SACRED ABAU DANCE CEREMONY FESTIVAL SET TO LAUNCH TODAY
By Josu KIM
The launch of the Moapa Levapuka Festival Ceremony is set to commerce at 3pm this afternoon at Maopa Village along the Aroma Coast of Abau District in Central Province.
This one-day festival kicked off today on Thursday 20th March 2025.
The event will also see the National Cultural Commission issue the certification official marking the occasion as an annual event in its calendar.
Festival Chairman Mr Avis Vanua Vevao said the idea to revive this dance after almost 37 years after it was last performed is to preserve and promote this significant cultural heritage among the young generation.
The certification of this festival will also make this a commercial entity of the youths in Maopa Village.
Mr. Vevao says this unique ritual dance is strictly performed by men on coconut trunks and then of the ground accompanied by only by different kundu beats drum without singing and concludes with the shaking of a live pig until it dies.
He says in the past, those men who fall of the coconut trunk while dancing become sick and eventually die however in recent times, they did a twist to this practice.
The event has different dance performance which will lead up to the sacred dance itself.
