ASB Polyfest

The ASB Polyfest starts this week, with a special Powhiri organised to begin the festival, which is celebrating its 35th Anniversary.

The host school, Sir Edmund Hillary Collegiate, have hand-picked 300 students to welcome guests to the powhiri at 9am this Wednesday, 17 March. The students are from the school’s Maori, Cook Islands, Niue, Samoan and Tongan groups and will perform a mass haka to kick off the 35th Anniversary celebrations.

This year’s ASB Polyfest sees 65 schools, 208 cultural groups and 9000 students taking part in speeches, kapa haka and traditional dance competitions.

In looking at the importance of the ASB Polyfest for secondary school students, Event Director Tania Karauria said:

“The ASB Polyfest is an opportunity to develop awareness and understanding of who they are, where they’re from, and the relevance and importance of their cultural traditions and beliefs. It is an integral part of a young person’s education, crossing a number of learning disciplines to encourage self identity, self discovery, self development, sense of community, and an awareness of one’s place in the global arena.”

Karauria went on to say: “The ASB Polyfest is about young people from all walks of life coming together in one place to celebrate the pride and passion of their cultures and that of others.”

There is a new education initiative at this year’s festival with the “My Culture & Me” programme for Primary and Intermediate students taking place for the first time on Thursday, 18 March.

The “My Culture & Me” programme sees a large number of primary and intermediate schools given a taste of the ASB Polyfest with an educational focus. They will receive their own powhiri at 9:30am in the ASB Village, and then spend the morning in the ASB Village engaging in community interactive activity with groups such as The Order of St John, Surf Lifesaving, Northern Region Coastguard and a display demonstrating the GetWise primary school financial literacy programme. Students will tour around the festival stages in the afternoon, and will complete a number of activities and challenges on their festival tour.

While the ASB Polyfest is all about youth performance this year, for the first time, an international professional cultural group is also heading to the festival to perform at lunchtimes on Friday and Saturday. The Hirinaki Group is a professional performance group from Tahiti. They will perform on the Tongan and Niue stages during the lunch break at 1pm on Friday, 19 March, and then on Saturday, 20 March at the same time on the Maori, Cook Islands and Samoan stages.

The 35th Anniversary of the ASB Polyfest takes place at the Manukau Sportsbowl from 17 – 20 March. Entry is $4. Preschool children are free.