DANZ QUARTERLY Issue 21 - October, November, December 2010
It’s All Siva
Pacific Dance the New Zumba?
By Aaron Taouma on behalf of Pacific Dance New Zealand
“Sing me a song. That will sing to my soul, my heart, my life.”
Langi mai is a saying in both Tongan and Samoan, meaning sing to me or sing me a song. It is also the
name of a dance exercise programme, changing the way some elderly think about exercise while moving
to new but familiar grooves.
“Sing me a song. That will sing to my soul, my heart, my life”, says Atonio Tuipe’a, an injury prevention
consultant with the ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation) and programme coordinator for a number
of groups implementing Langi Mai. He describes how Langi Mai started and the thinking behind it.
“The programme was started by a colleague of mine, Filipo Ngutungalo, who was running a tai-chi
programme with elderly groups. He observed a reluctance amongst some taking part and asked: “Why
would we do these actions from outside? Why don’t we utilise our own Samoan, and our own Tongan, and
our own Pacific dances to do our exercise?”
Thus, Langi Mai was born. After an initial six-month trial, Langi Mai has been steadily growing and
engaging a number of Pacific Islands’ elderly groups in the Auckland area.
Tuipe’a looks at other examples, too.
“Out in the community, they also have super aerobics for the elderly. Unfortunately some of our old folk,
they find it too quick, too fast; they get frustrated. These are the people who will just…sit down…. and
gradually get lost and go home.”
“So that was the whole purpose of this. Using our own music, we believe that our people will be easily
motivated to get on their feet and exercise, while dancing and having fun and entertaining other people -
or themselves.”
This “entertainment” factor is a definite must in Langi Mai, with the more adventurous doing centre stage
solos and even a bit of old school rolling on the floor as comic relief. Tuipe’a agrees, “Once they hear the
notes, they can’t control themselves, they get up – and that’s the whole idea of it.”
"Langi Mai gives the participants free reign to interpret the movements of the instructor and interact with the
music itself. After initial warm-ups and breathing exercises, the Langi Mai programme goes into workout
mode but does not push participants to accurately mimic the instructor. Rather an instructor indicates the
types of movements and participants make their own way from there," explains Tuipe’a, motioning.
“You don’t need to go through ACC training to be an instructor, so long as you can dance, it’s just a matter
of putting the dance into a pattern of an exercise and repeating it. Participants also know the movements
you are doing. They grew up with it and they know the songs. So, they can take what you do and do it
their way.”
Theresa Setefano, a Langi Mai instructor in Mt Roskill says: “It’s the nature of it, I think it just comes to you
naturally, which is what I teach a lot of the groups like the ones I teach at the Polynesian [High School]
Festival…you’re born with it and these guys [her elderly group], they’ve had a lifetime of it.”
Her group, part of a Samoan pensioner’s group called Tuaa Sinasina o Samoa has
been at the programme every Thursday for a number of months and by the look on
their faces they love every moment of it.
Ulugia Richard Nati, the chairman of Tuaa Sinasina, describes what his group went
through, looking for the right exercise programme for them: “We started up the
exercise with a guy who would come in and was very serious about getting us to do
these exercises. We found ourselves doing the push-ups and harder exercises, like
boxing, things like that, that were too hard for our group. We couldn’t follow it, and
doing it might cause some injuries to us. So, when we saw another group doing siva
exercises last year we were very excited to give it a go.”
It’s not just about fun and dancing for the sake of it. Ulugia is aware of the reasons
behind Langi Mai and ACC’s other exercise programmes, as Tuipe’a explains: “It all
aims to prevent falls at home, in recreation areas, it’s good to have strong lower limbs,
and muscles and feet; to get those muscles to move, because if they don’t move then
they tend to fall, and to fall easily.”
Each year in New Zealand, one in three people aged over 65 years will fall and falls
are the leading cause of injury-related hospitalisation in persons aged 65 years and
over. In this age group falls account for half of all ACC claims and 75% of injury-related
hospital admissions. Good reason to implement exercise programmes such as Langi
Mai.
Ulugia goes on: “So many people are injured, especially old people, injured at home
from falling and when they fall they find that their lack of exercise causes an injury. And
falls in the home are costing money because they apply to ACC for all the injuries.”
Tologataua Norman Tauiliili, vice-chair of Tuaa Sinasina, is totally blind, yet watching
him lead others, excitedly, in a round of free-form siva you would not think so. For
Tologataua he’s not dancing or exercising, he’s “physicalising” what he hears using
movements he knows. “We use our songs, our natural songs, in our own language…
it’s got meaning in every word you’re singing about. This just makes you want to
dance. To tell the story.”
Langi Mai is thus a total experience. It incorporates dance and music but is also about
the connection between the participants (and the instructor). It isn’t quite zumba
but it’s just as much fun, easy to do and being low-impact and gentle on the body is
perfect for the elderly.
Langi Mai: sing me a song, a joyous celebration of life.
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of DANZ QUARTERLY No 21 October 2010
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