Iconic PNG playwright and poet, Nora Vagi Brash passes on

Papua New Guinea’s prominent creative arts figure Nora Vagi Brash has died, taking on a wealth of knowledge and wisdom in her line of work.

The leading playwright and poet has had a remarkable journey in the arts space with her protruding work locally and globally recognized.

Brash entered the Arts industry in the 1970s as a puppetry, dance and drama lecturer at the Creative Arts School in Port Moresby after graduating with a Bachelor of Arts in Literature at the University of Papua New Guinea in 1982.

Born into a Motuan family in Dagoda, Central province, she wrote her first performed play while teaching at Kila Kila primary school.

Brash became the Artistic Director of the National Arts School whilst also mastering her talent as an actress and directed plays.

She quickly rose to occasion for her demanding creativity and inventive skills and ideas in literature and art, producing plays and poems.

Her work propelled her to various countries where she toured with the National Theatre Company in New Zealand, Nigeria and England.

She also served as a board member of the Theatre Company and the National Broadcasting Commission, and participated in writers’ conferences and literary selection panels at the University of Singapore, the Australian National University, the Commonwealth Institute in London and the Universities of Canterbury and Christchurch in New Zealand.

Brash was known for producing her own plays using her own society’s history and contemporary changes in the way Papua New Guinea culture was influenced by the modern dilemma.

Some of her notable plays include; High Cost of Living Differently, Which Way Big Man?, Black Market Buai, Sold Outright and Taurama. For Really, Political Play, It’s On Again, Knockout Competition are some of the many poems she wrote.

These plays and poems have appeared in journals and anthologies in PNG and abroad.