Beating the drum for Pacific Island culture

A Polynesian cultural centre featuring traditional dancing, music and craft is planned for Manukau City - and its promoters promise it will not be a repeat of Suzanne Paul's disastrous Rawaka cabaret, which folded last year.

Investors are looking at developing land next to the new TelstraClear Pacific Events Centre by the motorway's northern off-ramp at Manukau.

The project is being run under the name of Soifua and its start-up team has already launched a cultural troupe with a rehearsing cast of about 40 performers.

Since last November, the troupe has performed at Auckland venues. Its show, called Ariki, features Maori, Cook Island, Samoan and Hawaiian songs and dance.
Manukau City businessman and Soifua spokesman Ulu Aiono said the planning for the $5 million centre involved five stages, the first being to build up the profile of the cultural group.

Mr Aiono said the idea for such a centre had been considered before Suzanne Paul's venture.

The Rawaka Maori cultural show collapsed last July only a few months after opening in the former Fisherman's Wharf restaurant under the Auckland Harbour Bridge

Mr Aiono said Soifua (a Samoan word for live long and prosper) was taking things slowly and carefully.

By November Soifua hoped to have permission to set up a three-day-a-week market behind the events centre selling authentic Pacific and Maori goods. It is also seeking to lease land on which to build an auditorium, chapel and structures representing eight Pacific Island villages.

Mr Aiono said that despite tourists being told Auckland was the largest Polynesian city in the world, there was no fixed place to visit and experience the cultures.

"So we decided to do something about it."

The plans included developing a covered waterway on which guests could be taken on waka rides.

Mr Aiono said they already had strong interest from investors.

He noted that the motorway offramp beside the site carried 120,000 cars a day and was to be extended as a direct route to the international airport at Mangere.

The site itself had capacity for 750 carparks, and he believed the 21m-high carved kauri pole behind the distinctive events centre would become a tourist icon.