Ardijah heads Pacific concert at Takitimu Festival

Ardijah heads Pacific concert at Takitimu Festival

A band which pioneered the unique “Polyfonk” sound in the 1980s will headline tonight’s Pacific Variety concert at the Takitimu Festival in Hastings.

Ardijah, the recent recipient of a Music Industry Awards from this year’s Waiata Maori Music Awards, will be the closing act of the festival’s final evening show at the Hawke’s Bay Opera House.

Performing groups from Rarotonga and as well as the Troupe de dance Tavai’ura from Tahiti will combine with the Vaimutu Allstars to provide tonight’s audience with a unique blend of music from the Pacific.

The Patea Maori Club, singers Ria Hall and Mere Boynton will also add to tonight’s concert.

It has only been a week since Ardijah performed at the opera house when the band’s mainstay performers Ryan and Betty-Anne Monga received the band’s industry award.

Earlier this year, Ryan said he was looking forward to performing at the Takitimu Festival. The band performed at the inaugural festival in 2008.

“That experience was awesome becayse for me, being brought up in New Zealand, I got to see a lot of my relations that came over from the Cook Islands with Pa Ariki (the Queen of the Takitumu district of Rarotonga).

“I am part Maori as well as Cook Island but to me the whole lot is Maori because in the Cook Islands they speak Maori as well as in Tahiti. And a lot of that has added to the Polyfonk sound.

“I am Takitimu from Rarotonga and to be able to share our sound with all of the other performers from the Pacific at the last festival was great.”

Ardijah started as a covers band in the late 1970s and although the line up has changed over the years, Ryan and Betty-Anne have been its cornerstone.

“Now we’ve got our son on bass, I moved over to drums, I was the original bass player, Betty-Anne plays ukulele and percussion and we’ve got a couple of relations on guitar and keyboards.

“So now it’s a small band but it’s a tight group.”

Tomorrow is the closing day of the Takitimu Festival where they international dance company Cleo Parker Robinson, from the US, will perform with Kahurangi Maori Dance Theatre, as the feature act.

The poroporoaki closing ceremony will be held about 1pm.

ENDS

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