Sustain Your Dance…

Pacific Dance New Zealand in partnership with Dance Aotearoa NZ and the Pacific Arts Summit proudly presents the 2012 Pacific Dance Fono – Sustain Your Dance.

For the sixth year, Pacific Dance NZ will host this significant dance fono for New Zealand based Pacific dance practitioners. This year the fono will be launched with the keynote address from World renowned dance artist and choreographer Lemi Ponifasio, NZ Arts Laureate 2011 and artistic director of Mau Dance Company.

The fono will be an opportunity to hear from speakers who are involved in the maintenance, preservation, delivery and advancement of Pacific dance practices in New Zealand. It will be presented at the AUT Univeristy Manukau Campus and feature a number of speakers including Lemi Ponifasio (Mau), Susan Jordan (Regional Manager DANZ), Makerita Urale (CNZ), Tanya Muagututi’a (Pasifika Festival) and Iosefa Enari (PDNZ). The fono also features a range of local practitioners who will contribute to the fono, they include the 2012 Pacific artist in residence Sesilia Pusiaki Tatuila, Tepaeru-Ariki Lulu French (Pacific Muse), Terry Faleono (performance artist) as well as Ennaolla Paea (founding director of Street Dance New Zealand). This year the University of Auckland Dance Studies post graduate Pacific students Nita Latiu, Teuila Hughes and Seidah Karati will also make a presentation in response to this year’s theme.

Pacific Dance New Zealand director Iosefa Enari has delivered this fono for the past 6 years.

“Each fono is planned with a theme to frame the day. Given the current economic environment and the difficulties facing our current artists to keep their businesses afloat, this year’s theme is apt,” states Enari. “We’re pleased to welcome all of this year’s speakers from the emerging and established voices of our community.”

This is an important event in the New Zealand dance calendar for all Pacific dance practitioners who wish to engage and network with the larger dance community. The range of academics, managers, hip hop performers, entertainers, cultural and contemporary choreographers and dancers make this year’s fono an exciting opportunity to network and hear from the various sectors of dance represented in the Auckland dance landscape.

The Pacific Dance Fono is free to attend and registration is easy – simply contact Filoi Vaila’au on auckland@pacificdance.co.nz or call 09 3760060.

DATE

Saturday 19 May

TIME

10am – 4pm

VENUE

Manukau Campus Conference Centre, MD Building, Level 1
AUT University – Manukau Campus, 640 Great South Road, Manukau

REGISTRATION and ENQUIRIES

To register your attendance please contact Filoi Vaila’au auckland@pacificdance.co.nz or call 09 3760060.

For further media information , please contact Sefa Enari director@pacificdance.co.nz or call 09 3760060.

BELLA KALOLO at TRUE SOUTH!!

What OTHER Poly-FABULOUS female performer could we POSSIBLY have perform at TRUE SOUTH but the GORGEOUS, the Poly-FABULOUS Bella Kalolo!!!

 

 

Bella Kalolo and special guest Rosita Vai will bring some serious soul to this special event. TRUE SOUTH is a one-of-a-kind fashion show with a twist, celebrating the big, the tall, the Poly-Fabulous!

Showcasing plus-size collections from Melissa Cole’s “I Love Lissy” label, Miss Tasha Lee will launch her new ‘RastaLee’ line.  Rachael Phyllis Gabor Duval debuts her exciting new collection and special plus-size collections from Paula Chan, Czarina Wilson and Visesio Louis Thomsen will also premier at the event!

• Read about designer Melissa Cole and “I Love Lissy” 

Audiences will be entertained by some of our finest Pacific dancers including Ura Tabu’s Pacific Me Barbies, Deelicious Dance Crew, Tatau and choreographer Tepaeru-Ariki Lulu French will present her recent work, Pacific Muse.

• Read about Tepaeru-Ariki Lulu French and her work Pacific Muse

Sultry and soulful performances by Rosita Vai and Bella Kalolo bring together of what promises to be a night to remember.

Tickets are selling fast so don’t miss out.

• Tickets are $20 and can be purchased from Mangere Arts Centre – Nga Tohu o Uenuku or online at EventFinder
• Cash Bar

The Artists behind TRUE SOUTH

Weekly Summit Interviews are an opportunity to get to know the artists behind the Pacific Arts Summit…

Headlining the entertainment at TRUE SOUTH, the Pacific Arts Summit’s premier event is  Pacific Muse - a beautiful dance work choreographed by Otara-based Cook Island choreographer and dancer, Tepaeru-Ariki Lulu French.

• Tickets for TRUE SOUTH are $20 and available for purchase at Mangere Arts Centre – Nga Tohu o Uenuku or on EventFinder.co.nz

Tell us a bit about yourself… how long have you been choreographing, what are your inspirations and why do you do what you do?

I was born and raised on the tiny island of Aitutaki, and this is what gives me my drive, inspiration and grounding for everything I do in my life.  I have been dancing and performing since I could walk, and so since joining Anuanua (Auckland-based Cook Island dance troupe) it has allowed me to explore movements and put them into practice.  I would say I have been choreographing for almost eight years, and in the early years, it has been restricted within the Cook Island community and for Anuanua Dance Troupe.

The ‘tamure’ (Cook Islands dance) is something that is part of me, its ‘innate’ and it was something my mother and her mother before her did. We did not have proper training as they do now and with other dance genres, instead, we put on a pareu (sarong/lavalava) or a purou (grass skirt) and would just move, to the music, the drums and, to our feelings.  That is what inspires me and I do it most probably because I cannot live without it.  I have had ‘time-off’ during my  dance life, for studying purposes, or to have a baby but I always felt incomplete, it is a part of my life, and I cannot deny its place in me. So I was  back into it six weeks after giving birth.  I do what I do because it makes me whole has it allows me to reconnect with the past the present and definitely the future.

TRUE SOUTH is a special event in the Pacific Arts Summit programme, speaking to, for and about a hugely under-represented sector of our community, plus size women. Your piece, Pacific Muse, is concerned with the Pacific body – can you tell us about the piece?

I wanted to incorporate different modes of traditional and contemporary Cook Islands dance to create an overall body of work which explores and challenges Western-colonial notions and representations of Pacific bodies. Particularly, the stereotypes and images of the ‘Dusky Maiden’ and the ideas surrounding a highly exoticised Pacific ‘feminine mystique’.

Pacific Muse focuses on the ‘white construct’ of Cook Island dance and the reclamation of the dance as a cultural possession that needs to be protected from further misinterpretation.  What the dance therefore aims to achieve is to recreate an alternative position to the dance form and most important the pre-conceived perception of Pacific women.  I would like to promote our dance as a way of socio-cultural expression; a reflection of everyday life entwined into a political action and challenge.

You are a true-blue Southsider, where did you grow up and what do you love about the Southside?

As we all know, Otara is the capital of the Cook Islands, so it was only natural that I can confirm that when my family and I moved to New Zealand in the late 90’s, Otara became home! It’s almost home away from home. I love Southside because of its colours! The colours of the different cultures and ethnicities, the colourful nature of the people and the surrounding! It is truly is an exciting place to grow up in.

What are your creative plans moving forward and how can people connect with you and follow your practice?

I plan to continue developing Pacific Muse and hopefully in the future be able to put it on as a full show.  I would also love to take it internationally.  I am still actively part of Anuanua Dance Troupe and therefore actively involved in the Cook Islands community.  I can be contacted by email  or follow me on Facebook for updates, dance projects or for some awesome randomness in Cook Islands dance.

Too cool!!

• Tepaeru-Ariki Lulu French was one of three choreographers selected for the 2011 Pacific Dance Choreographic Labratory where the work Pacific Muse was first developed under the mentorship of well-known dancer and artistic director, Neil Ieremia.
• Pacific Dance New Zealand is holding their annual Fono on Saturday 19 May as part of the Pacific Arts Summit, click here to find out more.