Laurel Neighborhood News

by John Frando and Kathleen Rolinson

Tongan Church Dancers

When youth group dancers from the Laurel United Methodist Church (the Tongan Church) took to the Kansas Street stage of the Laurel Summer Solstice Music Festival, the audience felt as if it had been transported to a far away Polynesian island.

More than 20 dancers, young women in beautiful multicolored skirts and young men wearing leis, danced barefooted on large straw mats laid on the street. Elder family members quietly sat and watched from behind as the youths demonstrated dances from various Polynesian islands set to recorded music.

The women waved their hands and hips with expression and grace, and the men leaped and chanted with power and rhythm as a young woman with a microphone explained the backgrounds of the dances and announced the names of Polynesian islands like Fiji, Hawaii, Tahiti, Samoa, and finally, their native Tonga.

Seated in front of the audience, church secretary Vaitepoloi Fifita, or Vaite, beamed with pride as the delighted crowd applauded and cheered the dancers. She is the person who made arrangements with festival organizers to bring the dancers to the stage.

Vaite said that the performance was intended to showcase unity among the Polynesian islands, and that each island has its own dances which are important ways to communicate stories or prayers. "Traditionally, men and women dance in groups after they are married, but the unmarried can do individual dances," she explained.

Vaite said that the amazing dance program had not been choreographed and that the young people taught themselves the dances. The youth group is one of the many programs that the church has to engage the youths and promote retention of the Tongan culture among their congregation of 400 members.

According to Vaite, the East Bay Tongan community totals about 5,000. The Tongan congregation moved into their Laurel location in 1973, when the Methodist conference gave them the church.

The hope is that the performances will help build bridges between the church and neighbors living nearby who might not understand aspects of Tongan culture and lifestyle. The Tongan lifestyle is spent mostly outdoors, with men enjoying a drink made of the kava plant and women weaving traditional cloth called tapa.

Judging from the enthusiastic reaction of the crowd, the young Tongans made a positive impression and connection to their Laurel neighbors.

Reverend Maile Koloto heads the Laurel United Methodist congregation. Services are performed Wednesday and Sundays in the Tongan language. Asked if the language might be a barrier to non-Tongan visitors, Vaite replied, "We reach out to everybody who comes to our church."

John Frando can be reached at jfrando\@gmail.com, Kathleen Rolinson at krolinson\@gmail.com.