NZ Pasifika Arts and Music Site

Okay, so according to the stats I've been a member of this site for 3years and 3weeks...and probably about a year and a half ago, I was apologising in a blog that I was spending a lot of time on MySpace. Okay, that's true, (as well as Bebo, and now a little bit of Facebook) so this is an update on what's happening with PU. Since the last entry that was made from PU, (Vitu-Pacific Arts) which was in February much has happened with the current shows on offer.
In April, Soul Defined appeared again at the Jazz Festival but this time upgraded to the Great Hall. A great night out for us, and of course we love playing with our flash friends in music-from Tihei Productions Brent Thompson and Michelle Harrison, Mike Watts, and the wonderful horn section!
CCC gave recognition to PU by giving us great gigs in June, with the Heritage Week celebrations where we played Island Summer at the opening, Soul Defined at the Market Day and a new band The Paradise Band at the Siva. This coincided with the UNESCO World Heritage Conference where we played at their Pacific Evening.
In May I edited and re-edited Angels, a play that both Joy Vaele and I have yet to finish. Operate Trust offered us a play reading for this piece. We had the pleasure of actors Barbara Carpenter, Maria Ifopo, Sela Leavasa, Lupe Asi, Robert Gilbert (who stepped in the very last minute to replace Ave Robertson) and my daughter Talia-Rae Mavaega reading our play to a small audience at THe Forge (formerly Court 2) in June.
Also in June I was contracted as the Pasifika Coordinator for the CHCH Arts Fest opening (July 26) working alonside Michel Tuffery who presented his multimedia piece 'First Contact'. This meant employing a Cook Island Group, Common Ground and PU to provide the live element to the evening. PU also played a new show "PU SOUL ME" with Ardijah in the Chrystal Palace. The evening was a huge success for the festival and for PU, we got a great review and pic in the paper.
In August we played at Aranui High as a fundraiser for their Jazz Band. Our Soul Defined Trombone player Chris Papps teaches there. Great fun for us up on the school hall stage, even though we played with no monitors, and couldn't hear a thing.
So now we've scored a gig for Island Summer at TE Papa in Wellington in October (Labour Weekend.). Te Papa's newest Pasifika exhibition called 'Tangata O Le Moana' that will be up for the next 10 years actually includes a 5min movie of PU, so we're part of the opening weekend amongst many other Pacific artists such as King Kapisi, Che Fu, Antsman, Ebony Fields, and more. 18 of us will travel up the Wellington and we will be recruiting Wellington guitarists also.
So that's it in a big nutshell. Nice to see the site again, it's changed a number of times...and it's looking flaaaaaash as.
Peace from the Underground
Tanya