The eastern tip of East Timor has a strong and unique cultural identity, but ancestral stories about the land and creation are at risk of dying out.
The Lautem District of East Timor is a place of great beauty, but like many areas of the country, it suffers from high unemployment, and poor access to education, health services and clean water.
Kim Dunphy, from aid agency Many Hands International, says what the district and its capital, Lospalos, does have is a rich, cultural history.
"One of the things about Lospalos is because of its isolated nature at the very eastern end of Timor-Leste culture is very strong, stories are strong, traditional music is strong," she said.
While older generations have kept the cultural practices alive, the social and economic pressures on the younger generations mean it's all in danger of being lost.
Celestino Soares Belo, who works as a translator and lives in Lospalos, says many of the younger locals no longer know about their own culture.
"It has connection with my history but I haven't known it deeply," he said.
Ancestral stories about creation and the land, are especially important to the district's elders.
To help preserve those stories, Australian theatre director, Catherine Simmonds travelled to Lospalos.
With her 12 year-old son Luca behind the camera and translator Celes Soares Belo by her side, Catherine Simmonds invited the district's cultural leaders, known as Lia-nai to sit down together and share their sacred stories.
(There was like a palpable electricity of history being made. It's the first time that they'd ever been in a room and started to speak their story...they were fascinated in each other's stories) "Catherine Simmonds, Australian theatre director"
"There was like a palpable electricity of history being made," she said.
"Meeting with the Lia-nai in the house one day, with possum wine and lots of cigarettes, and sitting in a crowded circle and drinking black coffee, they bought out butcher's paper and one man had a pen and they're writing things down.
"There was an air of seriousness and trepidation.
"It's the first time that they'd ever been in a room and started to speak their story to the other ratu. They were fascinated in each other's stories."
To ensure the stories live on, the Lia-nai were asked to consider allowing them to become public, using theatre and the young people of Lospalos.
What resulted, says Catherine Simmonds, was a lot of heated debate.
"When you take a sacred story - an ancestor story with sacred symbols and secret meanings that are only handed down to certain people and told on certain occasions, and then you put the notion of that becoming public?" she said.
"It's a very difficult space to navigate."
Kim Dunphy from Many Hands International says some parts of the stories though were deemed too sacred to be revealed in an open forum.
(These stories, for these people, they're very powerful in a way we can't understand) "Kim Dunphy, Many Hands International"
"These stories, for these people, they're very powerful in a way we can't understand," she said.
But the Lia-nai eventually gave permission for their stories to be transformed into movement and dance.
As the next step, Catherine Simmonds rounded up the local dance group.
"[I] put to the group 'what about the notion of you enacting the stories?'," she said.
"And they were - 'wow, yes! We want to know, we've never heard these stories'."
Hours and hours of rehearsals followed, until the performers were ready to team up with the Lia-nai and share the creation stories in public for the first time.
It was also the first time the stories had been told using theatre, and the first time many people in the community had seen live performance.
One of the aims of this project was to empower women, and Catherine Simmons wanted to make sure they too, had a presence on the stage.
In the end, the entire community had a chance to be involved in the project - including her son, Luca.
"I feel really lucky, because not much kids my age get to go to a third world country like this," he said.
"Once I get older I think maybe I can do a job like this. I've just had a fabulous time - and I'm speechless because I think it was a great experience."
Many Hands International says rebuilding cultural knowledge can go a long way towards improving the community's health and wellbeing - and in Lospalos there's now a real thirst among the young people for that knowledge.
Celes Soares Belo started out as a translator for the project, but he quickly became an enthusiastic performer as well.
Now he's been encouraged to start similar projects of his own.
(They don't know the history of where they are from, [but] through the project...doing the theatre, they are like 'I'm from this one). "Celes Soares Belo, translator and Lospalos resident"
"They don't know the history of where they are from," he said.
"Through the project that they did like doing the theatre, they are like 'I'm from this one'.
"So immediately they know their history, and they say they were really excited."
Show Original on www.abc.net.au
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