, she reminded me of the significance of our bodies in academia, as "... our ancestors were not allowed to read and write.. and here we are in these institutions... reading and writing about them!" (2)

(2) Philbert, Jamie J. (2023) Mbongi Sessions, 6 April 2023, Zoom Meeting.

My entire academic career is a tribute to the sacrifice my Father made for me. Through my spiritual growth and journeys, he lives vicariously in all that I do, even if I am unconscious about it. My research drove me to Hawaiʻi, where I am blessed to be welcomed by māhū brethren and the land. Over the years I developed "mana caribe" in my written research, to describe the post-colonial signifiers in Caribbean Performance that resonates with peoples across Te Moana Nui.

To complete this exercise of consciousness, and see my Father staring back at me felt like the most real hug Iʻve ever been able to feel from him. It reminded me it is because of he, that I am me. He has been pushing me all along. Jamie helped me be conscious of this, and begin to heal through this embodied practice.

I have lived this station for the past 5 years as I performed across Chicago theatres while diligently studying Japanese, to attend Carnival in Japan in 2019, to then use this experience to apply for an MFA in Hawaiʻi and continue further ethnographic studies through ancestral awareness. My experiences learning in Hana Keaka, ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi, ʻOri Tahiti, and Uchinaa Odori has amalgamated my ancestral and spiritual alignment with my own Taíno epistemology.

With that I offer the prosperity of our collective indigenous knowledge, and the promotion of Afro-Diasporic consciousness and methodologies across oceans.