Final Day Of ASB Polyfest’s 45th Anniversary Event

After two years of disruption, ASB Polyfest will complete a four day festival today, and celebrate its 45th anniversary in style.

Last year’s festival was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and the final day of the 2019 festival cancelled following the Christchurch mosque tragedy on March 15. But this year, ASB Polyfest is back, and set for a huge day of traditional performance.

In looking ahead to the final day of the 2021 festival, ASB Polyfest event director Seiuli Terri Leo-Mauu says “the public will see amazing Pacific Island performances, and kapa haka at its best with the Division One groups battling it out not only for the title, but for places in the national kapa haka competition.”

Te Whare Wananga o Awanuiarangi Maori stage features the powerhouses of school kapa haka from 8:00am – 5:00pm today, with fourteen schools battling it out for the coveted Maori Stage crown

The M.I.T. Niue Stage will be reverberating with six Niuean groups from 9:00am – 2:30pm, while the Massey University Tongan Stage features vibrant Tongan dances such as the Ma’ulu’ulu and Kailao from 9:00am – 2:30pm today, with 18 school groups performing. The University of Auckland Samoan Stage has 12 groups performing traditional Samoan dances. Groups compete in three divisions – boys schools, girls schools and co-educational schools. It is the co-educational schools on stage today from 8:30am – 2:30pm.

Seiuli Terri Leo-Mauu is delighted to finally run a full four-day festival, and celebrate the event’s 45th anniversary. She said “ASB Polyfest is all about the kids. This is where they get their cultural injection. This is where they get to come together and celebrate who they are. We are so pleased to be back this year, and continue this iconic cultural event.”

The festival started in 1976, when two sixth form students at Otara’s Hilary College (now Sir Edmund Hilary Collegiate) – Boaz Raela and Michael Rollo challenged three other Auckland schools to a performance competition – a celebration of their difference cultures.

The original concept of Raela and Rollo was to host a festival that brought secondary schools together, and allow them to demonstrate pride in their cultural identity and heritage through traditional dance and kapa haka.

Four schools attended the inaugural event – Seddon High School (now Western Springs College), Aorere College, Mangere College and the host school – Hillary College. The Parent Teacher Assn took responsibility for the food on the day, with a hangi prepared and the school tuckshop opened.

Forty-five years on, ASB Polyfest has grown into the largest Maori & Pacific Island Festival in the world, and a symbol of the growing diversity of Auckland, the largest Pacific city on the globe. This year sees 49 schools, 160 cultural groups, 8,000 students performing traditional speech, song and dance on six stages, to an expected crowd of 90,000 people.

The event's original purpose was to maintain dance and other traditions among young Polynesian and Maori. This year's festival has once again shone a light of Maori & Pacific culture, and youth performance.

© Scoop Media