Event details
MANA: The Final Journey of Robert Louis Stevenson is scheduled at Treasure Island Resort’s ballroom, with the next showing set for 7 p.m. Saturday. Tickets are being sold through the resort’s website, according to KLAS 8 News Now. The production is a collaboration involving Treasure Island and Los Angeles-based wrestling academy KnokX Pro Entertainment.
The performance is presented as a luau and includes fire-knife acts, pua'a, traditional music and dance. KLAS reported that Polynesian performers Atoa Ripley and Hot Lava Productions are part of the show.
Stevenson’s Samoa connection
The production uses Robert Louis Stevenson’s years in Samoa as part of its setting. Stevenson built Villa Vailima near Mount Vaea, supported Samoan dignity during the colonial period and was known by the Samoan name Tusitala, meaning teller of tales, according to Cultural Heritage Online. He died in 1894 and was buried on Mount Vaea; the former villa later became the Robert Louis Stevenson Museum.
KLAS reported that MANA addresses Stevenson’s advocacy for Samoan chiefs and connects his South Pacific story with Polynesian cultural traditions, including dance and ceremony. Reno Anoa’i told the station that the production uses the family’s experience in wrestling performance to shape its storytelling, but the article does not reproduce his longer comments.
Anoa’i family and Flag Day
Reno Anoa’i, who previously wrestled as Black Pearl, is identified as a chief in the Anoa’i lineage. The family’s professional-wrestling connections include Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Roman Reigns, the Usos, Yokozuna and the Wild Samoans, according to Sports Illustrated. A separate California Wiki biography identifies Afa Anoa’i as his uncle and trainer.
KnokX Pro wrestlers are also scheduled to appear Saturday at Southern Nevada’s inaugural Samoan Flag Day at Silver Bowl Park near Russell and Boulder Highway in Henderson. The event begins at 5 p.m., and KLAS reported that Anoa’i said younger members of the family would participate and that Samoan food would be available.
The local observance falls on April 17’s anniversary of the first raising of the U.S. flag over American Samoa in 1900, according to Encyclopædia Britannica. Organizers describe the gathering as an opportunity for Pacific-descent young people in the United States to learn about their culture.
