Plaiting The Pandanus Mat of Change in Vanuatu

Solid Sistas (Dorras 2004), a play by the Vanuatu-based NGO and theatre group Wan Smolbag, questions and subverts hierarchical and patriarchal legacies of colonialism deeply ingrained in Vanuatu kastom. To challenge this tradition, the play imagines and practises a dialogic plaiting together of conflicting voices that creates a space for feminist and anti-colonial togetherness. As urban postcolonial community theatre written in the local Bislama language for local actors and audiences, performances of the play do not satisfy escapist colonial fantasies of the island but collectively address ever-urgent social and political community issues. In the course of dismantling the illusion of monophonic patriarchal voices, a polyphonic space of dialogue across genders and differences is imagined through the practice of wivim (weaving) or plaiting. Analysing Solid Sistas through the lenses of polyphony, postcolonialism and Oceanic feminism, this essay demonstrates a specific example of Pacific Island persistence and resistance through a close study of the pan-Oceanic art of plaiting and cultural form of community theatre.

................. (Dorras 2004), a play by the Vanuatu-based NGO and theatre group Wan Smolbag, questions and subverts hierarchical and patriarchal legacies of colonialism deeply ingrained in Vanuatu kastom. To challenge this tradition, the play imagines and practises a dialogic plaiting together of conflicting voices that creates a space for feminist and anti-colonial togetherness. As urban postcolonial community theatre written in the local Bislama language for local actors and audiences, performances of the play do not satisfy escapist colonial fantasies of the island but collectively address ever-urgent social and political community issues. In the course of dismantling the illusion of monophonic patriarchal voices, a polyphonic space of dialogue across genders and differences is imagined through the practice of wivim (weaving) or plaiting. Analysing Solid Sistas through the lenses of polyphony, postcolonialism and Oceanic feminism, this essay demonstrates a specific example of Pacific Island persistence and resistance through a close study of the pan-Oceanic art of plaiting and cultural form of community theatre.

Introduction
Escaping western ways of representing islands from afar requires attention to local languages, cultural practices and social contexts. Oceanic practices of different forms of plaiting and weaving, such as ni-Vanuatu's wivim, Maōri raranga, Hawai'ian ulana, Tongan lalanga and Samoan su'ifefiloi, are forms of a deeply local culture as lived and embodied practice and metaphorically capture the simultaneity and indivisibility of the activity and the final product of connecting threads. Not only traditional in form, plaiting practices have also changed through contact with missionaries, colonists and, nowadays, tourism, as well as through the increased movement within and between the different islands (Bolton 2003, 166-167;Keller 1988, 2-3). In Vanuatu, as across Oceania, plaiting practices are central to reinforcing women's relationships, empowering them economically and symbolically as integral and equal members of the place and community (Bolton 2003;Douglas 1998;Hazelgrove Planel 2019;Kelly 1999). The plaiting of mats and baskets in Vanuatu is mostly women's work (Bolton 2003;Jolly 1994, 82;Hazelgrove Planel 2019) and the knowledge of plaiting is often learned in multi-generational groups where the younger members of the community watch and imitate their mothers and grandmothers. Through plaiting, women not only establish a connection to and dialogue with each other, the local community, land and economic system over generations, but also the many islands within Vanuatu and across Oceania. Plaiting is a relational practice that, used in different forms throughout Oceania, emphasizes the connection and shared realities between islands through the ocean and beaches as dialogic meeting spaces. By using mats and baskets as payment, especially for their children's school fees (Hazelgrove Planel 2019, 223ff.), women have successfully entered into the traditionally male domain of trade (Bolton 2003, 52-53;Jolly 1994, 83). The embodied and dialogic communicating done in, through and with the act and product of plaiting dismantles the binary of person and thing, as well as those of foreign-local, man-woman, colonial-postcolonial and past-present, by mixing and connecting cultures, places, communities, experiences and times (Bolton 2003, 121ff.;Hazelgrove Planel 2019;Kelly 1999, 318ff., 265ff.). While alternately plaiting the "male" and "female" strands, the activity often lends itself to discussions and jokes about existing gender relations (Kelly 1999, 260ff.) as it simultaneously creates, maintains and embodies social relationships (Bolton 2003, 130). Both symbolic and literal plaiting disrupts binary structures, such as the idea of clear-cut borders between islands, through long histories of exchanging techniques, patterns and types of plaiting that disintegrate imposed colonial mindsets that have been indigenized in local structures of church, family and governance.
Plaiting may serve as a model for many aspects of postcolonial cultural identity, social practices and relationships within and across island nations, an inclusive, polyphonic and feminist weaving together of many, at times conflicting, local and foreign ideas, influences and traditions. Indeed, during the Pacific feminists' forum in 2016, the existing "pandanus mats of our current struggles" (Charter of Feminist Principles for Pacific Feminists 2016, 2) were discussed, emphasizing their ongoing and postcolonial connectedness, and "recognis[ing] that our strength lies in our diversity" (1), including "men and boys as participants and allies in our work" (3). This essay applies this polyphonic, feminist weaving to the specific context of Vanuatu community theatre, Wan Smolbag, which voices these plural feminist concerns in their own Bislama language and in dialogue with audiences around the islands. By accessing this very local performance of unpublished work, 1 here one particular play, Solid Sistas, this essay explores the ways in which one example of Oceanic storytelling in a collaborative community environment plaits together traditional oral forms of theatre with the conventions of scripted drama in order to literally perform the process of repurposing colonial images, structures and ideologies for local and contemporary circumstances. Instead of simply inverting or rejecting imposed colonial culture by assuming the existence of pure indigenous forms, thus reproducing the colonial mindsets of an exclusive either-or ideology, the gathering of pandanus leaves in plaiting opens up a dynamic and dialogic performative space of negotiation that is inclusive, polyphonous and self-determined. Critically investigating power dynamics by literally enacting contradiction and conflict, community theatre actively contributes to decolonizing ongoing neo-colonial hierarchies and structures (Betz 2003, 186-7; see also Looser 2011, 521;Balme 1999, 271). The mixing of local and foreign forms to "create a dynamic performative space" rejects local and foreign assumptions of absolute difference (Looser 2014, 1, 10). Such work dissolves binaries imported from colonialism and Christianity that are central pillars of much of western theatre, such as a distinction between reality and fiction, as well as performers and spectators (1) idealized images of the island by performing, reflecting and reimagining a polyphony of experiences and realities that subverts stereotypical and imposed tourist images of Vanuatu. Through inclusive participation and dialogic methods that may change with each performance setting and audience interaction, community theatre encourages debate that insists upon multiplicity and openness of dynamic, ever-changing island voices.
Certainly, postcolonial community theatre in Oceania cannot be distinguished from the communities for and with whom they are staged, just as plaiting cannot be distinguished from the people plaiting and using the plaited textiles: local specificities within a regional recognition of community is part of the strength of both cultural practices. In Vanuatu, one specificity are the patriarchal and colonial monophonic structures of kastom (Jolly 1994;Douglas 2002, 19;Bolton 2003). Originally a term used by the missionaries to refer to all local practices they disliked, anti-colonial sentiment during independence replaced colonial Christian denigration of all local traditions with a masculine nationalist devaluation of women and the contributions of their cultural practices. Based on a colonial and Christian "us versus them" hierarchy, kastom simultaneously depends on the dissociation of one from the other while being intricately bound to each other. Like plaiting, the two sides must forever exist intertwined in tension. Much like foreign ideas homogenizing diverse island experiences and manifestations, kastom is an abstract concept that helps maintain monophonic patriarchal structures of the nation by proposing the fixity of island identity in Vanuatu. The collaborative activity of community theatre, in which women are centrally involved, challenges the gendering of kastom structures and practices that continue to privilege men (Douglas 2002, 19;Taylor 2010, 291;Bolton 2003, xiii) without, however, outright rejecting kastom which is tightly woven into post-independence Vanuatu society and ni-Vanuatu identity.
Vanuatu's Wan Smolbag Theatre exemplifies the plaiting technique of Oceanic postcolonial theatre, and thus may be explored as illustrative of creative island responses to their own local issues that remain conscious of their colonial past and the pressures of the global present. The company's name stems from their theatre practice initially involving nothing more than a bag of props with which they travelled around the islands. As most plays, including Solid Sistas (Dorras 2004), are performed in Vanuatu's national language, Bislama, the plays can reach a wider audience than written work, such as poetry or prose (Jolly 2005, 148). 2 Paradoxically to western and academic forms of knowledge-making based on exposure and accessibility, the example of community theatre reveals that the creative cultural practices most important in local island environments are those most likely to be overlooked, ignored and unknown on the international level. Use of Bislama is both a decolonizing strategy that makes expression and participation more inclusive for the actors in the production process and the audience in post-play discussions, as well as a feminist act, reclaiming the language for women who, especially before independence, were often forced to speak the local languages in an attempt to limit their contact with the world beyond their village (Jolly 1994, 8, 11, 89). 3 As a dually decolonizing and feminist strategy that gives both voice and meaning to the audience rather than the producers, Wan Smolbag Theatre demonstrates community theatre objectives of dismantling hierarchies and narrative control (Durden 2015). As the plays rarely contain a simplistic resolution or happy ending, characters' differences are allowed to stand on their own merit, leaving the audience to judge for themselves.
2 According to Jolly (2005, 148), "only 30 percent of Vanuatu's population is literate and few ni-Vanuatu, even in town, read newspapers or journals, let alone buy books of poetry." According to the National Population and Housing Census, however, 98 per cent of the urban population and 80 per cent of the rural population above the age of 5 are literate, namely can "read and write a simple sentence in any language." (Vanuatu National Statistics This is also a direct response to the portrayal of Vanuatu as one of the happiest places on earth that is an example of idealistic imagery that ignores the complex and polyphonous lived realities of islanders. It reproduces and maintains existing monophonic patriarchal structures of dominance that are based on the silencing of marginalized groups who remain hidden behind such romantic and idealistic phrases. 4 By closely interacting and talking to the community, Wan Smolbag Theatre reimagines the monophonic idea of Vanuatu as a paradisal, exotic tourist destination by reflecting the existing polyphony of emotions in the voices of the characters in the play. Not just a theatre company, Wan Smolbag is also woven into the broader community at grassroots level, having established health clinics, environmental projects and a peer-education system to combat STIs, unwanted teenage pregnancies and related issues. These sensitive topics are also central in their plays and in their many other media forms, including the Pacific-wide popular television series Love Patrol (2007-16) and films such as George and Sheila (1994), A Piece of Land (2003), Talemaot (2017), and Tears I Foldaon (2020). 5 Wan Smolbag also publishes accompanying workbooks for use in workshops and at school to discuss the themes of the films, series or plays through collaborative exercise suggestions that are woven together with the songs, characters and stories of the media productions. The popularity and availability of their locally specific productions and workbooks across Oceania further illustrates their reimagining of colonial, neoliberal island boundaries as inclusive meeting grounds.
Solid Sistas (Dorras 2004), one of the company's most popular plays, illustrates the power and potential of plaiting as a method to challenge kastom and monophonic island representations. In line with Wan Smolbag's other projects and initiatives, this play is multi-voiced, with the variety of characters collectively questioning existing patriarchal structures, while its open-endedness is subversive in not privileging kastom over any other social practice, in a form of Bakhtinian polyphony applied to theatre (Balkaya 2015;Mohammadi-Aghdash 2013;Intezar 2013). Whereas the dominance of colonial and later ni-Vanuatu kastom silences the majority of other voices, especially of women, plays such as Solid Sistasbased on ideas of postcolonial community theatre and the Oceanic practice of plaitinginsist on polyphonic and dialogic open-endedness that resists external attributions.
Solid Sistas is an urban play about a group of four friends -Jennie, Lizzie, Flora and Marywho want to become the first electric girl band in Vanuatu. The urban setting is a meeting ground for many different islanders that subverts the tourist image of locals casually strolling along "white sand beaches" under the "blue blue sky" (Solid Sistas, 29). 6 Instead, the polyphony of voices and realities expressed and shared in town undermines false (neo)colonial dichotomies that classify islands as Office 2009, xii) The literacy in Bislama was highest (74 per cent), followed by English (64 per cent) and French (37 per cent), with half of the population being literate in another language, other than those three (xii). 3 Women speaking Bislama were seen as prostitutes, as men feared that with women having contact outside their villages they would be threatened both in their economic and trading abilities, as well as their sexuality and fertility (Jolly 1994, 8, 89); until the 1970s it was mostly a language of "expatriate employment", which was mostly male (Bolton 2003, 53). The radio and the fact that Bislama was made a national language with independence made the learning of the language easier for women (Jolly 1994, 12 either poor or rich, beautiful or ugly, happy or unhappy. Throughout the play the four women are subjected to a number of gender-based and other forms of physical, sexual and emotional violence that arise out of conflicting, limiting, and arbitrary rules of the church and kastom system. Despite conflict arising from these pressures, their solidarity as friends and as a band constitutes the play's main focus. Lizzie is a sex worker for which she constantly faces contempt and critique by others, including her friend and fellow band member Mary. Mary, in turn, suffers gender-based violence from her husband Malcolm, who beats her, repeatedly cheats on her, and tries to buy sex from Lizzie. Flora, the pastor's daughter, is the most Christian of the girls, and, as a result, doubtful about the critical song lyrics and the negative connotation of a girl band, which the men argue is an inappropriate activity for women, who should stay at home. Jennie, who initiated the girl band, gets fed up with the constant conflicts and loses faith in the band. While the creation of an electric girl band at first evokes ridicule, the band's perseverance, and indeed the play as a whole, shows that "solid sistas" and Solid Sistas can force society to notice the usually unseen patriarchal power structures and thus encourage the change that is needed for a united future in increasingly uncertain times. The electric girl band's voices are plaited into the island narrative, thus not only subverting foreign but also local monophonic notions of island women.
Typical of Wan Smolbag plays and postcolonial community theatre in general, Solid Sistas illustrates that it is impossible to distinguish between the members of the community as actors, as ni-Vanuatu, and as participating audience. As the actor playing Fred says in the Solid Sistas Documentary, "The part I play in Solid Sistas was me when I was young", "So when you see me act, it's natural. It's me" (2006, 8:12-8:18; 8:20-8:24). Similarly, the actor playing Jimmy notes, "When I look at them [the boys in Solid Sistas] I think they are like the boys from my area" (7:46-7:55). Such perceived interwoven identities that are simultaneously acted out and part of community life are forms of polyphony that enable and encourage conflicting viewpoints and voices to interact. While the actors and audience might recognize their former selves or acquaintances in the characters, the theatre medium offers sufficient distance for nuanced and intimate reflection and space for critical engagement with these well-known voices to occur. Within this dynamic, women's voices, which are often silenced or sidelined because of kastom and romanticized island imagery, are centrally included in the collaborative plaiting of "a critical mirror" (Looser 2014, 34) that is held up to society. That the Solid Sistas Music Resource Workbook (Dorras 2006), published for teachers and community workers, is still used ten years after the last staging of the play testifies to the continuing relevance of Solid Sistas (Brimacombe 2016

Solid Sistas as Challenging Kastom
Solid Sistas exposes the explicit and implicit gendered violence found in the intersecting domains of church, the kastom system, marriage obligations, and even love and friendship. By engaging with "un(re)presentable" topics (Looser 2014, 16) such as gender-based violence, sexual assault, unemployment, peer pressure, public shaming, and church hypocrisy in an immediate and complex way, the play challenges the gender gap and neoliberal escapist images of islands. Despite the fact that "[l]egally, men and women are equal in Vanuatu" (Forsyth 2009, 13; see also Jolly 1996), in reality "there are almost 5-times more females engaged in home duties than males" and yet in 79 per cent of households it is men who are in charge (Vanuatu National Statistics Office 2009, 103, 127).
Efforts to increase gender equality have had little success (Tor and Toka 2004, 63;in Forsyth 2009, 13), and the status and position of women varies, depending on their location, level of education and similar factors (Jolly 2005, 148). By referencing the socioeconomic conditions of post-independence Vanuatu life, Solid Sistas illustrates gender inequality in everyday interactions and performs ways in which these structural patterns can collectively be unravelled and reimagined. While the fight for Vanuatu's independence from the British and French condominium in 1980 had consisted of leading female figures, including Grace Mera Molisa and Hilda Lini, in the decades after independence women have increasingly struggled to participate as equals in public and political life, which devalues women based on misogynistically appropriated kastom and church beliefs (Forsyth 2009, 13-16; see also Jolly 2005, 147;Donald, Strachan, and Taleo 2002). Instead of attempting to represent the diversely spread nation of more than 80 islands, the individualistic neoliberal interests of the frequently fluctuating male leaders have dominated: Vanuatu is one of few Pacific nations without a female MP.
The lack of jobs and opportunities is a central issue that would warrant substantial and sustainable political action and that has resulted in feelings of helplessness and uselessness, especially among ni-Vanuatu men and youthmore than 65 per cent are 29 years or younger (Vanuatu National Statistics Office 2016). This generalized perception is reflected in the play. As the character of Fred sums it up: "Haven't got anything to do, chief" (Solid Sistas 2004, 40), 7 which Jimmy, Jennie's brother elaborates: "Don't have work tomorrow / don't have school / don't have anything to do" (21). 8 By framing the characters' feelings of hopelessness within the greater structural struggles of a postcolonial nation, the play meets the audience at eye level, showing the discouraging reality of many members of the community and offering the otherwise lacking space to think about and critique these issues. This approach is also woven together with Wan Smolbag's work as an 7 "No gat samting blong mekem jif." 8 "No gat wok tumoro / No gat skul / No gat samting blong mekem." interventions -25:1 NGO. Their many projects focus on providing educational and recreational activities, strengthening the community through collective and reflective dialogue, and are especially aimed at the large numbers of ni-Vanuatu youth who are neither at school nor in work.
This lack of activity and the often alcohol-fuelled life in the city for the boys is juxtaposed with the chief saying: "Everyone has a piece of land on the island! You can make a garden!" (40), 9 disregarding the fact that these urban boys have probably never been in their "home" village on remote islands, do not want to go there and do not have the money for the trip. Ironically, while package holidays to "island paradises" are getting more affordable for the neoliberal elite, many of the youth growing up in Port Vila are unable to afford a trip to their parents' islands of origin. The indigenous yearning for an idealized past is closely linked to the strong "island-based sense of identity" in Vanuatu, a colonial construct that distortedly reinforced and created local and regional differences (Jolly 1994, 253). At the beginning of the play the new, but already very popular, electric boy band Ironman gives voice to this romanticized village idea by singing: "One day I'll go back to the village / [and] find my place in society" (Solid Sistas 2004, 3). 10 By framing the patriarchal and conservative kastom voice in a young and cool way, the band addresses all the members of the audience, simultaneously pointing at and concealing the interwoven kastom and modernity, urban and rural, and colonial and postcolonial life. The local adoption and modern adaptation of the western image of an easy, happy island way of living (Forsyth 2009, 6) parodies colonial imaginings of the exotic island experience discussed elsewhere in this special issue by Grau and Fresno-Calleja. It is, however, no less a dream in its indigenous iteration. When the chief tells Fred to leave the city for his home island, the choice between city or village is portrayed as a decontextualized either-or individual decision that fails to acknowledge the reciprocal influence of urban on village life, as well as the structural reasons for modern urban hopelessness, which is also a form of homelessness.
The image of an idealized village community is also closely related to a certain understanding of kastom, which can refer to certain traditional practices -"our way of doing things" (Forsyth 2009, 95)or to "a whole way of life" Jolly (1992, 341). 11 The well-being of the community depends on a shared foundation of the many local understandings of the kastom system which is traditionally led by a chief, 12 who is almost always male (Douglas 2002, 19;Bolton 2003). This focus on communal harmony often leads to the mistreatment of individuals, especially women (Forsyth 2009, 109). As noted by Molisa (1995, 390) in her poem "Custom", it has been "misapplied / bastardised / a Frankenstein / corpse / conveniently / recalled / to intimidate / women / the timid / the ignorant / the weak". The mistreatment of women becomes especially apparent in the case of gender-based violence where the unity of the family is often valued above the physical and mental health of 9 "Yufala evriwan i gat graon long aelan! Yu save mekem karen!" 10 "Wan de bae mi go bak long vilij / Faenem ples long society!" 11 This is also reflected in the different foci of the Vanuatu Cultural Centre (VCC) and the National Council of Chiefs (NCC) (Forsyth 2009, 76). 12 Bolton (1998, 185) notes that "the conflation between chiefs and kastom …  (Forsyth 2009, 109). This decision is reached at kastom meetings, where involvement of women varies greatly, but may best be summed up by the observation of Tahi, the director of the Vanuatu Women's Group: "women talk but they are not heard" (121). One of the female actors playing Lizzie notes, "you don't talk in our tradition, kastom, … you don't talk. If you talk you're rude, you don't have any respect, that's all the bad things" (Solid Sistas Documentary 2006, 5:05-5:20). In contemporary postcolonial Christian and kastom-centred Vanuatu society, women are not seen "as a whole being" (Forsyth 2009, 109). As a play featuring a majority of female characters, Solid Sistas gives women the space to talk and be heard, proving that dialogue is not disrespectful but necessary to defy dominant patriarchal voices that have been supported for too long by culturally imposed silences.
Limiting understanding of kastom is one of many forms of violence in the play. Gender-based violence, sexual assault and verbal abuse are institutionally and individually performed, highlighting their interwovenness and the intersection of colonially imposed structures and ideologies and the kastom system. Even though many initiatives nowadays are working on improving women's position in the kastom system, such as projects at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre (see Bolton 2003), the Vanuatu National Council for Women, the Vanuatu Women's Centre and various church groups (see Douglas 2002;Cupples and McDowell 2013), it is nonetheless often the case that women are blamed on principle (Forsyth 2009, 121-22), especially when the issues revolve around adultery or sexual assault. Also, it is often assumed "that domestic violence is an acceptable aspect of marriage or cohabitation" (Tor andToka 2004, 39-40, in Forsyth 2009, 13; see also Solid Sistas Documentary 2006, 16:34-16:37). One Solid Sistas actor recalls his own violent behaviour in the past, admitting that the play helped him identify and process it: "I've come to a time where I can see that everything was me blaming the woman" (18:10-18:15). Jo Dorras, Wan Smolbag's writer, notes that "the man, again, is allowed to do what he wants, can beat up the woman and nobody, not even her, will make any response to that" (15:01-15:11). This persistent devaluation of women partly stems from the tradition of paying a bride price, which gave men the impression of having bought women as their property (Forsyth 2009, 14; see also Jolly 2015). The lack of legal action against gender-based violence further consolidates this issue. The police sometimes say that they cannot do anything because "what happens in their home is their personal business" (Solid Sistas Documentary 2006, 17:42-17:46; see also Forsyth 2009, 122), which reflects the illusion of a clear-cut border between the domestic and public sphere, as unsuccessfully introduced by the missionaries (Bolton 2003, 55ff.; see also Cummings 2013, 40-41;Jolly 2014, 430-31). By subverting this gendered binary, the characters in the play diversify idealized conceptions of is so taken for granted in Vanuatu today that it is hard to unpick." interventions -25:1 island life. The persistence of kastom practices and chiefly structures in cities shows that kastom remains an important part of life for ni-Vanuatu today (Forsyth 2009, 20). Even though many patriarchal and discriminating structures remain, the fact that kastom is such a vague and flexible ideology also makes change within the system possible (see Bolton 2003, 168;Taylor 2010;Forsyth 2009). The electric boy band Ironman, set up as a contrast to the budding girl group Solid Sistas, is a modern example of male kastom voices. In Ironman's lyrics, "Kastom and culture / gives us power" (Solid Sistas 2004, 3), 13 kastom is immediately established as a central guiding moral and structural concept that is of great relevance and importance also to young men in urban centres. The use of kastom in a rock song shows how it is plaited together with a foreign music genre appropriated by ni-Vanuatu urban youth culture, including women. In fact, before Ironman performs the song, Jennie sings the same lines -"Kastom and culture gives us power" (1)to Mary, 14 showing thereby that she identifies with its precepts. Shortly after the concert, Mary's husband Malcolm arrives and berates his wife for hanging out with the girls (5-6). While the girls are afraid for Mary and want to defend her against the beating she is sure to receive, the boys are reluctant to get involved. As the stage directions instruct, "Jennie pulls Tony to come [help Mary], but he doesn't want to" (5), 15 leaving Jennie to physically defend her friend and call over the security guards. As security throws Malcolm out of the club, the issue of violence is not resolved but only pushed out of the public into the private sphere. This particular scene reflects a common cultural dynamic: women can paradoxically feel part of the kastom-inflected culture that implicitly condones gender-based violence, dancing along to the song and enjoying themselves, yet simultaneously they try to protect their friend persecuted by this very system that does not punish the male perpetrator. As this example already indicates, existing patriarchal kastom structures are based on women's suffering and silence. The girls know that when Mary blames the girls for Malcolm's abuse -"All your crazy talk makes Malcolm beat me up!" (33) 16she is repeating what Malcolm and other patriarchal voices have implanted in her mind: "Malcolm says that I should stop wasting time with you girls!" (13). 17 Mary's often unwitting echoing of male opinions illustrates the dangers of omnipresent misogyny and the immense power of implicit, internalized patriarchal voices.
Yet, the longer the play goes on, and the more often Mary shows up bruised or broken, the more the play indicts the conventional marriage. In the last scene, Lizzie shouts: "Mary! We'll sing now!" (53), 18 and Mary symbolically rejects her husband to join Lizzie onstage, uttering her last words "You can't stop me anymore Malcolm!" (53). 19 The play thus proves that alternative, non-familial social structures are gaining importance. The different and contradictory characters in the band Solid Sistas are a prime example 13 "Kastom mo kalja / i givim paoa long yumi." 14 "Kastom mo kalja i givim paoa long yumi!" 15 "Jennie hem i stap pulum Tony i kam be hem i no wantem" (italics in original).
16 "Ol kranke toktok blong yufala nao i mekem Malcolm hem i kilim nogud mi!" 17 "Malcolm hem i talem se mi stap westem tumas taem wetem yufala!" 18 "Mary! Bae yumi sing nao!" 19 "Yu no save blokem mi nao ya Malcolm!" of such a recent, alternative, supportively plaited together feminist network (Douglas 2002, 14;Spark 2017). While Flora suggested they sing fewer subversive songs, Lizzie makes fun of this suggestion by jokingly proposing they sing: "Vanuatu! / The place I like best / White sand beach and blue blue sky!" (Solid Sistas 2004, 29). 20 Eventually, they all realize the need to subvert such idealistic images of their island nation by singing about issues they face as women (see Jenny's song below). While Ironman sing of travelling back to an idealized island life, the Solid Sistas resist dreaming about living on remote islands by reimagining their present-day lives in an inclusive and non-binary way. The fact that the girls stand together on stage in the end, with their differences of opinion and lifestyle still intact, shows that a united strong voice does not require homogeneity and sameness and that they create their own image of island living in plaited together polyphony.

Solid Sistas as Oceanic Feminist Polyphony
Just as plaiting is a cultural practice that is both unique in its local iterations yet common throughout Oceania, Oceanic feminism refers to the collective and shared goals across island cultures to dismantle existing patriarchal hierarchies. In her poem "Colonised people" Grace Mera Molisa (2000, 333), the late ni-Vanuatu poet and politician, states: "Vanuatu / Womenfolk / half / the population / remain / colonised / by / the Free men / of Vanuatu" (see also Marsh 1998, 676;1997;Bolton 2003, 55ff.;Jolly 1991). Instead of idealizing an indigenous past of harmonious gender equality, Molisa acknowledges that the post-independent mistreatment of women is the result of "a compounding of Melanesian and European misogyny" (Jolly 1991, 58), which Oceanic feminists respond to by collectively interweaving local and global feminist traditions and acknowledging the reciprocity of advancements and setbacks for women the world over (Griffen 2006;Jolly 2005, 154;1996;. The 2016 Pacific Feminist Forum's reference to the plaited pandanus mat symbolizes their recognition of both commonality and diversity, strength of tradition and desire for change (Charter of Feminist Principles for Pacific Feminists 2016, 2). The central goal of early Oceanic feminist concerns for social, economic and political empowerment (Griffen and Yee 1989;in Marsh 1998, 672) is embodied and enacted in Solid Sistas. Oceanic feminists plait together their diverse island experiences and realities. Through their polyphony and illustrating the variety of issues women in Oceania faceteenage pregnancy, STIs, male dominance in politics, media, the economy, public shaming and gender-based violencethey subvert both the assumption of clear-cut borders between the islands of Oceania (Hau'ofa 2008) and the binaries that portray islands either as prison or paradise, poor or rich, places to run to or escape from. Women's polyphonic island realities cannot be classified in such binary terms. The play's exposure of issues of gender-based, sexual and other violences, discriminatory gender practices and kastom-inflected hierarchies offers a productive and empowering response in the form of an electric girl band. The unity in local and global diversity of Oceanic feminists is reflected in the play's diverse characters, and their appropriation of a foreign and male music genre. The play makes an emphatic claim that women can alsohere, literallyband together to plait a new form of kastom. The play thus concurs with Jolly's argument that women are trying to negotiate their unique and united space in contemporary, postcolonial and polyphonic Vanuatu, by "asserting their value in both tradition and modernity, past and present, and indeed are trying to dissolve these invidious dichotomies which still threaten to sunder their subjectivity as women" (1997,160).
Jimmy is a key Oceanic feminist character in the play and represents the idea that polyphonic and inclusive feminism in Oceania is a collaborative plaiting project that expects and needs boys and men to be allies. When Jennie reads about the existence of other girl bands, Jimmy encourages her to form her own: "There isn't a girl band in this place! … Hey! … You! Mary, Lizzie and Flora! You girls can become a girl band" (Solid Sistas 2004, 12). 21 Despite being laughed at by the men for having the audacity to perform in public, the men clap after the girls' song and join them on stage for the final girl band-led song with which the play closes with an implicit invitation for the audience to sing along. As an in-between figure, Jimmy's privileged position between the groups gives him a certain authority that makes the boys listen to him. Yet, instead of taking the stage himself, Jimmy calls out to Jennie: "You have to sing Jennie … You have to sing!" (53), 22 clearing the stage for the girls to perform, before the boys are asked to join them on stage for the last verses (54).
Moving dialogically between notions of rootedness and movement, the female characters and Jimmy destabilize a strictly patriarchal kastom system. The band connects all the characters in an illustration of collaborative activities that strengthen communal and temporal ties. The Solid Sistas' diverging and changing opinions regarding sex work or dress code leads to clashes, especially between Lizzie and Mary, which culminates in Mary and other women trying to beat up Lizzie, wrongfully accusing her of stealing their husbands and thus their children's money (46-9). The girls' fights reflect the struggle within a diverse feminist movement that is surrounded by patriarchal voices. Finally, after debating, discussing and despairing at what the Charter of Feminist Principles for Pacific Feminists (2016, 2) calls the existing "pandanus mats of our current struggles", the Solid Sistas seize the strands of struggles to plait a new mat of a collective and solidary unity in difference. It is they rather than Ironman who perform at the final 21 "I no gat wan gel band nating long ples ya! … Hey! … Yu! Mary, Lizzie mo Flora! Yufala isave kam wan gel band!" 22 "Yu mas sing Jennie … Yu mas sing!" P L A I T I N G T H E PA N D A N U S M AT O F C H A N G E I N VA N U AT U competition, taking up their rightful place as equals to the boys within the "anxious push and pull" (Taylor 2010, 281) that is kastom. By doing so they also supplant Ironman's singing about idealized island life, focusing on their lived experiences instead, which polyphonizes monophonic understandings of island women. This last scene is exemplary of the Oceanic feminist aim of alternatively plaiting together male and female voices, envisioning a dynamic rootedness in a collective and dialogic practice of togetherness.
The inclusive and collaborative togetherness strived for by Oceanic feminists is acted out through participatory techniques in the play that encourage the audience to stand in solidarity behind the female characters and to criticize existing patriarchal kastom values and monophonic portrayals of islands. When Mary comes on stage with a broken hand or a towel around her head, hiding a face injury, the prior acts of violence are never shown. Instead, the audience is led along with the members of the girl band to wonder about the off-stage violence that has resulted in Mary's many injuries. Although this gender-based violence happens out of sight, the play suggests that it is a community rather than an individual issue, directly affecting other members in their complicity and knowledgeeven including the audience. This disrupts the assumption of a clearly divisible domestic and public sphere and offers the audience agency in confronting and thus resolving abuses against women. The girls not only confront Mary, but also address the issue in songs. In a duet Jennie sings with her prospective partner Tony, she asks: "If you want something and I don't agree / Will you hit me?" (Solid Sistas 2004, 44), 23 to which Tony does not reply. The song covers gender-based violence, but also jealousy, care work and housework (44), not usually talked about in Vanuatu society or tourist brochures, illustrating once more that Wan Smolbag's plays are performed for, by and with the local community. In voicing these issues in the safe space of song rather than open confrontation, Jennie gives the audience space and permission to ask themselves similar questions.
The play also advocates for the power of communal singing and the flexibility of meaning in another traditional environment: the church. Although the pastor is aligned with the men in perpetuating domination over women through his vitriolic sermons -"You [women] are carrying the mark of Eve!" (25) 24his voice is diminished by the fact that there are no other men in church to back him up: "It's only women .. with the pastor!" (26). 25 Such scenes highlight how kastom is an internalized colonial legacy adapted by and for local patriarchal structures of oppression. The women recognize and vocalize this hypocrisy embedded in the church, from which they nonetheless continue to draw spiritual strength. While the boys and men are absent from church, resisting dialogue and change, the womenonly congregation show a more nuanced understanding of the many different 23 "Sapos yu wantem wan samting we mi no agri long hem / Bae yu kilim nogud mi from?" 24 "Yu karem mak blong woman ya Eve!" 25 "Ol woman nomo .. wetem pastor!" interventions -25:1 kinds of women in the community. Douglas (2002; see also Cupples and McDowell 2013) has noted that church groups in Vanuatu, acknowledged as indigenous institutions, are often the "main opportunity to build solidarity, confidence, and leadership or managerial skills, which can help loosen hegemonic male controls [sic] over their bodies and their thinking" (Douglas 2002, 15). This "Christian narrative of emancipation" (Jolly 2005, 154) is central in the Oceanic feminist work of appropriating secular, male and white human rights approaches, as exemplified in the character of Auntie, who invites the girl group to perform at church. While Lizzie and Mary are originally sceptical about performing at church, their singing becomes a chance to question biblical stories used to blame women, refuting the pastor and other men's rights to the moral high ground (Solid Sistas 2004, 26). In speakingsingingback to the pastor's monophonic sermon, Lizzie's provocative song leads to a brief discussion between a devout Flora criticizing Lizzie for her song, and Auntie, a senior female figure of authority, who, by approving their song and encouraging them to "go ahead" (29) with the band, 26 gives Flora the courage and permission to rejoin the band, resolving the girls' minor conflict.
Solid Sistas' songs in the play also encourage dialogue with the audience through the guiding questions and activities included in the Solid Sistas Music Resource Workbook (Dorras 2006). Through the book the politically and socially relevant themes, characters and discussions on stage are taken into the community, which further emphasizes and encourages a polyphonic Oceanic feminist plaiting of voices beyond the theatre space. Just as Jennie sings: "Come sisters come! / Come brothers come!" (Solid Sistas 2004, 54), 27 the workbook seems to call out to the members of the community, to join the discussion and speak their voices, because: "We can't close our eyes / against everything that's bad / You can't pretend it's not like this" (54). 28 As a sign of its success, the Solid Sistas Documentary (2006) reports on receiving letters from audience members who claim to identify with various characters and establish connections with their own lives. Such responses show that members of the community feel represented and heard through Solid Sistas and that the dialogue that is sought with the play actually occurs. Although the play does not provide any final solutions to the problems it addresses, the pandanus leaves are plaited and then handed over to the audience so that the weaving continues. as tropical, carefree paradises. Marginalized voices in local and global discourse on islands express their polyphony in the play by plaiting together urgent issues, such as gender-based and other violences, unemployment, peer pressure and church hypocrisy in song and dialogue. The play exposes how imported colonial and Christian binaries between men and women, the private versus public sphere, as well as idealized rural island versus actual urban lives have been adopted and adapted post-independence to suit maledominated structures of kastom. These are criticized and dismantled in the form of the play's first ever ni-Vanuatu electric girl band, the eponymous Solid Sistas. Both band and play illustrate the lived embodied practices of plaiting and performance forms that continuously question the patriarchal and colonial fixity of meaning by reworking and merging existing patterns, forms and expectations through constant dialogue that resists foreclosure or silencing. As a result, the hitherto all too limiting understandings of kastom and island are broadened to include women's innovative and inclusive projects and ideas, such as the play's electric girl band. The plaiting together of the different band members and other voices in Solid Sistas through dialogue and song corresponds to the constant negotiation of existing realities in postcolonial places and the local rootedness and simultaneous engagement with global movements by feminists from Oceania. Through post-play workshops and additional resources, the audience and community are explicitly invited to critically engage with the themes addressed, breaking up divisions between the stage area, spectators and their islands of origin. At the end of the play, just as the girls realize the importance of their voices, both the boys and the audience are encouraged to join them in challenging existing assumptions and expectations by dialogically and collectively plaiting the pandanus mats of change. Wan Smolbag reimagines simplistic, externally imposed and tourist-oriented classifications of Vanuatu being one of the happiest places on earth by reflecting the polyphony of lived realities and experiences as an ongoing self-determined and inclusive plaiting process of what it means to be islanders.

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