JC
The Honolulu Star-Bulletin reports that Tusiata Avia will be bringing her performance piece, “Wild Dogs Under My Skirt,” to the University of Hawai’i. She uses some of her experiences being of mixed Samoan descent to fuel her show.

Avia’s works explore her mixed Samoan and “palagi” (pronounced “palangi” — Samoan for Caucasian) heritage. She moves between the cultures, only half belonging to each. “Being of mixed heritage pulls you in different directions,” she said. Her show expresses issues that will seem familiar to anyone who has ever felt like a minority: the search for identity, isolation, unearthing of the past and views from both dominant and minority cultures.

Avia has performed in New Zealand, America Samoa, Europe and Russia and has presented excerpts at a Pacific arts conference on Kauai. Traveling has been a large part her life, she says. “I have a unique perspective of being a Samoan New Zealander born in New Zealand who has spent the last decade in countries as far as Ethiopia and Syria. I carry all this with me, and much of the show is drawn from my own experience.”