First Maori Festival Of The Arts

Te Ao Hou, March 1964, Page 4

First Maori Festival Of The Arts On page 28 of this issue of ‘Te Ao Hou’ we publish an article on the very successful Maori Festival of the Arts organised last December in conjunction with the Ngaruawahia centennial celebrations. Held at Turangawaewae, with the support of King Koroki, this is believed to be the first Maori Festival of the Arts ever to take place. The festival's success has encouraged its organisers in their hope that a festival of this kind can be made an annual event at Ngaruawahia. All of those who were able to attend on this occasion will hope very much that this will be possible. With so much talent available, and with such hard-working and enthusiastic voluntary organisers, an annual event would surely have a good chance of success. Many Already with Established Reputations There are so many reasons why a festival of this kind is of value. In the first place, of course, it gives the Maori and Pakeha audience the chance to enjoy the work of some of the most promising young artists, musicians and writers working in New Zealand at the present time; practically all of those who took part in the Ngaruawahia festival are professionals, many of them already with established reputations. Something New of Their Own Secondly, an occasion such as this is of much interest in giving the public an opportunity to consider the ways in which talented young Maoris are expressing themselves today in the arts: to see how these young people, the inheritors of two rich cultures, are making something new of their own—something to which both of these cultures are contributing. It was especially illuminating to see their work at Turangawaewae, the centre of such strong historical and traditional associations. In this setting the contrast between the old and the new was a striking one—but a sense of continuity was even more apparent. The festival also provided an opportunity for the people taking part in it to meet each other and to exchange ideas. Such meetings are especially important, perhaps, for artists and writers. They are pioneers of the imagination, and this is necessarily a lonely business, in which they are very much dependent on their own inner resources. Pioneers of a New Culture Those artists and writers who are Maori, are in particular pioneers, for in their own very individual and different ways, they are beginning to express a new experience, and to shape a new culture: that culture which, drawing its strength from two traditions, will in the future speak for all of us. Miss Elizabeth Mountain (above), now in the final year of her diploma course at Elam School of Fine Arts in Auckland, is typical of a rapidly increasing number of young Maoris who have chosen art as their vocation. After gaining her Diploma of Fine Arts, Elizabeth will spend a year at Training College, and will then teach art in a Secondary School. Elizabeth comes from Kawakawa in the Bay of Islands, where her father, Walter Mountain, owns a taxi business. Her mother, formerly Emere Kaa, comes from Rangitukia on the East Coast. Elizabeth says that apart from art she has two special interests: the study of Maori culture, and food.