A dozen students from Mission's Arch-Way Dance and their families travelled to Fiji last month as part of a 10-day dance exchange program.
Arch-Way Dance director Gina Mataika previously taught at VOU Fiji for three years from 2012 to 2015, managing the dance school and the company. She returned to Canada and opened up a small dance school in Mission that has since seen participation skyrocket.
Mataika says sharing her past with her students was an emotional experience.
“Most of the dancers that came have started with me from the beginning, when I first started [in Mission],” she said. “It just felt quite special to have this opportunity of the of the kids seeing sort of a little piece of my history. They got to walk into the studios and they saw photos of me dancing and [the VOU instructor] was a student of mine.”
Arch-Way has been fundraising for two years. Mataika said it’s been a dream of hers to develop an exchange program with VOU Fiji to do both a cultural and a dance exchange.
The dancers who travelled for the program were between 10 and 15 years old while the VOU and their dancers were between the ages of 18 to 25 a“nd working towards a diploma in dance.
“They were great mentors to our students with that age gap there,” she said.
The Mission students were welcomed with a traditional ceremony and had the chance to attend a dance show. The group also saw other parts of the country during the 10-day trip/
“I felt it was just such a great inspiration for the dancers and also educational. And I think it was, to be honest, quite life changing,” Mataika said.
In the future, Mataika hopes to continue the dance exchange and take more dancers to Fiji. She also expects up to five dancers from Fiji program will be coming to Mission next year.
