Aroha17 Festival of Ideas, the Mika Haka Foundation’s annual diversity and social change festival will feature a NYC House Party held over two nights -February 22 and 23 - headlined by New York City cyber-soul artist GypjaQ.
Over the past two years, the Aroha17 Festival of Ideas has become the space where young people work towards awareness and prevention of suicide, the major issue for youth in New Zealand.
Mika’s strong links with New York City nightlife have led to the import of cyber-soul artist GypjaQ (pronounced Jip-Jack) to headline the NYC House Party to be held at Mika’s Mt Roskill studio on February 22 and 23. The night will feature original works from spoken word artists Jasper Powell, Liam Jacobson and Mokoera Te Amo, world champion King Home Boy and mellow acoustic rock from Ramon Te Wake.
Mika describes this year’s Aroha17 Festival of Ideas as “quality with edge and yet it’s not exclusive – people can just turn up in their jandals and they will be welcome, a boy can wear a dress and be welcome. Travelling to many festivals around the world I’ve noticed there’s a feeling of dropping the pretence of trying to be something more than it actually is, for example there’s a trend for the stars to mingle with the audiences more than before.”
