MASPAC aims to rejuvenate Maori and South Pacific arts

Tu Tangata, Issue 14, 1 October 1983, Page 38

MASPAC aims to rejuvenate Maori and South Pacific arts

Maori and South Pacific people throughout New Zealand are being offered financial help to set up their own arts projects as part of this year’s Maori and South Pacific Arts Council’s programme. The Council wants to help all groups preserve and promote their cultures and to encourage Maoris, living away from tribal areas, to rediscover their roots.

With this year’s budget from the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council increased to $336,300 though falling short of the $485,000 requested following policy meetings last year the Council will be concentrating on three main priorities.

These are the traditional Maori arts programmes to which it has allocated $113,000; traditional Pacific Island arts which gets $35,000 and contemporary Maori and Pacific Island arts which gets $32,500.

Much of the money will be spent on a series of national hui including gatherings for weavers, carvers, traditional Maori performing arts tutors, composers and those involved in contemporary music. An extremely successful visual arts hui was held last year at Porirua’s Takapuahia marae.

Council Chairman, Archdeacon Kingi Ihaka, says it is the first time any organisation has looked at the real needs of Maori and Pacific Island people and called together leaders and cultural experts from the various ethnic groups. “This is our aim over the next two or three years we are achieving this slowly.”

He said for years there had been pleas for retention of Maori culture and now, “at long last someone is putting some teeth into what people have been saying.”

He said the programmes were of vital importance to all Maori and Pacific Island people because their cultural activities could not be separated from their life.

“To most people Maori culture is a few action songs, haka and poi but culture embraces every aspect of Maori life. You can’t divorce culture from people” he said.

The Council was interested in both contemporary and traditional arts he said. “We’re not just talking about ancient waiata (songs) and traditional tattoos but about modern action songs and contemporary design. We’re not static we don’t dwell on the dead.”

Archdeacon Ihaka said the Council wanted to make contact with grass roots communities right across the country. It focussed its funding not on individuals, but on groups and their communities and on projects with com-

munal support. Council member Cliff Whiting, a fisherman artist from Russell, said the Council’s primary aim was to put people in a position where they felt secure and confident about making decisions for themselves and planning their own futures. “We help them get set up, we assist in funding and call together people with similar interests, then we encourage groups to form their own programmes”. He said the Council wanted to help set up a national network of resources people in each craft. Through this, large numbers of people would be able to learn the skills, and those who had moved away from their tribal areas could use the network to discover their ancestry and heritage. Mr Whiting said all the programmes were exciting but the Council was disappointed that lack of funds had forced postponement of some projects. These include a joint programme with Regional Arts Councils aimed at promoting co-operation of Community Arts Councils and Maori and Pacific Island communities, and appointment of a research/resource officer with special skills for gathering data about other cultures.

Traditional Maori art programmes

Maori language is a top priority for the Council because without it the culture would die, according to Council Chairman Archdeacon Kingi Ihaka. “I can’t imagine someone speaking at a tangi and not using some Maori” he said. Adviser and former senior lecturer in Maori Studies, Bill Parker agrees and says the Council should concentrate on promoting whaikorero (the art

of oratory), leaving basic language teaching to the schools and other educational institutions. He says whaikorero is a dying art and suggests two ways it could be revitalised: publication of material about whaikorero use of videos and other modern teaching aids showing the actions and stances of the speaker, as well as his words. The Council has allocated $17,000 of the $113,000 set aside for traditional Maori art programmes to whaikorero (performed mainly by men) and karanga, the ceremonial calling by women. No national hui is planned because an initial meeting of people involved in language arts decided a series of regional and tribal hui would be more appropriate. The Council will also organise a policy meeting for women involved with the art of karanga. Also in its traditional Maori arts programme, the Council is funding hui for weavers, carvers, and performing arts tutors. The first of these is a national

weavers hui over Labour Weekend at Tokomaru Bay. 150 Maori and Pacific Island weavers have been invited to discuss establishment of a national organisation, exhibitions of weaving, marketing, standards and regional programmes and workshops. Budget $13,000. In January 1984, 200 tutors, including trainees, will meet in the Waikato to discuss haka, poi, waiata kori (action song) waiata and other related forms. The budget for this is $13,000.

Waitangi weekend in February has been set for the carvers hui to bring together carvers from all over the country to discuss issues including training, employment and marketing. The budget for this is $13,000.

Traditional Pacific Island art programmes

Dance and language programmes, particularly for New Zealand born youngsters are top priorities for traditional Pacific art programmes, says

Council member, Sefulu loane, Director of the Pacific Islanders Educational Resource Centre.

“While it’s important for our old people to maintain their culture, the real need is younger New Zealanders those who were born here and there are lots of them.”

He says it is this group which is in danger of losing its language and with it, its cultural roots. “You cannot isolate the culture from the langauge.”

He says Pacific Islanders are fighting to prevent their languages suffering the sort of decline which afflicted the Maori language.

These priorities are reflected in the Council's proposed programmes for five Pacific Island groups, which are the result of consultations with Pacific Island community leaders last year. They are:

Tokelaun a get together to share knowledge of principal artforms of chanting and dancing, with all Tokelau communities ($6,000); Tongan language a priority because Tongan leaders feel it is declining and will take with it dances, handcrafts and traditions ($6,000); Samoan language programmes ($6,000); Cook Islands language and dance programmes ($6,000); Niuean a cultural hui to discuss art and cultural needs ($6,000). Mr loane says he would also like to see the Council extending its contact outside the New Zealand shores to other Pacific groups and Australia’s large Maori communities.

Contemporary Maori and South Pacific art

The notion of contemporary art is often misunderstood, says fisherman artist and Council member Cliff Whiting.

He says contemporary art is simply traditional art which has been examined and modified to suit particular lifestyles of today.

“Contemporary is anything happening now”, he says, adding that that includes artists working today in traditional areas. “In the kind of life we lead in New Zealand today, the exposure to other cultures, particularly that of the Pakeha, must affect our own culture.”

He says other changes have come in the materials and tools artists use.

Drastically reduced supplies of traditional natural resources such as flax and timber, coupled with rapidly developing technology, have forced artists to experiment with new methods. “There’s a whole new technological world”.

He says it is important that new techniques are widely discussed and investigated. But he says closeness to the natural world, reflected in traditional materials, has always been a basic part of the Maori outlook.

In its 1983/84 budget the Council has allocated $32,500 to contemporary Maori and Pacific Island arts programmes. Of this, $12,500 is going to support the 10 year old independent Maori Artists and Writers Society, chaired by Hawkes Bay Community College tutor, Para Matchitt.

Council contributions will help pay for the Society’s annual hui and for the newly established position of Executive Officer for the group.

Another SIO,OOO has been allocated for two music hui the first which has already been held in Auckland, for people involved in the Maori and Pacific Island recording industry, and looked at issues such as the need for a special

radio station, quotas of Maori and Pacific Island music and the establishment of a New Zealand Recording Industry Commission.

The second, to be organised with the Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council and the New Zealand Composers Federation, is a hui for Maori and Pacific Island composers.

Dates have not been set, but this meeting will look at a range of music industry skills, including copyright, use of original music, membership of APRA, as well as holding workshops in recording studios to increase composers technical knowledge and expertise.