This November, Lalanga travels to Suva for Dance Fest Fiji 2026, and for one member of the collective, Ratu Komaiwainicika Loaloadravu Waqalevu, it's a journey home.
Dance Fest Fiji 2026, presented by Mata Dance Fiji. Saturday 7 November, 7pm, Japan ICT Centre, University of the South Pacific, Suva.
Pacific Dance New Zealand is proud to support Dance Fest Fiji 2026 by taking Lalanga across the moana. Now in its seventh year, the festival is presented by Mata Dance Fiji and runs on 6 and 7 November at the Japan ICT Theatre at the University of the South Pacific in Suva.
Seven companies are featured this year, two international and five from Fiji, including the Oceania Centre for Arts, Culture & Pacific Studies at USP. Each company presents a short work of up to 15 minutes, and the festival's workshops are free.
Founded in 1978, the Centre for Pacific Languages is Aotearoa’s Pacific language hub, offering free community courses in Sāmoan, Tongan, Fijian, Cook Islands Māori, Vagahau Niue and Rotuman, and working to keep Pacific languages strong for the next generation.
Going home
For Ratu Komaiwainicika Loaloadravu Waqalevu, Dance Fest Fiji is a homecoming. A Fijian member of the Lalanga collective, he returns to share the work on home soil, in front of family, community and fellow artists. It's the same thread that runs through our Artist in Residence programme in Sāmoa this month: Pacific artists raised or based in Aotearoa taking their work home, and bringing what they learn back with them.
“Coming home to Fiji with Lalanga means everything to me. Weaving is knowledge our families in Fiji have carried for generations, turning pandanus into mats and fans, so to dance that story here, in front of my family and my people, feels like bringing the work back to where it began. I want young Fijians to see that our knowledge belongs on the stage, and that wherever we live, we can carry it with us and bring it home.” — Ratu Komaiwainicika Loaloadravu Waqalevu, Lalanga collective
About Lalanga
Lalanga means to weave. Choreographed by Leilani-Grace Tonu'u and created with Jules Silolo, Ratu Komaiwainicika Loaloadravu Waqalevu and Petronilla Sua-Wooching, the work grew from a group of friends coming together to make something that speaks across the Pacific.
The creative team chose Lalanga because it is a word, and a practice, that is familiar across so many Pacific cultures. The work follows the journey of the pandanus, from the plant to a finished woven piece, and celebrates the knowledge of how it is grown, prepared, woven and used across the Pacific. Woven fans become part of the dance, showcasing our arts and what it means to work with our own resources.
Earlier this year, Lalanga was performed at the Mīharo Murihiku Polyfest in Invercargill, where it brought Pacific storytelling to tamariki and families in the deep South.
In partnership with the Centre for Pacific Languages
Lalanga is presented in partnership with the Centre for Pacific Languages. A word shared across many Pacific languages sits at the heart of the work, and the partnership brings language and dance together: the movement carries the knowledge held in the word, and the word carries the movement across the region.
Why we're going
Sharing work across the region is how we keep the vā between Pacific dance communities strong. Supporting Dance Fest Fiji connects our artists with dancers, makers and audiences in Fiji, and opens space for the exchange that keeps Pacific dance growing on both sides of the moana.
"Seven years on, Dance Fest Fiji has become a real home for dance in our region, and we're honoured to stand alongside Mata Dance Fiji this year. Lalanga means to weave, and that's what this exchange does. It weaves our dancers into Fiji's dance community, and they bring new stories, energy and ideas home with them. Supporting our Pacific neighbours to grow their festivals is how we keep the vā strong across the moana." — Iosefa Enari MNZM, Director, Pacific Dance New Zealand.
Festival: 6–7 November 2026, Dance Fest Fiji's seventh year
Performance
Saturday 7 November, 7pm
Where
Japan ICT Theatre, University of the South Pacific, Suva
Presented by
Mata Dance Fiji · Festival Director Tevita Tobeyaweni
Got family and friends in Fiji? Please share this with them.
Pacific Dance New Zealand's participation in Dance Fest Fiji is supported by Creative New Zealand and Centre for Pacific Languages.
