ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a critical reflection of the author’s personal journey towards approaching and articulating Pacific dance pedagogy. It provides insight into the author’s shifting experiences encountered as a learner of Pacific styles of dance within community contexts in Fiji, and as an educator of ‘Pacific dance’ at the University of Auckland in New Zealand. The author explores the challenges and negotiations that she has encountered as a result of the intercultural shifts of content within educational contexts that present new ideologies, pedagogies and expectations. These discussions are informed by the author’s cultural background as a Samoan and the influences it has on her approaches to a Pacific dance pedagogy. The author’s position as a dance educator provides her with the opportunity to shift the broader cultural and political stereotypical perceptions surrounding ‘Pacific,’ and offers considerations for the development of critical Pacific dance pedagogy. Through a framework of pedagogical value in unity and diversity, the author articulates Pacific dance as an opportunity to develop hope for the appreciation of both the connections and distinctions between Pacific ways of knowing, doing and being within our current global society.
