Siva Afi

Last Saturday night we attended the 7th Annual International Siva Afi Competition. Siva Afi is the traditional Samoa fire knife dance where long-handled bush knifes are spun, thrown and caught all to the beat of the Polynesian drums. To make this even more spectacular, especially during the evening when the sun has gone down, the knifes are on fire! There are some photos on Flickr, but they don’t really show how impressive these dancers are. We were lucky enough to get tickets to the final of the international competition, so we got to watch the 3 best junior and 3 best senior contestants selected from preliminary competition earlier in the week. The locals were really getting into it, encouraging the dancers. We could hardly hear over the screams of the waitresses when their man was on! In between the competitors we were entertained by some traditional (and not so traditional) Samoan singing and dancing. This was all hosted at Laumei Faiaga – the Turtle Take it Easy Bar!