Polynesian Rendezvous in Auckland
p. 77 · Read in the full issue
The Islanders Church in Auckland, NZ, is one rendezvous for the 1,400 Islanders now resident in the Dominion—and so, at the other end of the scale, is the Polynesian Club, operated by Lou Mati, from Tahiti. He married into the well known Mitchell family of Rarotonga and has meantime acquired some property on that island but since 1935 he has been almost continuously in New Zealand—in the early years as a member of a J. C.
Williamson song-and-dance team called the Royal Rarotongans. The present
Polynesian Club was born in the mid thirties and has been a success from the beginning. However, to-day it probably merits the name Cosmopolitan rather than Polynesian for, as well as Polynesians, representatives of practically every race go along to dance in the course of the year. It was popular with American servicemen during the Pacific war.
Photographs (by Vogue, of Auckland) show Lou and his band, and, at light, some of the dancers.