Aronui Indigenous Arts Festival returns to Rotorua in September

The Aronui Indigenous Arts Festival in Rotorua returns next month. Photo / Michelle Cutelli

Todaymarks the launch of the official 2020 event programme for the Aronui Indigenous Arts Festival which celebrates, shares and inspires through indigenous arts.

Festival director Cian White (Te Arawa, Ngāti Pikiao), who also led last year's festival, said she was privileged to lead Aronui into its second year.

"I'm excited to celebrate, uplift and bring our community together after the tough first half of 2020. The arts is the perfect vehicle for expressing the hopes, dreams and aspirations of our community, and the Aronui program has something for everyone," White said.

"Aronui 2020 is building on last year's vision of supporting indigenous cultures and I hope it will encourage other artists from around New Zealand to come to Rotorua."

She said Mahi Toi was a powerful vehicle for indigenous storytellers, with boundless potential for exploring their voice on social issues.

"This is an opportunity for our world class local, national and eventually international indigenous talent to come together and celebrate each other in a boldly indigenous space.

Te Arawa looks forward to hosting our other indigenous brothers and sisters from different rohe around the Motu (New Zealand), as we share and inspire our wider community and each other thanks to this year's festival which celebrates our art, reo, people and stories."

After a sell out show at the Auckland Live Fringe Town Festival in February 2020 and winning Pick of the Fringe and best dance awards, Hawaiki TŪ present a powerful Māori dance work 'Taurite' to launch the opening event of Aronui Indigenous Arts Festival.

Action from the 2019 Aronui Indigenous Arts Festival. Photo / Michelle Cutelli

Director of Hawaiki TŪ and kapa haka practitioner Kura Te Ua (Te Rarawa, Ngāi Tūhoe) is excited to present 'Taurite' and what this Māori dance work means for an event that celebrates indigenous art and culture.

"The whakaaro for 'Taurite' embodies the virtue of balance and was born out of a need to consciously address things like globalisation. This vital and ritualistic experience invokes its ancestral roots in an indigenous physical expression of the contemporary journey to reclamation."

The Aronui Indigenous Arts Festival will showcase a diverse range of art forms including theatre, te reo Māori, music, writing, visual and traditional art as well as film. It also supports Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori in the second week of September.

Find the official 2020 event programme details at: www.aronuiartsfestival.com