AUCKLAND CITY COUNCIL MEDIA RELEASE

5 December 2005

Shining new talent found for Pasifika Festival 2006

Some stars of the future have been uncovered at the auditions held at the Mt Roskill War Memorial Hall on Saturday 26 November for next year's Pasifika Festival.

There were 78 applications received for this year's auditions, up from 50 last year. 32 of those were selected to go through their paces on Saturday.

Pasifika Festival entertainment director, Rick Tuiasau, says there was an amazingly high standard of performances and is excited about finding a crop of new Pacific talent to introduce to festival audiences.

The auditions - called 'Expressions Pasifika' - were a chance for performers to show the judges why they should be performing at next year's festival. There were a number of different categories which included dance, music and cultural performances that were either traditional or contemporary, comedy, drama or singing.

Some of the highlights included:

1. Dziah, a hip hop dance group

2. The Bungalicious Fabulicious Fafa Five

3. Nafatali, a Samoan reggae group

4. Tim Dobier, a soloist who performed original music

5. Dcyhper, also a hip hop dance group

Pasifika Festival provides the opportunity to launch and showcase some of our Pacific artists on a big scale. The up and comers who have come through the audition process will complement the larger headline acts, some of whom got their start through the Expressions auditions years ago including Nesian Mystik and Spacifix.

The judging panel for the auditions consisted of Pasifika Festival entertainment director Rick Tuiasau, Tony Fuemana from Urban Pasifika Records, Petrina George from APRA and Cecilia Sagote who runs the Samoanz website.

Pasifika Festival 2006 will be held at Western Springs stadium and lakeside on 10 and 11 March. It starts on Friday with the spectacular Air New Zealand opening night concert at the stadium, and continues on Saturday with a full day of performances, entertainment and festivities.

Pasifika Festival is one of more than 60 free events provided by Auckland City as part of the Ak@Play summer events programme. It is proudly sponsored by Air New Zealand, The New Zealand Herald, SPARC (Sport and Recreation New Zealand), Radio 531pi, APRA and NZMIC, Flava96one and Western Union, with support from Tip Top Ice Cream Company, McCallum Industries Palm Corned Beef, Spasifik Magazine and Creative New Zealand.

ENDS

© Scoop Media