Festival passion promise
It’s been months of sacrificed lunch times and long practices but it’s finally time to pull out the moves and dance Island style.
Te Rauparaha Arena will be alive with the passion of the Pacific Islands on Friday as students from seven Porirua colleges perform in this year’s Northern Regional Polynesian Festival.
It is also the first time in years that the festival will be run during the day, instead of at night.
Tawa College is this year’s host and the school’s Polynesian Group co-ordinator Terangi Temata said more students were involved than ever before.
It is also the first year the school has had a Fijian group enter the festival.
Forty- six Tawa College students have been practising their routines for seven months, Temata said.
‘‘It’s definitely been a challenging and exciting experience,’’ she said.
Tawa College prefect and Samoan group leader Hezron Neru said he had decided to per- form this year for the first time because it was his last year at school and wanted to ‘‘ go out well’’.
‘‘ We just want to rep our cultures really well and make everyone happy and put on a good show. That’s what we are all about,’’ he said.
The other colleges taking to the arena’s stage are Aotea College, Bishop Viard College, Mana College, Samuel Marsden Whitby, Porirua College and Te Kura Maori o Porirua.
Each item will last 10 or 15 minutes and the event will run for six hours.
Traditional Pacific Island items will be performed, including sasa, slap and poi dances.