Told through move­ment, dance and text, this is a mod­ern state­ment on cli­mate change, col­on­isa­tion and Chris­tian­ity across the Pacific Rim. It’s an untangling of the greatest col­li­sion to have affected the Pacific – west­ern imper­i­al­ism.

Fire In The Water, Fire In The Sky has vari­ous per­form­ance times dur­ing the morn­ings. It shows in Tangata Le Moana, Level 4, Te Papa, and the per­formers move in and around the objects on dis­play. The audi­ence fol­lows them through the space – don’t be afraid to get closer and to walk around them.

Developed as part of her Fulbright–Creative New Zea­l­and Pacific Writer Res­id­ency at the Uni­ver­sity of Hawai‘i, Mānoa, dir­ect­or Mīria George answered some of our ques­tions.

“ ‘Fire In The Water, Fire In The Sky’ has gathered emer­ging and estab­lished artists based in Te Whānganui-a-tara.  In the rehears­al room I’ve been work­ing with three artists who are new to the pro­fes­sion­al industry, Te Hau Win­itana, Mapihi Kel­land and Man­arangi Mua.  Work­ing from a nar­rat­ive researched and cre­ated in Hawai’i, we’ve devised the per­form­ance install­a­tion on the rehears­al room floor.  Design­ers Tony De Goldi and Cara Louise Waret­ini have brought us nuances of time and space through props and cos­tumes – allow­ing our work to be a story on ideas – a mod­ern state­ment on cli­mate change and col­on­isa­tion in the Pacific.   

Māori + Pasi­fika whānau + hapū stand at the front line of cli­mate change – our waters and when­ua affected – the impact upon the present and the future vast.  I wanted to cre­ate a work of art that addressed the ongo­ing col­on­isa­tion of Māori + Pasi­fika, wheth­er entrenched in gov­ern­ment policy or a con­tin­ued devalu­ing of our world­view, ‘Fire In The Water, Fire In The Sky’ is about now. 

For a long time I’ve wanted to bring a per­form­ance install­a­tion into gal­lery and museum spaces.  My fath­er would take his chil­dren into gal­ler­ies – these are famil­i­ar spaces for me, where cre­ativ­ity is both pro­voc­at­ive and chal­len­ging.  My second stage play ‘and what remains’ premiered with­in the exhib­i­tion space at the City Gal­lery, Wel­ling­ton (in 2005) – as at the time more polit­ic­al work was more widely embraced in a visu­al arts con­text. I wanted to cross paths with pat­rons of gal­ler­ies + museum – with those who are yet to exper­i­ence a form of indi­gen­ous per­form­ance.  My aim was to expose my world view dir­ectly before these pat­rons – should they choose to watch and engage or not.  Often fam­il­ies will be with­in these spaces – par­ents with chil­dren who look on with curi­os­ity and can­not help to fol­low us through the space.

Gal­lery and museum spaces can be unex­pec­ted and dynam­ic – par­tic­u­larly when com­bined with pat­rons who aren’t neces­sar­ily plan­ning to be engaged with our per­form­ance install­a­tion.  These spaces often hold pro­voc­at­ive con­tem­por­ary work – chal­len­ging con­ver­sa­tions ques­tion­ing the world around them and the dom­in­ant paradigm.  Museum spaces hold many of our taonga – taonga from through­out the coun­try and the great­er Pacific – our tupuna are depic­ted in these spaces  – and should not be for­got­ten in these spaces.  ‘Fire In The Water, Fire In The Sky’ evokes a cre­at­ive nar­rat­ive through­out gal­lery and museum spaces – where both con­tem­por­ary work and taonga alike also become a part of our install­a­tion.     

I’m excited to present out­side of theatres – and in spaces where per­form­ance install­a­tions are not neces­sar­ily com­mon space.  That audi­ences can encounter an indi­gen­ous exper­i­ence by a female artist may inspire then to search for more per­form­ance exper­i­ences – and that I might one day see them also inside of the theatre! If audi­ences would come away curi­ous to con­sider the mul­tiple ways of life that  they’ve been shown in this work, that audi­ences would con­sider the way our worlds col­lide – just like them encoun­ter­ing this piece. ”