Soifua, Village Polynesia - A Polynesian Entertainment & Tourism Company based in Manukau City promoting Maori and Pacific Island music, dance, arts, craft and fashion have just launched their website.
For more info check out: www.soifua.com

Tha Feelstyle dominates at Pacific Music Awards

Samoa-born hip hop artist Tha Feelstyle (Kas Futialo) has won three awards at the inaugural 2005 Pacific Music Awards announced at Pasifika in Auckland on March 11 2005.

A rapper who mixes humour with dark, mysterious lyrical concepts, Tha Feelstyle has taken the Niu FM Best Pacific Hip Hop Artist and the New Zealand Music Industry Commission Best Pacific Male Artist for his 2004 album, Break it to Pieces.

Courtesy of NZ Herald - 02.03.05 by Adam Gifford

True view gained inside patterns

When Filipe Tohi stands on the beach near his New Plymouth home, throwing stones into the water, he is adding to tradition. They are some of the makakupesi, andesite stones Tahi has picked off the beach and carved into human or god-like shapes.

Creative New Zealand grants for Pacific Arts

Pacific artists and their work will be showcased in festivals in Auckland, Palmerston North and Tauranga with the support of grants from the Pacific Arts Committee of Creative New Zealand in its latest project funding round.

A grant of $30,000 to the Pasifika Festival 2005 will provide fees to performers on three of the main stages. Held at Western Springs in Auckland on 12 March, this is the largest annual Pacific festival in the world showcasing the work of community groups and artists across artforms and cultures to an audience of more than 150,000. read more >>

Jack Gray represents New Zealand

New Zealand choreographer Jack Gray (right) has been invited to represent New Zealand at the World Dance Alliance Young Choreographers Project held at the National Chung-Sen University in Taipei, Taiwan in July. Recommended by DANZ (Dance Aotearoa New Zealand), Gray was selected from among the best young choreographers of the Asia-Pacific area who were also supported by their country's National Dance organisations. He will join three other choreographers from Australia, Malaysia and the Phillipines to work on the project.

Jack Gray, 28, will choreograph a 10 minute contemporary dance on a group of Taiwanese dancers. This work will be performed alongside the other choreographer's works at the conclusion of the month long project. His new piece will blend Maori with Taiwanese mythologies into a contemporary fusion of cultures. "My aim is to use old myths and legends to uncover the traditional knowledge of the societies they belong to, and to see how this can succesfully be translated into the modern world".

In 2000, Gray was a founding member of Atamira Dance Collective, a key platform for innovative Maori contemporary dance theatre. He is excited at this rare opportunity to work overseas. "It is difficult to be a freelance choreographer in this country where mostly I have to fund my own work and travelling costs. But getting this residency helps affirm the belief in myself that I have something important and unique to offer."

Gray has received international recognition for his choreographic talent, with a DanceWEB Scholarship to the 2001 Impulstanz Festival in Austria and selection to the Atelier Du Monde programme at the 2002 Montpellier Festival in France. Previously he has choreographed internationally for Contact Dance Company of Malta, "Undercurrents", a contemporary poi dance, was created and premiered at the First European Union Dance Festival in 2002.

Dance Aotearoa New Zealand is the national arts, education and service agency for dance in New Zealand
www.danz.org.nz

Unitec Videodance Shorts

Film and video have stimulated the global emergence of a form of art dance for the camera that is a growing area of artistic interest and activity. Under the tutoring eye of local professionals, students at Unitec’s School of Performing and Screen Arts in Auckland are forging a distinctively New Zealand approach to videodance that is positioning them at its forefront.

Between one to two minutes long and made over the last three years by students enrolled in Unitec’s contemporary dance and film courses, this selection of distinctive and original works combine imaginative dance and cinematic ideas with high camera, editing, production and sound values.

Delightfully simple and inventive, these video snapshots have captured the fleetingness of dance and made it available for filmic manipulation, audience enjoyment and choreographic fun. Structured like moving-image haikus with themes ranging from surreal and absurdist to poignant and lyrical, they convey the distinctive talents of an up-and-coming group of young kiwi dance and film-makers destined to make their mark in our culture.

Professional Development Opportunities

South 2: The Journey - Residencies and Networks
International

In 2005 the South Project is focused on developing residencies and collaborative exchange opportunities for the extensive network of artists and cultural workers that has developed since the initiation of this project.
http://tbi.co.nz/tbi/opportunity/977

Graphic design honours
Auckland

The aim of the course is to allow students the freedom to develop work away from the sometimes, limiting constraints of a client. The structure of the programme allows them to challenge a passionate idea and through rigorous, creative testing, contribute something new to graphic design both nationally and internationally.
Organisation: Auckland University of Technology
http://tbi.co.nz/tbi/opportunity/978

The Roy W. Dean film grant
Nationwide

The Roy W. Dean film grant for New Zealand filmmakers is now taking applications.
This grant has goods and services from your generous companies, Kodak, Film Unit, Digital Post, Tait, David and many more.
http://tbi.co.nz/tbi/opportunity/966

Creating Film Crew

http://tbi.co.nz/tbi/marketplace/398

www.thebigidea.co.nz has been developed by the Arts Work Project and has been initiated by Creative New Zealand in partnership with Auckland City Council, Auckland New Ventures Inc, Artists Alliance, Community Employment Group and Work and Income New Zealand - Auckland Central Region.