NAMBASSA
MUSIC ARTS CULTURE RESISTANCEKia ora Tatau. Tena koutou tena koutou tena koutou katoa.
Take a virtual multimedia tour down memory lane and revisit the history making and internationally acclaimed Nambassa alternatives festivals of music, arts and culture, and grab a glimpse of the splendor and wonders of the artistic, dynamic and thought provoking culture of New Zealand’s unique 1970’s home grown hip movement.
Nambassa is the tribal name of a Charitable Trust and series of hippie/ counter-culture 3 and 5 day music, arts and alternatives festivals held around Waihi and Waikino in Aotearoa- New Zealand during the 1970s. These series of multi-faceted festivals are widely regarded by many as being three decades before their time. These were festivals not only celebrating music and the arts, but events where one could attend any number of practical workshop demonstrations on issues we felt necessary to promote for the time. Workshops covered topics such as holistic health, the environment, arts and crafts, self-sufficiency, healing and spirituality. As Nambassa promotes that multiculturalism is a fundamental component in the building of a tolerant, inclusive and cohesive society, workshops on cultural exchanges played a prominent role.
The Nambassa festivals were organised on a voluntary basis by creative young hippies from New Zealand and across the globe. They were part of an international phenomenon in the 60s and 70s heralding a new artistic culture of music, freedom, love and social revolution; where millions of young people reacting against old world anticidents, embraced a new hippie ethos while promoting their alternative lifestyle as a natural part of ordinary life.
Many of the new concepts in art and entertainment, environmentalism, health and diet, multiculturalism, fashion, sexual tolerance, and free spirituality that were developed by the hippie’s counter-culture are now integrated into mainstream society. Even conservative mainstream religions who once opposed the rise and threat of hippydom now use many of their spiritual models and types of music to enhance their own community assemblies. Words like peace and love, vegetarianism, yoga, meditation, free spirituality, holistic healing, human rights, free speech, chanting, recycling and organics, gender equality, non-xenophobic, co-educational, new age, holistic health, gay liberation and protest are now accepted terms which have become central traits of western and other mindsets. Throughout the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s the Hippies became the foot-soldiers and usually the prime organisers of the campaigns throughout the world for; human and civil rights, anti Vietnam war activism, the emerging Green movements, the health consciousness revolution, the voice advocating open spirituality and freethinking, women’s activism, and the anti-nuclear and anti-war movements. Many of today’s youth are unaware as to what a different and closed society we once lives in before the 1960s, and how maligned and persecuted by that old society were the Hippies of that social revolution.
The boom of psychedelic music, and the de-conditioning brought about by the hippie revolution, fostered the advent of a generation of musical originals. The sixties and seventies spearheaded new music types, these now the established artistic precedent from which new styles will naturally evolve. These musical growth spurts have broken free from old world experience, taking the various musical disciplines in new directions with impressive and innovative results. In much the same way the 1960s and 1970s social revolution also heralded significant changes in how the west viewed its relationship to religion and spirituality, health and diet, the environment, civil and human rights, marriage and sexuality, free speech, gender equality, multiculturalism and the arts.
With our focus now on the future please visit the emerging Nambassa2000 blog which is a 2008 response to present world predicaments and events. This blog implores one to investigate the notion that if we are to survive ecologically and spiritually as a cohesive global community in this twenty-first century, then we are encouraged to consider revisiting many of the positive lifestyle and belief system traits proposed by the 60's and 70's hippie subculture.. This blog intends to canvas constructive ideas concerning issues which effect our future human and world development. Nambassa2000 invites you to comment on issues that are effecting our survival in the twenty-first century, this against a backdrop of social and cultural collapse, war, religious misinformation, environmental degradation and community alienation.
While mainstream religious, political and economic systems have attempted to drag humankind back to the ignorance of the dark ages, the freeing up of mind and culture caused by the breaking away from decaying old world perception, has stimulated new found expanded consciousness levels throughout the world which has fostered unprecedented growth in world science and technology, human and civil rights standards, free speech and press, personal spiritual growth, environmentalism, and health and diet. The extent of the phenomenal speed and growth of our evolving culture over the past few decades has not been matched in over 2000 years. (“The number of days have been reduced, had this not have been done then nobody would survive.†Mat24-22.)
The intentions of Nambassa-Online are not to simply regurgitate events and models of old, but to rediscover and build upon this unique spirituality or meaning, which fundamentally caused time and evolution to begin to accelerate from the 1960s and 1970s. Thus, causing a whole generation of disaffected youth to question the status quo, out of which seeds were sown for the new way or as some, would prefer it said metaphorically, a developing New Heaven (Spiritual methodology) and Earth (Lifestyle conducive to respecting Mother Earth, developing spiritual knowledge and one personal growth) PT.
"While we are divided by man made religious, political and economic interests, we all share and are united by the common thread of our humanity. At Nambassa we encourage the labels to fall away and we feed from the well of a sacred oneness, from this the essential building blocks of spirituality are developed. Here we create the environment for Nirvana so that we will replenish and Christ the earth".
AROHANUI
LINKS TO NAMBASSA ACROSS THE WEB
The official Nambassa website
The Nambassa2000 BLOG (What’s happening today)
Archiving 1970's Nambassa (the inside story at Wikipedia)
The 1977 Waikino Music Festival
The 1978 Nambassa Winter show with Mahana at Wikipedia
Amazing kiwi housetrucks
Photo images of Nambassa at Wikipedia
An illustrated essay by John Lowe. (A personal view)
myspace layouts-GENERATE YOUR OWN WORLDMAP NOW!
LIVE MUSIC RECORDED AT FESTIVAL'79
Click on this link and switch into live music as it was recorded from the main stage of the Nambassa festival 1979, with: Split Enz-Bold as Brass & Frenzy, Schtung- You see me coming, Tribrations- Are you ready now, Ricky Steele -Trains can fly, and comedian Neville Purvis...and yep more is too come. All rights reserved © Nambassa Trust and Peter Terry 2007.
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