Pacific stories to Scotland

Creative New Zealand press release

Pacific stories to Scotland

7 October 2014

Storytellers Grace Taylor and Tusiata Avia depart for the Scottish International Storytelling Festival this month. They round off a highly successful NZ at Edinburgh season which has seen more than 200 New Zealand artists participating in seven different festivals.

Donald Smith, Director of the Scottish International Storytelling Festival, says “Tusiata Avia and Grace Taylor are bringing a rich narrative flavour of the Pacific Islands and New Zealand to Scotland’s premier storytelling gathering. We can’t wait to hear those creative rhythms, here in Edinburgh and out on tour, and we are grateful to Creative New Zealand for making this visit possible.”

Grace Taylor says, “This year the festival is honouring Robert Louis Stevenson, so as women/poets of Samoan lineage this is a direct link to the festival for us.”

“This will be the first time I am able to take my poetry to the United Kingdom, to the neighbouring land of my father’s birthplace in Glastonbury.”

The Scottish International Storytelling Festival is one of the later events in the Edinburgh festival calendar. Tusiata Avia says, “The Fringe is over, but we continue representing New Zealand and the Pacific as storyteller-performance poets.”

“She says, “In the tradition of the Tusitala (storyteller), we speak back over the years and the miles to the land of Robert Louis Stevenson, the writer who was dubbed “Tusitala” in Samoa where he was revered and where he spent his final years.”

Niu Navigations is dedicated to the telling of Pacific stories by Pacific people and specialises in written and performance poetry, artistic development, poetry productions and events.

Avia and Taylor are among the rising number of voices contributing to the revival of Pacific oral storytelling.

Raw, honest, confrontational and healing, their words offer a glimpse into the world of cultural collision.

Their journey to Scotland begins on 24 October.

ENDS

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