Our 5 Favourite Siva Afi Performances

To celebrate the launch of Measina Siva Afi School we are sharing our 5 favourite Siva Afi Performances on YouTube today.  If you have any suggestions on performances that we should watch leave a comment below with a link.

Samoan Fire Knife Dance Germaines

It is no wonder that our first performance comes from Hawaii.  Outside of Samoa, the Siva Afi community is massive in Hawaii and parts of the USA.  We hope that together with other Siva Afi Schools like Matavai we can build the Siva Afi community here in Australia.

HEIVA

When you hear Heiva you think Tahiti.  The Siva Afi performances held at the 2019 Heiva in San Diego were LiT!  We are blessed to see seven of the most talented spinners today, including one of our Measina Siva Afi School instructors Justyce Edmonds.  Hopefully the next one we will see some women!

Matavai PacFest 2017

This video features our advanced Siva Afi class instructor, Justyce Edmonds as well as our favourite Moemoana Schwenke of Matavai Pacific Cultural Arts.  Moemoana has been an inspiration to our whole team as she showcases that Siva afi is not just for men.  Pointing out to all that women excel and thrive in the ways of the Samoan warrior.

2012 World Fire Knife Highlights

Can we have a Fire Knife Dance blog and not include some of the performances from the championships? No, we cannot.  This is why we have included this video. While there are distinct differences to the performances you see at a function as opposed to competition performance, the energy, the adrenaline and the fierce Samoan Warrior all come out to provide an entertaining and fun-filled time.

The 2012 World Fire Knife Championships is also a special event because the winner came from Tahiti.  This is important today because while the art of Ailao and Siva Afi is a Samoan cultural tradition, it doesn’t mean that only Samoans can participate.  Siva Afi can be performed by men, women and children of any ethnicity as long as they are taught the correct principles and respect the art as a Samoan tradition.

Fireknife Dance Battle

As we mentioned earlier Fire Knife Dancing is a traditional Samoan cultural performance.  Anytime that we mention traditional we are going to face those who say the moves are too modern, you can’t spin fire to a rap song, why are you wearing that when you are doing a siva afi performance.  The struggle to find the perfect mix of the modern with the traditional will always be difficult.  We love how this video highlights the benefits of having both to keep the tradition alive in our future generations.

If you would like to learn the art of the Samoan warrior through Siva Afi register for our online classes at Measina Siva Afi School.