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| Photo credit: Sourced as Official Polyfest poster for 2020 |
I'm also told that it's 45 years since it first started which was back in 1975. At that time, I was still in primary school and it's been on every year since with ASB Bank as the major sponsor for well over a decade.
I've blogged about this before but it's always good to remind ourselves that this is the largest Polynesian Dance Festival in the world where youth from High schools around Auckland combine to compete (although there are none competitive stages) in different cultural categories to win bragging rights of being the best Tongan, Samoan, Niuean, Cook Islands, Maori etc. group.
This year our eldest is in Uni and our middle child has decided to have a go on the Tongan stage. I know you might ask why not the Samoan stage? but we like to encourage our children to have a go at learning different dances.
This is similar to how I was brought up in the PIC (Pacific Islanders Presbyterian church) as a teenager learning Cook Islands, Niuean and Samoan dances by skilled authentic teachers in the language, culture and in dance. The Polyfest allows these dances to be passed onto new generations who learn to sing, dance, smile and learn about the different values and mannerisms of the cultures that they are choosing to dance in.
And over the years the Polyfest has grown from strength to strength with so many schools competing that it's now over 4 days with many community food stalls and government, university, jewellery etc. stalls vying for youth attention.
Only a few more weeks and all will be revealed for another monumentous POLYFEST 2020...
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