Theatre Mārae in support of local Wellington iwi

Theatre Mārae in support of local Wellington iwi Ngāti Toa’s residency at Te Papa

JANUARY 2016

Te Rākau Theatre Trust

1869 Wellington on Stage at Te Papa

in support of local Wellington iwi Ngāti Toa’s residency at Te Papa

Te Rākau’s January 2016 season of Dog & Bone will be performed at Te Papa Tongarewa in support of Ngāti Toa Rangatira’s iwi-in-residence program.

Set in the new settlement at Te Whanganui-a-Tara - Wellington, in 1869, a bitter time when “savage” lives were cheap, hungry colonial greed ruled, and hopeful settlers were disembarking to find themselves in a war zone, Te Rākau Theatre’s epic play Dog&Bone, with a cast of 27, takes to the stage at Te Papa’s Soundings Theatre in January.

Te Rākau Director Jim Moriarty MNZM, of Ngāti Toa descent, hopes that Te Rākau’s relationship with Te Papa will open the door for other Maori theatre groups throughout the country.

“At the moment there is no dedicated space for Aotearoa’s Tangata Whenua to perform and create theatre work and to grow our practitioners and industry. Poneke and Te Papa are a natural home for the taonga that are our stories and experiences. What an opportunity for iwi, to be able to take those stories back to their rohe as a treasure for their own people and for others.

Te Rākau is a Wellington based Māori theatre trust that works in schools, prisons, Marae, rural communities, and youth justice residencies around Aotearoa-New Zealand. Through our Theatre Marae programme, we collaborates with communities to create and present high quality and socially significant theatre works which resonate culturally, therapeutically, and artistically for audience members and participants alike. "

Jim Moriarty - Te Rākau Theatre (Ngāti Toa, Ngāti Koata, Ngāti Kahungunu, Rangitane, Scots, Italian)

Te Rākau has this year partnered with New Zealand’s Toi Tōtara Haemata Māori Theatre Company Taki Rua Productions to presentDog & Bone. This partnership marks a new strategy for Taki Rua to collaborate with companies and artists from New Zealand's talented Māori Theatre Industry, to further support the growth, development and staging of exciting Māori productions for communities nationwide.

“Te Rākau have achieved a visionary goal by bringing a theatrical performance element to the Ngati Toa Rangatira residency in Te Papa. Continuing this vision by telling the stories of the next iwi who will take up future residencies is a really strong way to build contemporary performance capacity in the regions, to share their stories with other people. Taki Rua are very interested in continuing this vision set by Te Rākau and supporting future initiatives alongside Te Rākau and other iwi in residence at Te Papa in the future.”

Tānemahuta Gray - Taki Rua Kahukura (Ngāi Tahu, Rangitāne, Waikato)

Dog & Bone is the second in writer Helen Pearse-Otene’s Undertow series - a quartet of plays about the settlement of Wellington which, while tackling major historical events, also reminds us of the ordinary people who lived, loved, fought, sacrificed, lost, won, and ultimately called this place home in 1869.

Pearse-Otene’s extensive research for the play included settlers’ and Armed Constabulary diaries, newspaper articles, and ngā kupu tuku iho (oral histories) of local Iwi.

“Dog&Bone points to a pivotal moment in our country’s race relations history - when media was first used to paint Māori as inferior and dangerous and therefore unworthy of their lands.

This play tells a story about the real people who were making, living with, disseminating, fighting, accepting and benefitting from these ideas.

The ones who win the war are the ones who get to tell the story” says Pearse-Otene“and this is another version.The events discussed in Dog&Bone actually happened but have been repressed.”

Helen Pearse-Otene (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Ruanui, Ngāti Rongomaiwahine-Kahungungu)

All four plays in The UnderTOW series will be performed again in repertory at Te Papa in 2017. Tickets for January’s season of Dog&Bone are on sale now at Ticketek.

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