A vital chapter in the little-known history of the people of Banaba, displaced from their Pacific island homeland by mining interests in the mid-20th century, underpins a new exhibition at the University of Sydney’s Chau Chak Wing Museum.
Dance Protest, Project Banaba focuses on dance as a tool of political empowerment and protest, and a medium for preserving culture in the face of environmental devastation.
Featuring depictions of traditional dance, historic photography, dance regalia from the museum’s cultural collections and new artworks, the free exhibition reflects on the recent history and future of the Banaban people. New photographic artworks created by artist and Professor of Pacific Studies at the Australian National University, Katerina Teaiwa are a centrepiece of the show.
A tiny island in the central Pacific, Banaba was effectively destroyed by the British Phosphate Commissioners in the 20th century. A colonial partnership between the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, the conglomerate extracted 22 million tons of phosphate over 80 years from the tiny coral atoll, for use in global agriculture. In 1945 the community was forcibly relocated to the island of Rabi in Fiji so mining could continue unimpeded. Banaba became part of the Republic of Kiribati when it gained independence in 1979.
Dance as a form of protest
Dance is a cultural mainstay for the Banabans and central to Professor Teaiwa’s academic work and artistic practice.
“In the 1970s, when they sued the British government and company for the decimation of their island, Banaban dancers led protest marches that accompanied legal proceedings,” Professor Teaiwa said.
Non-Banaban audiences were introduced to this unique dance form by American-Australian dancer Beth Dean in the 1960s. Dean, with husband Victor Carell, included Banaban dance when they staged the inaugural South Pacific Festival of Arts in Fiji in 1971. Dean also programmed Banaban dance for the opening of Sydney’s Opera House in 1973.
Professor Teaiwa, who is of Banaban descent, says, in trying to understand Pacific dance forms, Dean conveyed her own ideas of traditional dance. They narrowed the creativity and costuming of Banaban dance, with some dances frozen in historic moments.
“The Chau Chak Wing Museum holds some of Dean’s archives and costumes and I reflected on these while developing the exhibition.”
The [exhibition] is a big story about a tiny island measuring six-square kilometres, whose land fueled the colonial prosperity of the British Empire in the 20th century, a common story across the Pacific
Michael Dagostino
University of Sydney Director of Museums and Cultural Engagement
Dance Protest, Project Banaba
Professor Teaiwa has created new dance notation for Banaban, Emananga Emanangananga – A Dance Inciting Warriors to Battle, recorded by Beth Dean as a men’s dance in the 1970s.
In the exhibition, the dance work takes the form of giant photographic silhouettes, featuring her dancer-athlete daughter Tearia as a model. Tearia also co-designed costumes for the exhibition.
“The exhibition is a close collaboration with my daughter, a young woman of the Banaban diaspora,” said Professor Teaiwa. “This is our dance riposte to Dean and the patriarchical forces that sacrificed ancestral land for short-term economic gain.”
Dance Protest, Project Banaba is the fifth instalment in the Project Banaba series presented by Professor Teaiwa. The series has been curated by Yuki Kihara, an artist and curator who represented Aotearoa New Zealand at the 59th Venice Biennale in 2022.
“Following the Tidal Kin exhibition, Project Banaba builds our museum’s interest in collaborating with Pacific peoples and artists, and building awareness of unknown histories and perspectives from the Pacific,” said the University's Director of Museums and Cultural Engagement Michael Dagostino.
“In creating this exhibition, Professor Teaiwa has responded to archives and objects in our Pacific collections. The result is a big story about a tiny island measuring six-square kilometres, whose land fueled the colonial prosperity of the British Empire in the 20th century, a common story across the Pacific.”
The exhibition will officially launch this week as part of the Australian Association of Pacific Studies conference, Pacific Discourses and Destinies, hosted at the University of Sydney. The biennial conference aims to create and sustain critical conversations and collaborations across the region and in the field of Pacific studies.
Dance Protest, Project Banaba runs at the Chau Chak Wing Museum’s Penelope Gallery until 25 January 2026. Opening hours are listed here.
Banabans protesting phosphate mining on Banaba (Ocean Island), and seeking political sovereignty and independence from Great Britain and the Colony of the Gilbert Islands, 1979. Photo: courtesy Catherine Alexander.
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