Report from the Pacific Festival of Arts

Hi guys, you’re probably wondering about what the “Ladies” from Palau, as Mr. Dan Ho would say, have been up to. Well, as for me, I was one of the lucky dancers that had the chance to attend the 11th Festival of Pacific Arts that was held in Honiara, Solomon Island, from July 1st until July 13th. The theme of the festival was “Culture in Harmony with Nature.” The theme of the festival signifies each of the islands in the Pacific Region’s unique culture and God given gift of nature and its aspects. In addition, it highlights the relationship between culture and nature and the importance of conserving and protecting our environment.

Dancing, is one of many cultural ways that helps conserve our traditional heritage, way of life, and culture alive. Each region that attended the festival had the chance to present and show their traditional dance and explain to others about what the dance signifies. We, the dancers from Palau, portrayed our traditional women’s dance, along with the modern dance and gave a brief explanation about Palau women’s traditional dance. Through dancing, we got to learn the different types of dances from each of the islands, and how we can preserve our culture and traditional way of life, through dancing, for our future generation.

With the ongoing entertainment at the village and each island’s tent full of locals and different friends from the Pacific, a youth conference was held. The youth conference mainly focused on the environment and how our culture, custom, and way of life play an important role in our nature today and our environment, which we are currently living in.

Each region, had youth representatives that spoke on behalf of their island. Palau was lucky to have such an intelligent and intellectual youth representative that wasn’t only knowledgeable about Palau’s environment but also its culture.

Ms. Elsei Dianne Tellei was the youth representative for Palau. Mrs. Faustina K. Rehuher-Marugg, Palau’s Minister of Cultural Affairs, was the keynote speaker of the youth conference and gave a brief yet vivid and understanding speech about Palau’s culture, custom, and way of life. With theme of the festival “Culture in Harmony with Nature” and the focus of the youth conference which is mainly about the environment, they awarded Palau as the overall winner of having such astounding and astonishing for both marine and terrestrial beauty. That would be all of the interesting segment from the Young Champions of Palau.


/s/ Lyan Kazuma