{"id":122,"date":"2008-03-08T12:39:53","date_gmt":"2008-03-08T00:39:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/2008\/03\/08\/blatant-name-dropping\/"},"modified":"2012-11-04T22:28:24","modified_gmt":"2012-11-04T09:28:24","slug":"blatant-name-dropping","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/blatant-name-dropping\/","title":{"rendered":"Blatant Name Dropping"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier in the week I attended <a href=\"http:\/\/www.playmarket.org.nz\" target=\"_blank\">Playmarket<\/a>&#8216;s <em>2008 Pasifika Playwrights Development Forum<\/em>. Fellow <a href=\"http:\/\/break.dfmamea.com\">BREAK<\/a> survivor and newly appointed Playmarket development coordinator, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0374806\/\" target=\"_blank\">Jenni Heka<\/a>, was responsible for my attendance: she&#8217;s scary.<\/p>\n<p>In my experience, Pasifika* gatherings have been the last place to have a good time. I&#8217;ve felt out of place at them, like I&#8217;ve gatecrashed someone&#8217;s birthday party. Most have been a combination of boring gabfest, bitch sessions, and\/or a mob hysteria where one had to choose sides or get the hell out.<\/p>\n<p>Not so this week. It wasn&#8217;t once boring. Instead of &#8220;woe is me&#8221; rants, we had fire and passion &#8211; where outsiders might&#8217;ve seen some rabble-rousing radicalism, I saw empowerment by example and vision. And everyone &#8211; <em>everyone<\/em> &#8211; was so freaking nice. There was an atmosphere of collegiality, of a common goal of telling Pasifika stories. A feeling of <em>community<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>I hadn&#8217;t expected to be so inspired: seeing <span style=\"text-decoration: line-through;\">my competition<\/span> fellow Pasifika creatives making things happen; swapping numbers and email addresses; <em>making contact.<\/em> Future posts will explore the culture scene thingie (obviously, I&#8217;m still sorting it out in my head) but for now I&#8217;ll just name drop:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/happiness.insiders.co.nz\/\" target=\"_blank\">Insiders Guide to Happiness<\/a> lead, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm1513044\/\" target=\"_blank\">Fasitua Amosa<\/a> (Samoan);<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.royalcourttheatre.com\" target=\"_blank\">Royal Court Theatre<\/a> head, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ltdb.co.uk\/node\/16492\" target=\"_blank\">Ola Animashawun<\/a>, who provided his dramaturgy services to the forum;<\/li>\n<li><em>Love Handles<\/em> and <em>Miss South Pacific<\/em> writer <strong>Arnette Arapai<\/strong> (Niue);<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/alliance.net.nz\/\" target=\"_blank\">Actors Equity<\/a> representative, <strong>Teresa Brown<\/strong>;<\/li>\n<li>director, screenwriter, fellow <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nzwg.org.nz\" target=\"_blank\">guild<\/a> member, and all-round gentleman, <strong>Tony Forster<\/strong>;<\/li>\n<li>award-winning playwright and actor <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/diannafuemana\" target=\"_blank\">Dianna Fuemana<\/a> (Niue\/Samoan);<\/li>\n<li><em>And What Remains<\/em> writer, <strong>Miria George<\/strong> (Rarotongan\/Cook Islands);<\/li>\n<li>writer, director, producer, comedian and <em>Killa Kokonut<\/em>, <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Vela_Manusaute\" target=\"_blank\">Vela Manusaute<\/a> (Samoan), who is many things because he simply <em>gets it <strong>on<\/strong><\/em>;<\/li>\n<li>established playwright and currently <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nzfilm.co.nz\" target=\"_blank\">New Zealand Film Commission<\/a> development executive, <a href=\"http:\/\/imdb.com\/name\/nm1768295\/\" target=\"_blank\">Hone Kouka<\/a> (Maori);<\/li>\n<li>New Zealand acting icon <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0498731\/\" target=\"_blank\">Nathaniel Lees<\/a> (Samoan);<\/li>\n<li>Fulbright scholar and playwright, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bookcouncil.org.nz\/writers\/rodgervictor.html\" target=\"_blank\">Victor Rodger<\/a> (Samoan\/Scottish);<\/li>\n<li><strong>Phoenix Seve<\/strong>, whose work-in-development <em>In the Name of the Father<\/em> was given a public reading by professional actors and I was simultaneously electrified and brought to tears &#8211; <em>and it&#8217;s still in development<\/em>;<\/li>\n<li><em>BREAK<\/em> survivor and actor, the irrepressible <strong>Bronwyn Turei<\/strong> (Maori);<\/li>\n<li>and writer and filmmaker, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thebigidea.co.nz\/modules.php?op=modload&amp;name=View_CV&amp;file=index&amp;person=1492\" target=\"_blank\">Louise Tu&#8217;u<\/a> (Samoan), who also showcased some scenes from her work-in development, <em>Providence<\/em>, which is my must-see for 2008.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So many names that I recognised, whose work I&#8217;d seen and adored. And I got to meet them! For real! It was so <strong><em>cool<\/em><\/strong>!<\/p>\n<p>I must get out more.<\/p>\n<p>* <small><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">Note for international readers:<\/span> in New Zealand, <em>Pasifika<\/em> means <em>of Pacific Island origin, ie., not Maori<\/em>. Here in New Zild, the Maori and Pacific Island population are already such a part of the Kiwi culture that to call them ethnic minorities, though statistically correct, would be like describing African Americans as an ethnic minority. We all be Kiwis here.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier in the week I attended Playmarket&#8216;s 2008 Pasifika Playwrights Development Forum. Fellow BREAK survivor and newly appointed Playmarket development coordinator, Jenni Heka, was responsible for my attendance: she&#8217;s scary. In my experience, Pasifika* gatherings have been the last place to have a good time. I&#8217;ve felt out of place at them, like I&#8217;ve gatecrashed &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/blatant-name-dropping\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Blatant Name Dropping&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[755,759,752,12,768,758,20,764,771,749,761,769,753,760,754,765,763,745,751,748,747,767,746,770,750,756,757,762,766],"class_list":["post-122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scriptwriting","tag-actors-equity","tag-and-what-remains","tag-arnette-arapai","tag-break","tag-bronwyn-turei","tag-dianna-fuemana","tag-fasitua-amosa","tag-hone-kouka","tag-in-the-name-of-the-father","tag-insiders-guide-to-happiness","tag-killa-kokonut-krew","tag-louise-tuu","tag-love-handles","tag-miria-george","tag-miss-south-pacific","tag-nathaniel-lees","tag-nzfc","tag-nzwg","tag-ola-animashawun","tag-pasifika","tag-pasifika-playwrights","tag-phoenix-seve","tag-playmarket","tag-providence","tag-royal-court-theatre","tag-teresa-brown","tag-tony-forster","tag-vela-manusaute","tag-vicor-rodger"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3208,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122\/revisions\/3208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dfmamea.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}