Pacific beats

(China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-04 10:58

The on-going World Music Days 2009 has brought together 27 scholars and musicians from New Zealand to talk about and perform traditional Maori and Pacific music.

Based on the theme "Chinese and New Zealand Music in dialogue" the event, that ends today at Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music, also includes workshops and film screenings.

"Traditionally in the Pacific, music has never been defined as an isolated cultural expression, it is invariably associated with dance, song, story-telling, with magic and myth, with the recording of history and genealogy, with ceremony, with healing," says Jack Body, a professor with the New Zealand School of Music and one of the curators of the World Music Days 2009.

"Hence, our festival includes dance and film, poetry and installations, and the mixing of tradition and contemporary expressions."

World Music Days is an annual event of the conservatory and was held for the first time in 2005.