What a joy­ful priv­ilege to exper­i­ence week one of the Kia Mau Fest­iv­al. I made it to six events. Visu­ally gor­geous work with strong themes of connection/disconnection from cul­ture, the neces­sity of trans­form­a­tion, and response to new situ­ations build­ing off the work of the ancest­ors. Each had lay­ers ref­er­en­cing the past and future, woven through in order to high­light the present. Time was trans­formed. Shows were presen­ted across the city, from Par­lia­ment to Te Whaea, in theatres and per­form­ing arts edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tions.  I heard at least four lan­guages rising from the stage – music for the ears and the spir­it. We laughed, we wept, we were chal­lenged and emboldened to rise to meet it. 

What will week two bring us?

Breaking Ground at Te Auaha

A writ­ing fest­iv­al of ideas, craf­ted into life by play­wrights from across Aotearoa. This year, the fest­iv­al will be ima­gin­ing new stor­ies for the stage. Work will be shared at the end of the week.

Tinā at Te Auaha

TINĀ is a brand new work by ground­break­ing col­lect­ive TULOU. It invokes pas­sion and heart through it’s fierce move­ment vocab­u­lary that has roots in Pacific and Con­tem­por­ary dance. Per­formed by a strong cast of women, TINĀ explores con­cepts of moth­er­hood and mana wāhine. You will see bold and excit­ing move­ment, bright cos­tumes and heart­felt moments shared between power­ful women. You can expect to leave the theatre feel­ing exhil­ar­ated and empowered.

Upu at Circa Theatre

The power of Māori + Pasi­fika lit­er­at­ure roar­ing to the­at­ric­al life.

The world of Ocean­ia is not small. From the ener­get­ic vol­ca­noes of O’ahu to the south­ern reaches of Aotearoa, she is bor­der­less and vast – and grow­ing big­ger by the day. After dec­ades of dis­missal and dis­con­nec­tion, her chil­dren are closer than ever. It’s time for a reunion. Cur­ated by award-win­ning poet Grace Iwashita-Taylor and led by power­house dir­ect­or Fas­itua Amosa, UPU gives the stage to Oceania’s most elec­tri­fy­ing poetry. Tusi­ata Avia, Audrey Brown-Pereira, Karlo Mila, Albert Wendt and more: UPU is for the trail­blazers, the icons and the new writers trans­form­ing Aotearoa today.

Te Rongomaiwhiti at BATS Theatre

Four mokopuna des­cen­ded from four Atua Māori are sent to the sac­red school of learn­ing – ‘Te Wān­anga o ngā Atua.’ There they are to learn how to har­ness their ‘mauri’ – inner power and one day carry out the import­ant roles of their grand­par­ents as guard­i­ans of ‘Te Ao’ and ‘Te Pō.’

How­ever, like all great powers there is also great respons­ib­il­it­ies that they must learn along the way to ensure that everything is in uni­son and as it should be. This is the ‘Mana Atua’ qual­it­ies that they pos­sess as indi­vidu­als which when com­bined is more power­ful than any­thing. How­ever, each mokopuna has their own ideas and upbring­ings on how the world should be but that must all be put aside for the great­er good of our realm. If not, then the world as we know and see it will dimin­ish before our very eyes.

Suit­able for all ages, eth­ni­cit­ies and lan­guages. A fully immersed theatre pro­duc­tion which fuses kapa haka, tik­anga Māori, te reo Māori and influ­enced by a Māori World view all neatly pack­aged into a Māori theatre pro­duc­tion.

He Tangata at BATS Theatre

Heal­ing ron­goa for gen­er­a­tion­al trauma and loss of takatāpuit­anga. A search for the for­got­ten taonga of Te Ao Maori. A remind­er of one­ness. This work dances through the realms of ira tangata and ira atua, explor­ing whakapapa and stor­ies of takata­pui exist­ence, to remem­ber, mourn and heal from gen­er­a­tion­al trauma.

In an act to weave takata­pui and Māor­it­anga back togeth­er, He Tangata looks back­wards whilst mov­ing for­wards as we travel with­in the past, present and future of Takata­puit­anga.

Daughter at Circa Theatre

A Black Moana Sov­er­eign Story by Teremoana Rapley.

Get a rare glimpse into the cre­at­ive world of fre­quency-bend­ing poly­math Teremoana Rapley as she presents a flu­id mul­tidiscip­lin­ary, work-in-pro­gress, live per­form­ance, listen­ing party of her anti­cip­ated debut album, Daugh­ter of a House­girl to be released in 2022. Manip­u­lated black-cent­ric still and mov­ing visu­als from the unre­leased album coupled with bass-heavy tracks inter­woven with sweet acous­tic fla­menco inspired incant­a­tions that sit with­in an evolving sea­son­al back drop adding to the tone and mood of her long-awaited work. Part one of a trip­tych series, this is Daugh­ter.

O Le Pa’a Ma Ona Vae at BATS Theatre

On the eve of his return to NZ, a young man’s grand­fath­er appears to him in the form of a crab to say good­bye.

Explor­ing alofa that tran­scends the con­fines of our per­ceived real­ity, and the dif­fer­ent forms that that can take, O Le Pa’a Ma Ona Vae is a new work from Sam­oana Nokise about how our loved ones con­tin­ue to be there for us, if only we look bey­ond the phys­ic­al.

Te Wheke at Te Whaea

Artist­ic Dir­ect­or Jack Gray marks the 21 years of  Atamira Dance Com­pany with the col­lab­or­at­ive new work Te Wheke. 

The work brings togeth­er Aotearoa’s lead­ing names in con­tem­por­ary dance includ­ing Arts Found­a­tion Laur­eate Louise Potiki Bry­ant, Dolina Wehipei­hana, Taane Mete, Kelly Nash, Gab­ri­elle Thomas, Kura Te Ua and Bianca Hyslop.

These eight cho­reo­graph­ic prac­ti­tion­ers, with a cast of eight dan­cers includ­ing Sean Mac­Don­ald, explore the dimen­sions of human exper­i­ence sym­bol­ised by the eight tentacles of Te Wheke — the Octopus, a power­ful guard­i­an on this jour­ney from past into future.

Solo and ensemble expres­sions of dark­ness and light occur with­in a shape shift­ing world of float­ing black silk. Lay­ers of sym­bol­ism eman­ate through the magic­al AV pat­tern­ing and mes­mer­ic sound­scapes with light­ing enhan­cing all – both reveal­ing and hid­ing.

Le Taua o le Pepeve’a at College of Creative Arts

In the 16th Cen­tury, the Pepeve’a, a kingly Sam­oan fine mat was bestowed to Fonoti by his fath­er, launch­ing sib­ling rivalry and a war over titles and the king­ship. Fonoti was suc­cess­ful, became king, and the battle was known as “Le Taua o le Pepeve’a”.

Writ­ten by Fonoti Pati Umaga, this new music work is a nod to his her­it­age and the par­al­lels with Fonoti’s own battles as a dis­abled Sam­oan musi­cian advoc­at­ing through the arts, for his beloved Pacific dis­ab­il­ity com­munity.

Carve-Va: cypher series at BATS Theatre

A phys­ic­al talanoa (exchange) between Street Style dan­cers while Kava is being served in the space – all are wel­come to drink. With cere­mony being embod­ied in tra­di­tion and in body, the ‘Carve-Va: cypher series’ invites audi­ences in to wit­ness and feel the free-style phys­ic­al offer­ings and talanoa between the Street Style dance artists, their body memory archive, our col­lect­ive cere­mon­ies and the Va that holds us all.

Breakfast With Hades at Te Whaea

World Premiere #break­fast­with­hades

This is an album launch. But not as you know it.

With the release of her debut album Break­fast With Hades, up-and-com­ing musi­cian MAA is emer­ging from her make­shift, multi-pur­pose bed­room stu­dio to share some tunes with you all.

A one night only show, fea­tur­ing a com­pil­a­tion of vari­ous art forms includ­ing dance & design, this is the launch of Break­fast With Hades.

Note: This is not a rave. Do not pre-load as you might fall asleep or cry uncon­trol­lably.

Break­fast With Hades fea­tures loud music & coarse lan­guage.