The Voyage of Yacht Zulu: Dance, Sculpture, Market Place in Noumea

November 19, 2009
Dances at Place des Cocotiers; A snippet of history and sculptures in the ethno-botanical garden; Municipal market place

Dances at Place des Cocotiers

It is Thursday night. Let’s go to the Place des Cocotiers and take in the entertainment from 5:00 to 8:00 PM. This is a gathering place shaded by the beautiful flame trees. It is where people meet in the heart of the city to enjoy art or music or to just sit awhile and be.

We dinghy to the main wharf in Baie de la Moselle, and walk through the dirty streets at the “edge” of Noumea. A lovely young Kanak woman in a bright orange and green “missionary” muumuu is drunk beyond help and down on the pavement. Her drunk girlfriend is trying to pull her up. It is a very sad, but frequently real sight in Noumea.

At Place de Cocotiers there is a big stage and people are getting ready for some entertainment. Karaoke? Oh no. Yes! It is short lived though thank goodness. The whining and crooning fades away.

We wonder around the food stalls. A big shrimp bouillabaisse is bubbling in a giant wok. On the side of another hot plate, sautéed onions are piled high into a golden mound with sausages frying alongside the perimeter. The ‘chef’ spoons the mound of onions over and over to keep them warm.

Russ lingers a few moments, but surprisingly does not buy anything to eat. There are Travel stalls and a free sampling of the chocolate drink Milo. People are watching people. They’re enjoying themselves. I’m enthralled.

Some of the native Kanak women emulate the French women dressed in tight jeans and high, high, high heels, red lipstick, stylish tops. Casual chic. Little children hold hands and skip around in pretty dresses. Teenager girls flirt with the boys, who are not phased. They take pictures of the boys with their cell phones. Then giggle away.

More people gather at the stage. A dance troupe of 12 or 13-year olds are dressed in long blue skirts with a white flower print, and a sizeable slit up the side. Their tops are triangular in shape. They take their positions on stage and start swaying to the music. Melanesian, Kanak, French. I’m fixated on the little girl at center front row. She is of mixed blood. Her hair is in a woolly blonde bun, her big eyes are green-hazel, and her skin is light coffee-coloured. Her movement is perfect and in time. She is the best dancer on stage: fluid, with rhythm and expression.

There are two teachers in black form fitting short dresses, with one shoulder sleeveless and with slits up the one side. White Plumerias are tucked into the sides of their shining chignon hairdos. Their legs are shapely and move to the music beautifully.

One young teacher dances on the side of the stage. The other weaves a path through the young dancers to the front. She puts on her best for them, which is really, really good. She dances on the pads of her feet, rolling them so the hips gently sway—Polynesian style. She puts her whole soul into it. The dancing soothes the crowd, with all eyes on stage, and ends far too soon. Just a small taste of what is yet to come. Now for the main event!

Young men form a ring on stage wearing different styles of blue jeans—long and tight or baggy or knee length. They wear purple or pink or red T-shirts. They lean forward and stretch their arms out so that all their fingers meet at center making a cage-like ceiling. Two women with black waist-long hair, and dressed in bright yellow and green costumes, crouch on the floor under the men’s ceiling of arms.

They start writhing with the music and slowly spiral up through the men’s arms. With a loud crack of a drum beat the men scatter like shards of broken glass and disappear from stage. The young women dance vigorously to the sound of rap. French rap. Night has come and the coloured lights dance off their bright yellow and green fancy costumes and their long black hair trails their movement. They dart off the stage. Vanish!

The men take center stage again—about 12 of them. Now they have black pants on and white T-shirts. Over the white T-shirt is a black one with only one of the arms through the sleeve. They have caps on and some wear sun glasses. They start to dance to Michael Jackson’s Beat It. The heat is on…..

They change to French rap and American rap and start into turns at break dance—twirl, spin, fluid action. Cool cat. They are amazing dancers who dance like they are just out of Harlem, but no they are from New Caledonia! Young, lithe flexible, strong, happy, smiling, roguish dancers decked out to impress. The coolest of cats.

Don’t stop now! Oh no it is over. C’est fini pour ce soir. The little girls who danced at the start to Polynesian music are now back on stage in blue jeans and their street dress for a short finale. They dance their little legs off to rap music and the crowd hangs in until the music stops.

Slowly the crowd beaks up: the stylish women in their high, high heels, and the girls still flirting with the boys, and the travelers by day and night all make their way to the quiet, dark back streets of the closed-down town all filtering toward their homes for the night. Even the two drunk Kanak women are gone I am pleased to see.

The crowd carries the aromas of bouillabaisse, and sautéed onions, and sausages, and hot Milo; and the various sound of music genres; and beautiful fashion and dance images that conjure up tropical paradise or streets of Harlem or LA all from the Place des Cocotiers, Noumea, New Caledonia.

The snippet of history and sculptures in the ethno-botanical garden

These next two paragraphs come from traveler tips written in an annotated New Caledonia Visitor Map, 2008.

“The great voyaging canoes of the Melanesian people sailed into New Caledonia 1500 to 2000 years ago, but it was Captain Cook who named the islands in memory of Scotland when he arrived here en route to New Zealand in 1774. In September 1853, Admiral Febvrier-Despointes claimed New Caledonia as a French territory, opening the floodgates for the French settlers. Thousands of convicts were also deported to the island and remnants of that era can be seen today. In the 1890s, migrants from Indonesia and Java arrived, adding to the country’s cultural diversity.

The official language is French, although English is widely spoken and understood. There are also about 30 different Melanesian languages."

30 different Melanesian languages? I cannot imagine grasping but one. Knowing only one language, English, certainly is a paltry achievement.

It is already time to think of checking out of Noumea. I linger awhile in the ethno-botanical gardens off Port Moselle and photograph three amazing sculptures.

One shows a Melanesian oarsman; another the position of New Caledonia in the blue Pacific Ocean with Australia to the west and NZ to the south, as if cupped at the angle of the earth’s axis; and a third is the Mwa Ka Kanak sculpture erected in 2004. This sculpture symbolizes reconciliation between the various cultures and commemorates the 150th anniversary of the French being in New Caledonia.

Melanesian people sailed into New Caledonia 1500 to 2000 years ago.

See the position of New Caledonia in the Pacific Ocean with Australia to the west and NZ to the south, as if cupped at the angle of the earth’s axis.

The Mwa Ka sculpture is a Kanak monument symbolizing reconciliation between the different cultures of New Caledonia.

Municipal market place

Now with ethno-cultural and sculptural images tucked digitally away I take my time walking through the Saturday municipal market place on the wharf. Here first hand I can see the people of New Caledonia: Melanesian (Kanaks), French, Chinese, Indian, and a sprinkling of tourists from all over the world.

It is a tossup between photographing the people or the produce. The prompt of stocking up for our passage to NZ is there to buy as well. I have fresh mahi mahi, Thon blanc (albacore tuna), oranges, lychees, tender lettuce, tomatoes, egg plant, zucchini, and on and on and on in mind.

And what about the breads, and pastries, and cheeses.

Go for a walkabout now with me and drink in the life and nourishment and colours.