The tifaifai is the traditional Polynesian quilt, made from hand-appliquéd and hand-sewn motifs, often created collectively and then given to mark significant life passages : a birth, a marriage, a loss, a homecoming. It is an object of memory and connection. In its own way, this work aspires to be a tifaifai : an assemblage of voices, breaths, and resonances stitched together around the poems of Flora Aurima Devatine, a Tahitian poet with whom I have been engaged in a trans-Indigenous artistic dialogue for several years.
These texts speak of living in between worlds, of inherited legacies and those we create for ourselves, of survival and renewal. As a Métis composer, I recognize in them an experience shared by many Indigenous peoples, across oceans and continents : moving forward without a map, between two worlds, while carrying what has been passed down to us.
This work was written for the Quasar quartet and for my dear friend, soprano Brittany Rae. Within it, the breath of the saxophones, the voice, and the piano become the winds, the waves, and the cry that travel through the poems. I thank them wholeheartedly for carrying this fragile vessel safely to you.