Manukau’s much-anticipated new arts facility, Mangere Arts Centre – Ngā Tohu o Uenuku, will officially open on Friday 3 September 2010. The opening will be followed by a full weekend of celebrations, with more than 40 performances featuring over 300 performers. The centre’s theatre and courtyard will be packed with activity including dance, music, comedy and poetry by acts including Kila Kokonut Krew, Tony T Band, Grace Ikenasio, Moana Ete, MBrace Pacific Dance, Anonymouz, Manukau City Concert Band and many more. The inaugural exhibition in the gallery Manu Toi: Artists and Messengers (curated by Nigel Borell) will also be open for viewing. The exhibition features an impressive line-up artists with a connection to the Mangere area, working in a range of disciplines including photography, installation art, moving image and more. For a full schedule of the opening weekend, go to www.manukau.govt.nz/mangereartscentre.
Opening celebration weekend:
When: Saturday 4 September, 10 am – 11 pm
Sunday 5 September, 12 pm – 4 pm
Where: Mangere Arts Centre – Nga Tohu o Uenuku, Corner Bader Drive and Orly Avenue
Mangere
Cost: Free
Le Tauvaga (The Competition) by Louise Tu’u is a warm and funny play written for Pacific Island teenagers who call New Zealand home. Shunning traditional theatre, the play has already been performed in three Auckland community centres. Community plays a large part in all of Louise Tu’u’s work. She was the first New Zealand or Pacific Island playwright to be awarded the Royal Court International Theatre Residency in London and since her return has written and directed a number of short films and presented her most recent play Providence exclusively for the homeless community in central Auckland. Le Tauvaga is part of Playmarket’s Metro Theatre playreading series and will be performed at 7 pm on Thursday 19th August, 2010 at the Metro Theatre, 362 Massey Rd, Mangere East, Auckland. Koha Entry.
Creative New Zealand’s third review of its Recurrently Funded Organisations (RFOs) is recommending that two feasibility studies be undertaken in the next year. The first is to look into a management company for dance and theatre companies, including Maori and Pasifika dance and theatre, to provide shared, cost-effective management and audience development services for smaller independent companies. The second study will look at a Pasifika arts development organisation to coordinate and provide capability building for Pasifika artists across a range of arts practice and to develop new audiences for Pasifika arts and artists. The review recommends that work on the feasibility of these initiatives be carried out in 2010–11 so that options can be considered by 2012, when the new multi-year investment programmes have been implemented.
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.)
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.
Hot off their show-stealing debut in KKK (Kila Kokonut Krew) and ATC’s sellout show Strictly Brown at Telstra Clear, Pani and Pani fly back ‘from the catwalks of Milan’ to entice and seduce their audience in their first ever show, Phat Chix In The Settee. “They’re tired of looking hot, bored of their rich and handsome men. Forget Zumba and spray on abs. These girls are the new deal; they’re sexy, they’re brown and they know it! Watch out Aotearoa – these girls are PHAAAT-NOMENAL”. The show is presented by the Kila Kokonut Krew and is part of the 2010 NZ International Comedy Festival. Phat Chix In The Settee runs at 7 pm from Tuesday 11 to Saturday 15 May 2010 at the Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland. Tickets are $25 each with concessions for students, seniors, beneficiaries, and selected NZ arts guilds.
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.
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