[Pacific Festival of Arts]. The pre-eminent event for the performing arts in the Pacific. Organized to respond to the South Pacific Commission's concern about the rapid erosion of the region's indigenous arts, the first South Pacific Festival of Arts was held in Fiji in 1972. It brought together more indigenous people from Australia and the islands south of the equator than had ever before gathered in one place. In 1976 Micronesians and Hawaiians were invited to participate, and after 1980 the geographical designation ‘south’ was dropped from the name. Festivals have been held in a four-year cycle: in Rotorua, New Zealand, in 1976, Papua New Guinea in 1980, Tahiti in 1985 (rescheduled from New Caledonia in 1984), Townsville, Australia, in 1988, Rarotonga, Cook Islands, in 1992, and Apia, Western Samoa, in 1996. New Caledonia hosted the festival in the year 2000. The number of participants has grown in successive festivals: the official visiting delegations to recent festivals, most of whose members participated as musicians and dancers, have totalled approximately 2500 persons. In addition, host countries have presented a wide range of their own performing arts through the participation of large numbers of its citizens: in 1996 more than 2000 children participated in the music and dance at the opening and closing ceremonies.
The festival has stimulated a renaissance in traditional heritage, creative developments in modern idioms (e.g. popular musics and dance dramas incorporating traditional elements) and intercultural borrowing. For peoples of the Pacific, it has engendered esteem for their own local, national and ethnic identity, recognition of the cultural diversity of others and a sense of belonging to a Pacific-wide community. The audio-visual materials from the festival, which is the most extensively recorded artistic event in the Pacific, are a major resource for studying and enjoying the music and dance of the Pacific.
BARBARA B. SMITH