March 11, 2023
Final Day of ASB Polyfest’s 48th Anniversary Event
Final Day of ASB Polyfest’s 48th Anniversary Event
After a few years of disruption, ASB Polyfest will complete a four day festival today, and celebrate its 48th anniversary in style.
In looking ahead to the final day of the 2023 festival, ASB Polyfest event director Seiuli Terri Leo-Mauu says ““we’ve had so many disruptions over the past four years, it has been amazing to return to some normality this year and see our youth shine on stage. The public will see some amazing Pacific Island performances today.”
The Te Mahau Cook Islands Stage has five Cook Island groups doing traditional dance from 9:00am – 2:00pm today including defending champs Mangere College on stage at 1:30pm.
The Creative NZ Niue Stage will be reverberating with seven Niuean groups from 9:30am – 2:30pm, with defending champs Auckland Girls Grammar hitting the stage at 1:00pm.
The Creative NZ Tongan Stage features vibrant Tongan dances such as the Ma’ulu’ulu and Kailao from 8:30am – 3:00pm today, with 28 school groups performing.
The University of Auckland Samoan Stage has 11 groups performing traditional Samoan dances. Groups compete in three divisions – boys schools, girls schools and co-educational schools. It is the boys & girls school groups on stage today from 9:00am – 2:00pm.
Seiuli Terri Leo-Mauu is delighted to finally run a full four-day festival, saying “we are so pleased to be back this year, and continue this iconic cultural event. ASB Polyfest is all about the kids. This is where they get their cultural injection. This is where they get to come together and celebrate who they are.”
The festival started in 1976, when two sixth form students at Otara’s Hilary College (now Sir Edmund Hilary Collegiate) – Boaz Raela and Michael Rollo challenged three other Auckland schools to a performance competition – a celebration of their difference cultures.
The original concept of Raela and Rollo was to host a festival that brought secondary schools together, and allow them to demonstrate pride in their cultural identity and heritage through traditional dance and kapa haka.
Four schools attended the inaugural event – Seddon High School (now Western Springs College), Aorere College, Mangere College and the host school – Hillary College. The Parent Teacher Assn took responsibility for the food on the day, with a hangi prepared and the school tuckshop opened.
Forty-eight years on, ASB Polyfest has grown into the largest Maori & Pacific Island Festival in the world, and a symbol of the growing diversity of Auckland, the largest Pacific city on the globe. This year has seen 55 schools, 181 cultural groups, 8,000 students performing traditional speech, song and dance on five stages, to a crowd of approximately 60,000 people.
The event’s original purpose was to maintain dance and other traditions among young Polynesian and Maori. This year’s festival has once again shone a light of Maori & Pacific culture, and youth performance.
Performances will continue in three week’s time when Maori kapa haka takes place at the Due Drop Events Centre (formerly Vodafone Events Centre) from 3-5 April.
Key Details
Dates: 8 – 11 March & 3 – 5 April, 2023
Website: www.asbpolyfest.co.nz
Stages: Samoan, Tongan, Niue, Cook Islands, Diversity Stages (8 – 11 March)
Maori Stage (3 – 5 April)
Venues: Manukau Sports Bowl, Te Irirangi Drive, Manukau (8 – 11 March)
Due Drop Events Centre, Manukau (3 -5 April)