Results for Arts & Entertainment

The final program for the 2016 Heilala Festival has been released by the Heilala Festival Events Committee. This includes the Miss Heilala Pageant under the theme, "Beautiful Tonga". Tonight a cultural event at the Queen Sālote Memorial Hall will feature the Miss Junior/Pre-teen Tau'olunga dancing competitions.

Tonga's Visesio Siasau will have his huge black tapa cloth exhibited at ORA Gallery in New York City from July 6-28.

“It’s a wrap!”, said German filmmaker Florian Schewe, today after winding up six weeks of filming in Neiafu and Kenutu Island, Vava‘u. "The Tongan crew and cast members did a fantastic job, without them we could have not accomplished the filming,” he told Matangi Tonga Online.

In a colourful celebration of Polynesian, Native American and Latin American song and dance, Brigham Young University students "Living Legends" opened their Tongan goodwill visit with a Royal Performance for Queen Nanasipau'u at 'Atele Stadium on Saturday night. A public performance will be held at 7:00pm on Tuesday May 10. Photos by Pesi Fonua

Tonga’s own ON THE SPOT Arts Initiative (Inc.) celebrated its 10th anniversary on Friday receiving a generous donation of $15,000 from the Bank of the South Pacific – Tonga.

A prominent Tongan-Australian performer and climate change activist, Latai Taumoepeau, is raising awareness of climate change in her latest fringe theatre performance “Disaffected”. Latai along with fellow performers Valerie Berry and Ryuichi Fujimura, reveal the impacts of climate change through body language and abstract display. "The work is a powerful and evocative performance but more than that, it is a call to arms," stated the Sydney Arts Guide.

Vava’u is the new set for a South Korean film crew of 44 and 10 celebrities who are filming 10 episodes of "Law of the Jungle", a reality TV show. The show will be aired in South Korea on 16 March for 10 weeks attracting about 10 million television viewers as well as internet viewers.

Visiting New Zealand painter and printmaker Dame Robin White in collaboration with Ruha Fifita and local Tongan tapa makers, has produced an intriguing modern lau nima – a 25 metre long decorated barkcloth – that will be the centrepiece for an important exhibition of tapa at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia, in June.

The new Miss Galaxy Queen 2015, Diamond Vea of Fasi (Miss Fafa Island Resort) was crowned during the final night of the pageant on Thursday, 17 December in Nuku’alofa.