Kia Mau Festival Announces Full Programme Of Powerful Indigenous Storytelling And Performance

Kia Mau, Aotearoa’s celebrated contemporary Tāngata Whenua, Tāngata Moana and Indigenous arts festival, is thrilled to announce their full 2025 programme, running from 30 May – 14 June in Te Upoko o te Ika a Māui. With a lineup that spans theatre, dance, music, poetry, film and more, the festival features work by artists from Hawai’i, Australia, Canada, and across the motu.

This year’s programme champions powerful new voices and returning favourites, with works which focus on Indigenous sovereignty, identity, language, and connection to whenua and ancestry. With more than 26 shows and a full visual arts programme across multiple venues, audiences are invited to experience bold, multi-disciplinary storytelling. The full programme is now live at kiamaufestival.org

HE TOI HOU - NEW WORKS PREMIERING AT KIA MAU 2025

This year’s dynamic lineup of shows includes eight new world premiere works, all from local Te Upoko o te Ika a Māui artists:

• Love Letterz – A variety show of poetry-inspired art including dance, music and spoken word, created by Cadence Chung and featuring Estella Wallace, Weichu Huang, and Joshua Toumu’a.
• Gates to Memory – From Ella Williams and Stela Dara, this multi-disciplinary work embodies ancestral dreams and futures through movement, sound and storytelling.
• The Circle – A dance theatre offering by Indigenous collective Shifting Centre, exploring support, celebration and true liberation.
• Tūī Girls – A heartfelt, funny, and moving story of four wāhine throwing their Nan a “fun-eral”, by playwright Michaella Steel.
• ON GOD – Kaisa Fa’atui’s new work interrogates Samoan spirituality and faith through the lens of a second-generation migrant with humour and heart.
• I Feel Love – The festival’s closing event, is a celebration of Aotearoa disco and funk. Created by Kia Mau’s Festival Director Hone Kouka alongside Maarire Brunning-Kouka, and featuring a super band led by Maarire and Louisa Williams, the show reimagines classic disco anthems and original tracks through a uniquely local lens.
• He Ingoa – Raureti Ormond’s new musical ritual examining the power of names and the histories they hold.
• Waenga – By mana whenua artists Hariata and Tamati Moriarty (Ngāti Toarangatira, Ngāti Koata, Ngāti Kahungunu ki te Wairoa, Ngā Puhi Hokianga ki te Raki), this compelling new play explores tino rangatiratanga through two contrasting characters navigating identity, whakapapa and power.

Kia Mau also presents the return of two celebrated works:

• WTF: WHAT THE FA'AFAFINE!? – A personal exploration of the life of a fa’afafine trans woman as she navitages cultural and gender disconnection, by Hibiscus Tupua-Wilson.
• Opening the festival at Circa Theatre, A Master of None: Brown Fala – Performed by a cabinet of Pacific voices— singing, speaking, and moving, threading together the beauty of Samoan communal life with the weight of diaspora, displacement, and the danger of silence by Lila Crichton.

INTERNATIONAL WORKS

Kia Mau 2025 welcomes two acclaimed international productions:

• As part of Kia Mau Festival’s He Ngaru Nui programme, A NIGHTIME TRAVESTY invites you to join the acclaimed motley crew A DAYLIGHT CONNECTION on the last plane hurtling out of Earth. Who will survive this wild ride (and its unruly passengers)? Can flight attendant Angel defeat God’s Greatest Gift in a battle for the ultimate prize? Led by Kamarra Bell-Wykes (Jagera/Butchulla) & Carly Sheppard (Wallangamma and Takalaka Tribes of Nth QLD)
• From Australia, WINHANGANHA is a lyrical film-poem by Wiradjuri artist Jazz Money, blending archival footage, poetry, and an original score by Filipino-Aboriginal artist DOBBY to examine how archives and the legacies of collection affect First Nations people and wider Australia.
• Returning after gracing the stage at Kia Mau in 2023 is Ka Papahana Hana Keaka Hawai‘i – University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa with Puana at Te Whaea. Puana delves into the spiritual connections between Kānaka Maoli (Native Hawaiians) and their kūpuna (ancestors) through the power of song.

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