Coco Talanoa — Pacific Blog / Page 23

Dancing for JLO
I'm a dancer from New Zealand who has been selected to back up dance for Jennifer Lopez in Las Vegas.
I come from a small town Tokoroa and always dreamt of being a dancer. A passion of mine that started from a very young age and has now become a reality.....
Being from Tokoroa, i was limited to achieving this dream. I had to commute to and from Hamilton and Auckland 3-4x a week for classes and rehearsals as well as maintaining a full time job.
It was physically, mentally and financially challenging but i knew i had to make it work.
In 2012 i auditioned for Parris Goebels The Royal Family. A choreographer and company i knew i had to be apart of to grow as a dancer and achieve my dream.
I was successful and have been apart of the company ever since.
The move to Auckland was the biggest sacrifice i had to make. I always saw Tokoroa as my home. I was comfortable, i had my family and didn't no the outside world.…more

Welcome to Samoa, An Actual Country
I remember it well, spending three hours at Gatwick Airport in the UK, while the Customs agents tried to locate one of their people who knows what a Samoan passport looks like, to verify the existence of my country. They found an agent finally, who came over, took my passport and declared: "Sorry, this is not Somalian."
The feelings I had at that point ranged from a deep anger to a sense of amusing dismay at the fact that my beloved island Paradise of Samoa in the middle of the South Pacific, was mistaken for a war torn country in Africa.…more

Featured Writer: Tusiata Avia
This months featured writer is Tusiata Avia - Impossibly Smart, utterly funny and a true artist with the written word. Sink into her modern retelling of the beloved ‘Sina and the Tuna’ legend- and let us know your thoughts!
Surfing for Sina by Tusiata Avia
For an eel, Tuna wasn’t a bad looking guy, not good looking, but he wasn’t a dog.
No, Tuna was an eel. But Tuna, like most eels, had a hard time with the ladies – what with the smell and the slipperiness and the slime: not qualities most women find appealing. It would take someone special to see beyond that. And, let’s face it – we all care about looks, now, don’t we? Well, we do, don’t we?
Tuna lived his life in the sea of I.T. If I say he was a genius I wouldn’t be far off the mark. And socially, it suited him. A laptop doesn’t care if you’re a little clammy, a P.C. accepts you just the way you are.…more