Man shown wrapping his hands ready for boxingRiver­side Kings opens in Upper Hutt today and plays in BATS Theatre next week as part of the Kia Mau Fest­iv­al. The cre­at­ors Sar­ita So and Natano Keni, describe it as “a phys­ic­al weav­ing of broth­er­hood, nos­tal­gia and change.” Their new com­pany, I Ken So Pro­duc­tions, aims to cre­ate, diverse works of a high qual­ity.  They are broad­en­ing their skill­set which will they hope will lead to longev­ity with­in the arts com­munity.

Pro­du­cer and writer, Sar­ita So, answered some of my ques­tions on behalf of the com­pany.

“ The story came about  as  part of the newly named ‘Break­ing Ground Fest­iv­al’ pre­vi­ously known as the Matariki Devel­op­ment Fest­iv­al in 2015 , a fest­iv­al that Tawata Pro­duc­tions run every year, we have been part of the fest­iv­al since the first year.  Pre­vi­ously our engage­ment with­in the fest­iv­al has primar­ily been as act­ors, work shop­ping oth­er writer­’s scripts.  Break­ing Ground Fest­iv­al is a time of the year that I really love, as a cre­at­ive and act­or you get to see the first present­a­tions of a seed, an idea that the writers wants to invest­ig­ate and you get to nut it out with the writer intens­ively through the week, that by the end of the week the goal is that the writer hope­fully has a bet­ter idea of where they want to take the work.  It was dur­ing the Matariki Devel­op­ment Fest­iv­al 2015, that Miria asked if Natano wanted to try his hand at writ­ing a mono­logue to present as part of the fest­iv­al  that I think he ever con­sidered giv­ing it a go.  So he decided to write about this pecu­li­ar little place that is Tim­ber­lea, Upper Hutt.  And this was the begin­nings of where ‘River­side Kings’ came from.  In it’s very early days it was under the work­ing title of “Manny Pac­quaio of Tim­ber­lea”.

Natano took the mono­logue fur­ther by present­ing a full script as part of the Putahi Fest­iv­al, a fest­iv­al that focuses on fur­ther devel­op­ment of a script or show you have tried out before.  He did it as a solo show then and we were sup­pose to go on to  present a  sea­son of that, how­ever a week before head­ing in to rehears­als he had a death  in the fam­ily and decided to pull that sea­son and wait for a bet­ter time.  Now it’s been com­pletely reworked, same char­ac­ters but dif­fer­ent story, in a way it’s more groun­ded because he’s made it not only a homage to the place but address­ing that loss of a broth­er, pay­ing homage to him and keep­ing his memory alive through the work as well.

[Tim­ber­lea]  is a very small place and a place that people have either nev­er heard of or just for­got­ten, not con­sidered or included and also a place that is dis­tinctly itself, it’s got its own and unique feel about it, both rough and idyll­ic at the same time, not quite sub­ur­bia,  really close to the river and farm­land.  It is a place where the lights don’t work at night, a place dif­fer­ent cul­tures and gangs reside in but some­how every­one man­ages to live along­side each oth­er. More recently it’s had some bad press but I guess he wanted to pay homage to the place of his child­hood.  It’s quite an odd place for a few Sam­oan fam­il­ies to have ended up.

Box­ing, because Natano loves it and really wanted to use the idea of sport as meta­phor for life, also because we really wanted to make the piece phys­ic­al and act­ive, the aes­thet­ic of box­ing and see­ing someone lit­er­ally punch them­selves out until they have noth­ing.  I love see­ing an act­or sweat and work, doing some­thing phys­ic­ally chal­len­ging, like when the bound­ar­ies between ath­lete and act­or are blurred.  When they do some­thing that I can­’t or that I know takes a lot, they become sort of like a super­hero to me, you just respect that not every­body could do what they do.

I think to an audi­ence [from Tim­ber­lea] they’ll get to exper­i­ence see­ing and hear­ing char­ac­ters of the place, the recog­ni­tion and cel­eb­ra­tion of the place, that Tim­ber­lea as a place and char­ac­ter has a place to stand, it’s on the theatre map.  For people who may not be famil­i­ar, I would say a uni­ver­sal story, a story that they may relate to if they too are from a little town and as well as this it’s a story about fam­ily, friend­ship and nos­tal­gia for the past.  The pain of los­ing a loved one and how some­times shar­ing that pain is bet­ter than nev­er being able to meet it.”

I hope that the audi­ence spe­cific­ally in Upper Hutt exper­i­ence the love of the place, that they are worthy of stor­ies. That they make a good story and that they too have the right to tell their ver­sion of the story.

Finally, Sar­ita hopes that audi­ences will recog­nise “That all tra­di­tions, be they new or old, are all worthy.”

 

 

Pro­files of the people work­ing on the pro­ject after the jump.

Sar­ita So, pro­du­cer and writer, com­pleted a Bach­el­or of Arts in Eng­lish Lit­er­at­ure and Theatre at Vic­tor­ia Uni­ver­sity, fol­low­ing this up with a Bach­el­or of Per­form­ing Arts in Act­ing at Toi Whakaari:  New Zea­l­and Drama School. She has now returned to full time study at the Inter­na­tion­al Insti­tute of Mod­ern Let­ters, towards her MA in Cre­at­ive Scriptwrit­ing at Vic­tor­ia Uni­ver­sity.  She believes that it is integ­ral as an artists and pro­du­cer to con­tin­ue to prac­tice pro­fes­sion­al devel­op­ment, to allow sus­tain­able growth with­in the industry.

Natano Keni, writer and dir­ect­or, is a New Zea­l­and born Sam­oan, born and raised in the Hutt Val­ley, Wel­ling­ton. He enjoys hav­ing a good Sam­oan banter as well as hav­ing an appre­ci­ation for the poetry of the orators. He has extens­ive exper­i­ence work­ing with organ­isa­tions that focus on youth devel­op­ment, through schools and also juven­ile deten­tion centres, using theatre as a tool to ques­tion and prob­lem solve. Natano joined with the Bar­bar­i­ans Pro­duc­tions ‘White Ele­phant’ which has influ­enced his own per­son­al ques­tions of his role as a maker and what he strives to fur­ther explore, with­in the arts and its rela­tion­ship in Aotearoa; New Zea­l­and and the world.

Of Sam­oan and Tokelauan des­cent, Semu Filipo is a gradu­ate of Toi Whakaari:New Zea­l­and Drama School (2004) and has worked extens­ively in NZ T.V, film and theatre.  Semu is hot off the Pop Up Globe’s smash hit pro­duc­tion of ‘Much ado about Noth­ing’ star­ring as ‘Bene­dict’.

Joseph Aus­age, born and raised in Lower Hutt, Wel­ling­ton NZ, Lale is of Sam­oan des­cent and the young­est of three. Lale first fell in love with Drama whilst a stu­dent at St Bern­ard’s Col­lege. Drama was not to be his imme­di­ate path, instead, after a stint at Vic­tor­ia Uni­ver­sity and also play­ing Rugby League, at the age of 26 he finally decided it was the right ‘time’ to per­sue his true love of Stage and Screen at Whitireia Per­form­ing Arts. He believes that giv­en the oppor­tun­ity to help tell oth­ers stor­ies is the greatest attrib­ute to being an act­or and hopes to be part of many more in the future.

Tony De Goldi, set design­er, is a Wel­ling­ton based Theatre Design­er and Artist and has designed for theatre for over twenty years . Tony has designed pro­duc­tions for Tikapa, Tawata Pro­duc­tions, Te Rakau , Taki Rua Pro­duc­tions, NZ Opera, Cap­it­al E Nation­al Chil­dren’s Theatre as well as oth­er inde­pend­ent theatre com­pan­ies. Much of Tonys work has been with con­tem­por­ary indi­gen­ous pro­duc­tions and he has also exhib­ited inter­na­tion­ally since 1995. Tony is a mem­ber of the Kava Club and is cur­rently Set Ment­or for this year’s Young and Hungry Theatre sea­son in July.

Glenn Ash­worth has designed the light­ing.

Karnan Saba, com­poser and sound design­er, has helmed the sound design and com­pos­i­tion duties for Award-win­ning shows by Tawata Pro­duc­tions which include I, George Nepia, The Pro­spect, Sun­set Road, The Mourn­ing After, the New Zea­l­and Inter­na­tion­al Arts Fest­iv­al pro­duc­tion of Tu (2012), The Beau­ti­ful Ones and the White Face Crew Pro­duc­tion Double Derel­icts. A found­ing mem­ber of Wellington’s ori­gin­al Asi­an-inspired fusion out­fit Mok­sha, he has been involved in city’s music and com­munity arts scene as a musi­cian, pro­du­cer and event organ­iser since 2001.