South Pacific Festival of Arts

Mana (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 7, 29 September 1977, Page 3

South Pacific Festival of Arts

NIUE

The second meeting of the South Pacific Festival of Arts Council was held on Niue recently. Participants came from New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, Niue, Papua-New Guinea, Tonga, Tuvalu, as well as an observer from the University of the South Pacific and the South Pacific Commission Secretariat led by Dr Frank Mahoney, who was director of the meeting. The official opening was blessed by a dedication prayer by the President of the Ekalesia Niue, Rev Tukutama, and followed by a speechby the Premier of Niue, Hon R.R. Rex, OBE, KCMG, who said that, for too long the Pacific people have allowed other people to tell them - what they are supposed to be and how they should pursue their destinies. For too long too, they have allowed themselves to be influenced and guided by supposed marvels of modern technology and socio-economic values which they cannot claim as theirs. In saying that, the Premier said that the Pacific people should strive to remain completely insulated from a world which is growing smaller every day, not that he was suggestiQgthat the people ignore the advantages to be had from modern technology.

“What concerns me is that we, the true people of the Pasifika (Pacific), have so far given very scant attention to the preservation and promotion of the sophisticated and high quality human values inherent in our traditional and cultural heritage,” said Hon Rex.

He added also that the Pasifika people have allowed imported culture both good and not so good to overshadow the best of our own. He said this because he believed the people themselves, by their insights and initiative have not done enough to co-ordinate a recorded account of their history as one Pacific history.

“The South Pacific Festival of Arts came about because of a common desire among all the Pacific people to preserve these cultural qualities which constitute the fabricand living soul of the Pacific people,” Hon Rex added. He continues by firmly' believing that the key to ensure that the preservation of the cultural heritage depends on the ability of the Pacific People as one unit to collate and record history of Pasifika

as one People. Over many centuries of internal Pacific voyages and integration they have evolved many common boundaries. If we are to survive under our own identity as one Pacific People, then we must learn to know more about each other, our past and present.

During the meeting, the delegates discussed and reviewed the report on the South Pacific Arts Festival that was held in Rotorua last year presented by Mr Wishie Jaram, who was Administrative Officer, of that Festival of Arts. At the first Festival Council Meeting held in Noumea, it was recommended that a constitution be drafted for the Council. Included in the New Zealand delegates working paperwas the draft constitution, which was discussed and deferred until the next South Pacific Festival of Arts, which is to be held in Papua New

Guinea in 1980. It was decided that the Third South Pacific Festival of Arts be held possibly the last part of June and the first part of July 1980 at Papua New Guinea. Until then it was recommended that the next Council Meeting be held in Port Moresby in 1979 in order that participants from the South Pacific region will have first hand information on the availability of materials to be used, venues for performances and also make final arrangements for the Festival in 1980.

The Council Meeting was conducted in the real Pacific mood up to the last moment when all participants expressed their appreciation of the friendliness and warm welcome and hospitality accorded to them by the Premier, Government and the People of Niue.

(From Tohi Tala Niue)