Chapter 07
Twenty-Four Performances from Tuvalu and Its Diaspora
7 min
The surviving record does not represent every island equally. These twenty-four performances begin with five selections from the 1990 PAN anthology, continue through the Nanumea and Koch collections, and move into public song, string band, diaspora, pop and contemporary art. Fakanau, fakaseasea and two full fatele performances appear beside one another so that their differences can be heard as well as defined.
1. Katepu Laoi: “Lakia Bird Call”
Twenty-one seconds can contain exact environmental knowledge. Its contour and timbre matter before any debate over whether it is a song. Laoi’s name keeps the imitation attached to a person, not generic island nature.
2. Motusa and Tokolau: “Te Foe Te Foe Kia Atua”
Paddle imagery survives in an older fakanau associated with Niutao. Audio preserves words and pulse; seek the documented gestures to understand how upper-body movement carried the narrative.
3. Magalo and the Ladies of the Nanumea Community: “Pulisimani O Te Malo”
This fakaseasea gives gesture and text more room than the long fatele that follows. Listen to its three-and-a-half-minute pacing and the women’s collective vocal presence. Nanumea enters through named performers, not an island label alone.
At seven and a half minutes, this fatele has room to unfold. Acceleration, shortening breaths and thickening percussion transform it cycle by cycle. The performing location is Funafuti; the community identity named in the credit is Niutao.
At ten minutes, this is the longest fatele performance in the selection. Its build differs from “Tu Mo Amioga,” and neither performance stands as a national template. Nui’s community arrives in the capital with its own prepared work.
Its scale also tests the listener: stay with the fatele beyond the first recognisable cycle and hear attention shift from text alone to breath, percussion, movement and collective endurance.
6. Church of Tuvalu Choir: “Mai Tou Lei Mo Matou Iesu”
Multipart harmony reveals the depth of Christian musical life. Follow collective consonants and the balance among sections. Mission history includes suppression, but the choir is a living Tuvaluan institution.
7. Manu Tagi Malie Group: “Days in Hospital”
Guitar-backed storytelling moves beyond heritage expectation. The modern subject and extended duration show a secular group adapting song to ordinary experience. Follow voice against the steady string accompaniment.
8. Nanumea Community Archive: “Fishing Logo and Fakanaunau Ika”
Treat this as knowledge in sound. Fishing terms, narrative and island memory matter more than atmospheric ocean imagery. The community archive preserves context across a much larger body of recordings.
9. Ana and Lina of Nanumaga: “Nanumaga Recordings, 1960–61”
The names survive in Gerd Koch’s account of the people who made his collection possible. The paired discs and accompanying volume keep song title, singer and island connected. Two named voices make Nanumaga present without claiming to represent all of its music.
10. Lili, Liva, Tavita and Fakapelu of Nukufetau: “Nukufetau Recordings, 1960–61”
These named contributors make Nukufetau audible in another island-specific part of Koch’s collection. The published volume and discs preserve access even though the recordings are not widely circulated.
11. Afaese Manoa: “Tuvalu mo te Atua”
The national anthem joins Christian commitment and state identity, and its writer deserves direct credit. In communal performance, the melody is shaped for many voices, with no virtuoso soloist at the centre.
12. Kelemene: “This World of Ours”
Climate worry enters through a named 2011 composition. The lyric asks what will happen, appeals for attention and turns toward faith. Hear a citizen’s argument, not a soundtrack for inevitable disappearance.
13. Opetaia Foa‘i: “Tutuki”
Foa‘i’s songwriting connects Tokelauan and Tuvaluan family history to a pan-Pacific career. Percussion, voice and language carry the work before the later global cinema association enters the picture.
14. Olivia Foa‘i featuring Matatia Foa‘i: “My Way”
Move from family ensemble to solo authorship. Olivia’s voice and contemporary production establish an independent perspective shaped by Aotearoa, Tokelauan and Tuvaluan connections.
15. TK Music: “Kia Au”
Tuvaluan-language pop becomes direct and intimate. The vocal hook and produced Pacific rhythm need no fatele quotation to establish a sense of place. The song belongs to a much wider body of modern Tuvaluan writing.
16. TK Music featuring Eileen: “Luti mai”
Released on 1 July 2026, this collaboration shows TK Music at a later stage. Its studio balance and shared credit differ from “Kia Au” without creating a false opposition between tradition and modernity.
17. Soloseni featuring DJ Neleta: “Te Mama”
Maternal address enters a collaborative mix in which both the lead and featured production credit matter. Contemporary Tuvaluan music is made through networks, not isolated singers.
18. Course 92: “Eimos”
This 2014 track preserves another contemporary Tuvaluan voice. It does not need to fit an island-tradition category to belong within the country’s musical life.
19. Barry featuring DJ Lil Criz: “Soso Mai”
Remix and collaboration connect Tuvaluan audiences to wider Pacific pop. DJ Lil Criz’s credit belongs with the song even when reposted versions shorten the title or attribution.
20. Pa Laumilo: “Singing in the Van”
An informal setting restores ordinary music-making. The voice does not need studio polish to carry presence. Community video can document a social moment commercial catalogues never see.
21. Tuvalu Live Music Zone: “Ligo te vaveao”
This 2024 digital single broadens the current scene beyond one artist and one video archive. Hear the produced rhythmic bed and vocal hook as a release in its own right, not evidence that modern Tuvalu must sound a particular way.
22. Siu Williams-Lemi: “Tuvaluan Welcome Song”
New educational music supports language in diaspora. Williams-Lemi, Leah Williams-Partington and guitarist Toa Siulangapo turn greeting and vocabulary into an authored children’s track, not simulated antiquity.
23. Pacific Artists for Climate Justice: “This Is Our Home”
Vailahi Vaoese’s Tuvaluan connection enters a regional movement. Hear collective purpose while keeping each island artist named. Climate solidarity becomes stronger when it does not erase local identity.
24. Molia Alama-Tulafono: “Pokisi – Te Fatu Manava”
The final work makes a box into instrument, memory and interactive art. Developed between diaspora practice and Funafuti, it moves fatele technology toward a future instead of enclosing it in preservation.
Hearing Music in Tuvalu
In Funafuti, public national celebrations, church services, school events and programmes such as the 16–21 August 2026 Fakaapo Tuvalu Arts Festival provide different entrances. Confirm future programmes locally. A fatele offered for a public welcome is appropriate to attend; a private wedding, funeral or rehearsal requires invitation.
Ask which island group is performing. The answer changes language, costume, repertory and social stakes. Watch singers and pokisi players as closely as dancers. Record only when permission is clear, especially around children and community ceremonies.
“Tuvalu: A Polynesian Atoll Society” preserves performer credits alongside music, while the Nanumea archive holds long-form local histories. MusicTuvalu and TK Music represent contemporary pop; Te Vaka, Olivia Foa‘i and Pacific climate projects reveal several diaspora networks.
A concise sequence might join Motusa and Tokolau, Magalo and the Ladies of Nanumea, the Niutao Community on Funafuti, Church of Tuvalu Choir, TK Music featuring Eileen and Molia Alama-Tulafono. It moves from fakanau through fakaseasea and fatele to hymn, current pop and contemporary sound art.
Tuvaluan music does not end with an island fading from view. It continues wherever people decide how a box should sound, how a repeated line should gather force and how a community should enter the next cycle together.
Frequently Asked Questions
Questions about Twenty-Four Performances from Tuvalu and Its Diaspora
What is fatele?
Fatele is Tuvalu’s most visible communal song-and-dance form. Singers, dancers, clapping and pokisi percussion build intensity through repeated cycles whose tempo, volume and movement continually change.
Are fakanau, fakaseasea and fatele the same dance?
No. Fakanau belongs to an older family of praise and narrative dance song, often emphasizing upper-body gesture. Fakaseasea is generally slower and more flexible, while modern fatele is known for collective acceleration and mounting force. Island practice also varies.
What is a pokisi?
A pokisi is a resonant wooden box used as percussion, especially in fatele. Players strike different surfaces and patterns to support voices and dancers as the performance accelerates.
Does every Tuvaluan island have the same music?
No. The nine island communities share national institutions and many musical practices, but they maintain distinct histories, performance identities, language features and community repertories. Public recordings document some islands much more fully than others.
How did Christianity change Tuvaluan music?
Missionaries discouraged songs connected to older spiritual practice, causing significant loss. Tuvaluans also made hymnody and multipart choral singing central to worship and public life, and church harmony later influenced secular and dance music.
Who wrote Tuvalu’s national anthem?
Afaese Manoa wrote “Tuvalu mo te Atua,” which became the national anthem at independence. Its Christian language and communal vocal character reflect the close historical relationship between church and public ceremony.
Is all Tuvaluan music about climate change?
No. Climate change is an urgent subject for some artists, but Tuvaluan songs also address love, faith, family, humour, homeland, work and dance. Reducing the country to climate loss obscures its ordinary and creative life.
How does Tuvaluan music continue in diaspora?
Churches, family gatherings, dance groups, children’s songs and digital circulation carry language and repertory through communities in Aotearoa New Zealand, Fiji, Australia and elsewhere. Music also travels back to the islands; movement is not one-way.
Can visitors attend a fatele?
Visitors can attend fatele presented at announced public celebrations, festivals and welcomes. Weddings, funerals, rehearsals and other private occasions require invitation, and recording should occur only with clear permission.
Where is the best place to begin listening?
The 1990 anthology “Tuvalu: A Polynesian Atoll Society” places bird calls, fakanau, fakaseasea, fatele, church choir and guitar song beside one another. TK Music, Olivia Foa‘i and Molia Alama-Tulafono then extend that history into contemporary pop, diaspora and sound art.
