Michel Tuffery Invites Sydney to Siamani Samoa

New Zealand artist Michel Tuffery joined forces with the Royal Samoa Police Band, who were in Sydney playing outside the Pacific Islands for the first time, to mark the 100th anniversary of the end of German colonial rule.

Monday to Friday without fail, at 8:45am, the Police Band march from the station to Government House in the capital Apia to raise the country’s flag. Sporting spotless white tropical uniforms, they play their own version of Viennese brass band music – a leftover tradition from colonial rule when the Germans governed Samoa from 1900 to 1914.

Inspired by this music, Tuffery created Siamani Samoa (German Samoa), a large-scale live performance work exploring the legacy of the German colonial administration of Samoa.

Tuffery remembers being baffled when visiting Apia: “I heard this brass band going past and I did a double take. That’s actually German music,” he says over coffee, shaking his head in wonder.

The musicians performed German brass band music as well as traditional Samoan music – with singers and dancers – in a two-hour show before a 12m video projection created by Tuffery. The video included images of Samoa as it is today as well as historical photos, including German architecture in Apia and portraits of the first German governor, Wilhelm Solf.

Original article by Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore, The Guardian, July 16, 2015.

Photo by Susannah Wimberley/Carriageworks.