Sarita So revisits her Toi Whakaari solo show, turning it onto a longer exploration of making memory and history telling. “Through words, movement and songs from Cambodia’s 1960’s rock era — Digging to Cambodia is a letter to her past, present and future self, it asks us all “What is worth remembering?”” So wears a […]
Wow, did I misunderstand the marketing for this show. “Fierce and visceral, Windigo resonates like a scream, the vibrant echo of a long history of hu-man ransacking and destruction, a violation of a land and its culture.” I went in bracing myself for the emotional equivalent of a hurricane. This is not that. For me, […]
As part of the Kia Mau festival this year I got to go and see the opening night of Taki Rua’s show Cellfish, brought to Wellington after a season in Auckland last year. Cellfish is intense. A two person show, featuring Carrie Green and Jason Te Kare, Cellfish is set in a Shakespeare class at […]
Lara has only the weekend to track down her partner as she traverses the world of public housing, drug dealing, and addiction. The Weekend is based on a situation that first time playwright that Henrietta Baird (from Kuku Yalanji/Yidinji country in Queensland’s Far North) experienced. From this she’s written an extremely funny, emotionally horrifying one-woman […]
Pōhutu is a multidimensional contemporary dance piece that thrives in liminal space. Drawing parallels between Choreographer Bianca Hyslop’s grandmother’s diagnosis of Alzheimers and the geothermal landscape she grew up in, it’s an unsettling and utterly beautiful work. The beginning and end sequences draw gasps from the audience. The middle sequences contain some of the most […]
This is the world premiere of the play by Jason Te Mete. The script shared the Adam New Zealand Play Award for Best Play by a Māori Playwright in 2018. It is a theatrical representation of one way depression can manifest. It starts with a mihi from Te Mete (also director and musical director) welcoming […]
Poto Manawa has a new flat. She took a quick trip to pick up a few things from her Mum’s place…and now her relatives won’t stop phoning her. They want her to come to a whānau hui. She’s reluctant to return to the homestead although she can’t quite remember why. Until Paia comes along to […]
The fourth Kia Mau Festival is on from 1–16 June 2018. A contemporary Indigenous theatre and dance experience, the festival celebrates Māori, Pasifika, First Nations artists and their companies. Kia Mau Festival is an innovative experience for whānau and communities throughout the Wellington region to engage with Tangata Whenua and First Nations artists from across […]
Layered with myth and fable, The Mooncake and the Kūmara is a moving story about a mixed-up, Māori-Chinese love affair that sprouts among rows of potatoes. Told in a mixture of English, Māori and Cantonese, the play is showing in Wellington as part of the Kia Mau Festival. Māori-Chinese playwright Mei-Lin Te Puea Hansen talked […]
The newest and naughtiest Maori showband on the Aotearoa entertainment scene plays at BATS Theatre during the Kia Mau Festival. Self described as “Funny Māoris with funny songs” this show is more of a gig than a theatre piece for the actors involved. Band member Jamie McCaskill talked about the origins of the group and what they do. “Rob Mokaraka, […]