Phoenix Performing Arts of Moana (PPAM) will be in Sydney from the 10th to 12th of January 2010 to watch

and participate in some of the phenomenal and extraordinary activities of the 2010 Sydney Festival. Also, PPAP members are looking forward to meet two of their associates, Professor Hufanga 'Okusitino Mahina & Semisi Fetokai Potauaine, who are also members of the PPAP and Lo'au Research Society (LRS) in Aotearoa. LRS has branches in Aotearoa, Tonga, Fiji and Samoa, with its Headquarters in Australia  

Prof Mahina and Potauaine will be travelling with the Mau Theatre in Jan 2010 to participate in the 5th Pacific Thoughts Symposium, which is part of the Mau Program in this Festival. Mau with their dance work known as, 'Tempest: without a body', will be performed twice on Sunday the 10th of Jan at Everest Theatre (of Seymour Centre), and in between is going to be the 5th Pacific Thoughts Symposium.  Both of our associates will be participated in the panel of the Syymposium, including Dr Katerina Teaiwa of the Australian National University from Canberra. Siosiua Lafitani Tofua'ipangai, the Director of PPAM, is now awaiting for confirmation of place from the organizers to participate as well.

According to 2010 Sydney Festival website,

"In Tempest: without a body, choreographer Lemi Ponifasio has created a poignant, poetic and frighteningly beautiful reflection on the post-9/11 world. 
An angel with a broken body and crumpled wings too small for flight, wanders on the landscape of blood and destruction. The dancers of the MAU company emerge from the shadows to pray on the ruins of history.
First staged at the Vienna Festival in 2007, Tempest: without a body interweaves Shakespeare’s The Tempest’s themes of institutional injustice with the ideas of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben. The presence on stage of Māori activist Tame Iti adds ceremonial and political potency,"

The theme and motto of the Mau Theatre is "The perception of truth and beauty."

In a message from Lemi Ponifasio, who is the current choreographer and leader of the Mau Theatre, he said, "As the human species, how do we confront and transform our being? How do we create the condition to make emerge the birth of beauty and truth? How do we stand up with courage to invite it, acknowledge it, celebrate it, love it or forgive it? How do we make emerge beauty that does not lie and truth that is kind?

In the MAUForum 2009 you will meet provocative and inspirational artists, thinkers, writers, activists, heads of government and communities from across the Pacific region and around the world, as we continue to facilitate new dialogue and meaningful exchange, engaging with significant issues that affect our lives. The MAUForum celebrates these different opinions, aesthetic expressions and ways of being."  

 Please click below for further information:

- http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LoauRS/

- http://www.mau.co.nz/mauforum.php

- http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2010/Dance/Tempest-without-a-body/