The music of New Zealand has been influenced by blues, jazz, country, rock and roll and hip hop, with many of these genres given a unique New Zealand interpretation. A number of popular artists have gone on to achieve international success including Lorde, Split Enz, Crowded House, OMC, Bic Runga, Benee, Kimbra, Ladyhawke, The Naked and Famous, Fat Freddy's Drop, Savage, Gin Wigmore, Keith Urban, Flight of the Conchords, and Brooke Fraser.
Pacific Islanders, or Pasifika, are the peoples of the Pacific Islands. It is a geographic and ethnic/racial term to describe the inhabitants and diaspora of any of the three major sub-regions of Oceania. It is not used to describe non-indigenous inhabitants of the Pacific islands.
Oscar Vai To'elau Kightley, MNZM, is a Samoan-born New Zealand actor, television presenter, writer, journalist, director, and comedian. He "was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to theatre and television in 2009."
The New Zealand International Film Festival (NZIFF) is a film festival held annually across New Zealand throughout the latter half of the year, starting in Auckland in July.
Michael "Michel" Cliff Tuffery is a New Zealand artist of Samoan, Tahitian and Cook Islands descent. He is one of New Zealand's most well known artists and his work is held in many art collections in New Zealand and around the world.
The Pasifika Festival is a Pacific Islands-themed festival held annually in Western Springs, Auckland City, New Zealand. Celebrated since 1993, it is the largest festival of its type in the world and attracts over 200,000 visitors every year.
Donna Tusiata Avia is a New Zealand poet and children's author.
The Festival of Pacific Arts, Pacific Arts Festival, or FESTPAC is a traveling festival hosted every four years by a different country in Oceania (map). It was conceived by the Pacific Community as a means to stem erosion of traditional cultural practices by sharing and exchanging culture at each festival. The major theme of the festival is traditional song and dance. The 2008 Festival of Pacific Arts was hosted by American Samoa from 20 July to 2 August 2008; it was the 10th Festival of Pacific Arts.
Yuki Kihara is an interdisciplinary artist of Japanese and Samoan descent. In 2008, her work was the subject of a solo exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York; it was the first time a New Zealander had been the subject of one-person show at the institution. Titled Shigeyuki Kihara: Living Photographs, the exhibition opened from 7 October 2008 to 1 February 2009. Kihara's self-portrait photographs in the exhibitions included nudes in poses that portrayed colonial images of Polynesian people as sexual objects. Her exhibition was followed by an acquisition of Kihara's work for the museum's collection.
Iosefa Enari was a New Zealand opera singer who was born in Samoa. The Iosefa Enari Memorial Award, presented annually by Creative New Zealand, recognises Enari's pioneering contribution to Pacific Islands opera. Enari was the Artistic Director of Classical Polynesia, the first New Zealand opera combining traditional Samoan words and music with classical opera. Classical Polynesia premiered at the New Zealand International Festival of the Arts 1998 in Wellington, and featured Jonathan Lemalu.
The Pacific Media Network is a New Zealand radio network and pan-Pasifika national broadcasting network, currently owned and operated by the National Pacific Radio Trust and partly funded by the Government. It includes the PMN 531 radio network, PMN News and Auckland-only broadcast station PMN NIU combined are accessible to an estimated 92 percent of the country's Pacific population. The network targets both first-generation Pacific migrants and New Zealand-born people with Pacific heritage. As of 2009, it was the only specifically pan-Pacific broadcaster in New Zealand.
Ani O'Neill is a New Zealand artist of Cook Island and Irish descent. She has been described by art historian Karen Stevenson as one of the core members of a group of artists of Pasifika descent who brought contemporary Pacific art to "national prominence and international acceptance".
Lisa Marie Reihana is a New Zealand artist of Maori descent who grew up in Blockhouse Bay, Auckland, New Zealand.
Mīria George is a New Zealand writer, producer and director of Māori and Cook Island descent. Best known for being the author of award winning stage plays, George has also written radio, television and poetry, and was one of the film directors of the portmanteau film Vai. In November 2005, she won the Emerging Pacific Artist's Award at the Arts Pasifika Awards. Mīria George was the first Cook Islands artist to receive the Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer’s Residency at the University of Hawaii.
Greg Semu is a New Zealand-born photographic artist of Samoan descent.
Andy Stankovich is an Elvis tribute artist from New Zealand who has been performing since the early 1990s. He is also a former boxer who along with his brother won a gold medal at the Oceania Games in Australia. He has fought in Australia and the United States. His Elvis act has taken him to countries that include Australia, Hawaii, Fiji and the United States, where he has performed in Nashville. He has also been credited with inspiring Samoan musician Alphonso Keil to become an Elvis impersonator. In his day job, he runs a scrap metal business. He has also recently been the subject of a documentary.
Nina Nawalowalo is a New Zealand theatre director and co-founder of the contemporary Pacific theatre company The Conch.
Mika Haka is a New Zealand Māori singer, performance artist, actor, filmmaker, TV producer and comedian. He has toured across the world performing his cabaret stage shows and music. He has performed ten times at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, most recently with his show "Salon Mika". As an actor, he has been in many TV shows and movies including Shark in the Park, The Piano, Shortland Street and many more. He has released five albums in his music career, including his more well known albums "Do U like what U see?", "Mika Haka" and "Mika Versus Fashion". The most successful songs that he has released were "I Loved me a man", "Lava Lover" and "Coffee".
Pacific Underground is a New Zealand performing arts collective, founded in 1993 in Christchurch, New Zealand, to produce contemporary performing art that reflects the group's Pacific Island heritage. In 2016 they received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Pacific Music Awards. They are the longest running Pacific contemporary performing arts organisation in New Zealand, and the book Floating Islanders, Pasifika Theatre in Aotearoa by Lisa Warrington and David O'Donnell has two chapters dedicated to their history and legacy.
