Playwright and documentary director, Makerita Urale, has been awarded the 2010 Fullbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer’s Residency at the University of Hawai’i. She joins Sima Urale (2004), Tusiata Avia (2005), Victor Rodger (2006), Sarona Aiono-Iosefa(2007), David Young (2008), and Toa Fraser (2009) as recipients of the award. Makerita says she will use the three-month residency to complete the first draft of her new work for theatre, The Heathen’s Way. She is the author of Frangipani Perfume (1988), the first Pacific play written by a woman for an all female cast. The play was listed as pone of New Zealand’s top ten plays of the decade by The Listener. Makerita will also use her time in Honolulu to work on two documentaries, Fa’afafine of Polynesia and The Art of Polynesian Engineering. She already has a number of films to her credit including Mob Daughters, Children of the Revolution, and Waiata Whawhai Songs of Protest. (Story and image adapted from Spasifik Magazine.)
Auckland poet Selina Tusitala Marsh has won the First Book of Poetry prize at the National Poetry Awards. Fast-talking PI is a collection of poems put together over a long period of time and launched last year at the University of Auckland’s Fale Pasifika. Selina is the first Pacific Islander to graduate with a PhD in English at the University of Auckland. The book reflects her own focus on issues affecting Pacific communities in New Zealand. “I was getting frustrated with all this negative coverage of Pacific Islanders and wanted to show that we’re not all dole-bludging and underachieving,” she says. “Our community is so much more than that.” Selina has spent the last year encouraging young PIs to get involved with poetry. As the Million Poems for Matariki poet, she has been working with five Otahuhu schools, helping the kids to unleash their own creativity by writing and performing their own poems. The Million Poems for Matariki project culminated in a mass reading by young poets at the Auckland Central Library on National Poetry Day, 30 July 2010. (Story and image adapted from Spasifik Magazine.)
Young artists aged between 15 and 18 years old are urged to participate in Word Up! a free youth event, aiming to support up and coming talent with a focus on hip hop, song writing, poetry, dance and other performing genres. Maori and Pasifika youth are especially encouraged to take part. Event coordinator and award-winning poet, Courtney Meredith, says Word Up! Is a unique opportunity for young artists to perform in front of an audience of peers. Musicians King Kapisi and Teremoana Rapley will be critiquing the performances. “They will be there to give helpful advice,” says Courtney. Would-be performers who are not so confident on stage can attend free songwriting, hip hop, street art, and poetry workshops at Henderson’s Corban Estate on August 14 and 21. The Word Up! contest itself will take place at the estate on 3 September 2010. For more information, call (Auckland) 838-4455 or email wordup@ceac.org.nz. (Image of Courtney Meredith from the Corban Estate Arts Centre website)
Creative New Zealand in association with Pasifika Festival presents ARTSpeak Pasifika – a two-day national fono for the Pacific arts industry. Open to Pasifika artists working in visual arts, performing arts, film and television, music, literature, music and heritage arts, the fono is an opportunity to share ideas and participate in panel discussions designed to provide inspiration and practical advice on making a successful career in the arts. Creative New Zealand’s Anton Carter says “it’s the first time in over 10 years a multi art form fono like this has been organized”. The fono takes place on Friday 25th June and Saturday 26th June 2010 at the Reception Lounge (Level 2) of the Auckland Town Hall, Queen Street, Auckland. Numbers are limited to 150 people and the cost is a flat rate of $30 which includes refreshments on both days. A limited number of travel subsidies are available to assist participants from outside the Auckland region to attend. For more details and registration, see http://www.creativenz.govt.nz/artspeak.
Several useful resources about Pasifika art are now available from the New Zealand Film Archive, Ngā Kaitiaki O Ngā Taonga Whitiāhua. These resources look at Pacific Island people participating in a broad range of New Zealand arts including Fine Art, Music, Dance, Theatre, Film and Literature. Fatu Feu’u discusses the motifs and traditions that inspire his painting; Ani O’Neill tries to teach Nick Ward to crotchet; King Kapisi shows us his home in Piha, while his sisters show us theirs in Lyall Bay; Jonathan Lemalu discusses his rise to fame in the competitive world of opera; and Tusiata Avia talks to Finlay MacDonald about growing up Samoan in Christchurch. To access these materials from the Film Archive website, click here.
Christchurch-based actress, musician, song-writer, playwright and manager of Pacific Underground, Tanya Muagututi’a, is the 2010 Macmillan Brown Centre for Pacific Studies and Creative New Zealand Pacific Artist in residence. During her residency Tanya will be researching and writing a first draft for a play called ‘Scholars’. Her preparations for the play will involve research about scholarships that were made available for Samoan students from the 1950s-1980. As part of her residency, Tanya will be conducting interviews and running workshops at the Macmillan Brown Centre at the University of Canterbury.
A new purpose-built Mangere Arts Centre is being built in South Auckland and is expected to be completed by September 2010. Once completed the centre will provide Mangere with a world-class performance and arts venue including a 300-seat flexiform performance area, state of the art acoustic design, suitable for a range of music from fine music to rock, 240m² gallery, 56m² studio, foyers, offices, change rooms, a café, and a large outdoor courtyard. Ema Tavola, the current Pacific Arts Coordinator for Manukau City Council, will take up the position of Visual Arts Manager at the new Mangere Arts Centre. Speaking of her time at Fresh Gallery Otara, Ema said that the gallery was the public platform for her work supporting the development of an already robust Pacific arts sector in Manukau City. We have hosted exhibitions, talanoa / dialogue, workshops, poetry and music. We have had so much interaction, engaged so many hearts and minds, inspired and created a fertile ground for meetings, interactions, ideas.” Her current position as Manukau City Council Pacific Arts Coordinator is to be advertised in the coming month.
Manukau Arts in partnership with the Pacific Arts Committee of Creative New Zealand is proud to present the CNZ Heritage Arts Fono as part of the 2010 Manukau Pacific Arts Summit. The Fono takes place at the Otara Music Arts Centre (crn of Newbury and Bairds Road) from 10 am to 3 pm on Friday 7 May, 2010. The fono will discuss Creative New Zealand’s Heritage Arts strategy, projects and opportunities. Heritage art practices are art forms that have been brought to New Zealand from the Pacific Islands and which are presently sustained by individuals, communities, elders or experts who maintain traditional knowledge through their art practice. Heritage arts can include language, oral arts, handicrafts, weaving, carving, tivaevae, tatau, rituals, protocols and cultural specific activities. Creative New Zealand’s Senior Programmes Advisor for Pacific Arts, Anton Carter, will be available for one-on-one sessions to build awareness around the application process. For catering purposes, registration is necessary; to register or for more information please email Brett.Stirling@manukau.govt.nz or phone Nicole Lim on 09 271 6019.
A unique event in the inaugural Manukau Pacific Arts Summit is today’s lunchtime poetry slam. Working in partnership with the British Council, UK performance poet, DJ and producer Charlie Dark will be in Otara (Auckland) to perform alongside local Pasifika poets including: Drew Harding (South Auckland Poets Collective), Ole Maiava, Courtney Meredith and Luisa Tora (Niu Waves Writer’s Collective, Fiji). The event is free and takes place on the Centre Stage of the Otara Town Centre from 12.30 – 1.30pm. Everyone is welcome. The 2010 Manukau Pacific Arts Summit is sponsored by Manukau Arts, Manukau City Council. Visit www.Manukau.govt.nz/pacificartssummit for more details.
Albert Wendt, one of New Zealand’s and the Pacific’s foremost storytellers, has won the Commonwealth Writer’s Prize for the Asia Pacific Region for his novel The Adventures of Vela. “It is a great honour to be recognised in this way” said Professor Wendt at the Awards Ceremony in Sydney last week. “Vela has been a character I have thought about for a long time so this is a lifetime’s work”. Wendt won ahead of several prominent finalists including J. M. Coetzee (Australia and Nobel Prize Winner), Peter Carey (Australia) and Thomas Keneally (Australia). The Adventures of Vela now goes through to the final phase of the competition where an international judging panel will meet to decide the overall Commonwealth winners for Best Book and Best First Book with other regional winners from Africa, Caribbean, Canada, South Asia and Europe. The announcement of the two overall winners will take place on Monday 12 April 2010. Albert Wendt was Professor of New Zealand and Pacific Literature at the University of Auckland from 1988 to 2006, and held the Citizens’ Chair at the University of Hawaii from 2004 to 2008. He is now Emeritus Professor at the University of Auckland, and is writing and painting full-time. Albert Wendt has been an influential figure in the developments that have shaped New Zealand and Pacific literature since the 1970s, writing numerous works of fiction and several volumes of poetry, and editing notable anthologies of Pacific literature. He is also one of the Starmap champions.
(story adapted from the Booksellers website)
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