Pacific festival brings Island sounds to a mall near you

26 January 2005

Experience the sounds of the islands while you shop as part of this year's Lima-Pacific Arts Festival when the Lima Bus Tour brings live Pasifika performances to a mall near you on Wednesday 2 February.

The Lima Bus Tour will help launch the festival of contemporary and traditional Pacific art, music, dance, and film to be held at various Christchurch venues.

Musicians and dancers from Samoa, the Cook Islands, Niue, Australia and New Zealand will perform at: Hornby Mall; Northlands; City Mall; Eastgate, and The Palms as the Lima Bus Tour showcases the best of the Festival.

Melbourne trio Sunga and local band Tribalincs will be joined by traditional Pacific dancers and NiuFM’s The Jandal Man as a taste of what’s to come at the Festival.

Highlights of the festival’s first day also include Samoan master weaver Emma Kesha demonstrating from 10am at the Arts Centre Venues Centre. Weavers will pay tribute to Canterbury’s own Master Maori Weaver Cath Brown, who passed away in August last year, at the Weaving Pavilion in the South Quad which will show traditional weaving from Aotearoa, Niue and Samoa, alongside Tivaevae (quilt-makers) from the Cook Islands.

The Festival closes in spectacular style at 8pm on Saturday with the Fia Fia Night. As the sun sets, be whisked away to the islands with traditional and contemporary Pacific dance and song. Performers from Christchurch and Dunedin will be joined by dance groups from Samoa and Niue, with an encore performance by Melbourne trio Sunga and local group Pacific Underground.

Pacific Underground, a Christchurch drama and music group that helped launch such New Zealand names as hip hop artist Scribe and Oscar Kightley of BroTown fame, will host the Festival sponsored by the Christchurch City Council.

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