Hīkoi: Then and Now

The 70s and 80 was a formative time for Aotearoa with much going on politically and socially. In Hīkoi, and set against this backdrop, we meet two ordinary, extraordinary characters Charlie and Nellie who fall in love, have kids and endeavour to live happily ever after. And, as often happens, it is left to the children to make sense of decisions made on their behalf by the people who love them.

Hīkoi boasts an impressive cast and crew and we asked them what they were like and what was important to them as teenagers.

Nancy Brunning (1989) – Writer and Director (Ngāti Raukawa; Ngāi Tūhoe)
When I was a teenager I was busy, nerdy, stroppy. John Lennon Glasses were awesome, and so were whales and tasseled edged scarves...and wrist watches. Finishing 7th form was important, my friends and not getting pregnant before I left home...

Jarod Rawiri (1996) – Actor (Ngāti Whanaunga; Ngāti Tūwharetoa; Ngāti Hine)
When I was a teenager I was lanky, sporty and thoughtful. My mate Geoff and I outside his family’s restaurant “Hurricanes Grill' in Bondi, Sydney. We were 16 and spent the summer working here and checking out the sites of Sydney.

Kali Kopae (2001) – Actor (Te Arawa; Ngāti Whakaue; Ngāti Pūkeko; Ngāti Awa)
When I was a teenager I was vain, rough and ambitious. Important to me when I was 16 was hang time with my friends and school holidays on my Grandparents farm with my brother.

Mara TK (2002) - Sound Design (Kai Tahu; Ngāti Kahungunu; Maniapoto)
When I was a teenager I was bashful, optimistic and a virgin. This photo is from my first trip to Wellington, I'd just been published by Huia for a story in Te Reo Māori...when I left kura kaupapa I lost the language - now, through my own daughter being enrolled in kohanga reo, I'm finally getting it back.

Gavin Rutherford (1987) - Actor
When I was a teenager I was sunburnt, awkward and pink. I grew up on the beach. Scottish skin. Scabs and cracked lips.

Miria George (1998) – Actor (Te Arawa; Ngāti Awa; Arorangi; Rarotonga & Areora, Atiu, Kuki Arani)
At 18 years old, I just wanted to be a citizen of world, in Puntarenas, Costa Rica, hitchhiking with Hanne.

Amy Macaskill (1998) - Costume Design (Kai Tahu)
When I was a teenager I was busy, ambitious, searching. The same basic things were Important to me then as they are now, Fashion and Friends. This photo is from a 'fashion shoot' way before selfies were a thing.

Aroha White (2002) – Actor (Ngā Puhi)
When I was a teenager I was bubbly, sneaky and creative.

When I was a teenager the most important thing in my life were my friends and family, I don't think that part of me has changed at all.

Wai Mihinui (2003) – Set and Publicity Design (Ngāti Raukawa)
When I was a teenager I was loud, vibrant, immature. Friends and goofing around was important to me during my high school time. I have fond memories of running around and being silly a lot of the time.

Hine Parata-Walker (2007) – Actor (Ngāti Porou; Kai Tahu)
Important was not embarrassing myself. Trying to get out of swimming training. Getting in the front row of the kapa haka group.

Ngakopa Volkerling (2001) – Actor (Ngāti Wai; Ngāti Hine; Taranaki)
When I was a teenager I was cheeky, loyal and outspoken As a teenager what was most important to me was finishing high school, being able to tell my Nan I went to university, not being pregnant before my time and the well being of my siblings and niece. As well as getting drunk, hanging out with friends and ... boys.

The Te Kākano Season of Hīkoi opens at Circa Theatre in Wellington on Saturday 28 June and runs for two weeks. Bookings can be made at Circa 04 801 7992 or www.circa.co.nz

MDF 2014, Aroha White and 2080: a wave of creative productivity

Playwright and actor AROHA WHITE is currently riding a wave of creative productivity at Circa Theatre, having her new play 2080 in development as part of Tawata Productions’ MDF 2014 as well as performing in Hapai Productions’ HIKOI!  We caught up with AROHA just over a week away from the opening of the Development Season of 2080.

1.  Aroha, you're very busy in the rehearsal room as an actor for Hapai Productions' HIKOI, whilst the third play you've written, 2080, is being rehearsed for a Development Season with Tawata Productions in Circa Two - how are you finding the creative mind split?

Oh! Well I think 2080 is destined to be a mind splitting play. You see, when I was lucky enough to first develop the script two years ago, I was in the same situation. I was work shopping the 2080 script during the day, performing Sunset Road in the evenings and writing at night. This time round, I’m flat out in the rehearsal room for Hikoi during the day but have been making the most of our early chilly mornings to make any amendments to the script that are needed. Knowing that the 2080 crew are just next door is definitely distracting, I want to be in there and playing with them, buuuut at the same time I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else than on the floor with my nutty Hikoi family. I count myself very lucky to have the opportunity to undergo a mind split.

2.  In 2012, 2080 made its very first outing as a brand spanking new script - how have your ideas about your play changed over the last two years?

The main change has been growth in the world. Finding dark corners I didn’t see the first time, looking for more of them and realizing the longevity of this story.

3.  The word on the street is that 2080 is an 'indigenous sci-fi' - would you care to elaborate upon this statement?

2080 is a cautionary tale. It is one of many many possible outcomes for our future. It is a world I would never want to live in. For me so often the only way to start solving a problem is to sit down and talk it out, that’s what started this korero. The world that 2080 exists within is science fiction, no doubt about it, set in the not too distant future with laws of its own, 2080 skates the line of reality and fiction. But the growing gap between rich and poor in this country is not fiction nor is the ease with which people are dismissed because they are deemed as “different”. I’m a fan of this new indigenous Sci-Fi genre I think.    

4.  You and Tawata wanted to develop 2080 a little further before taking the play into full production -  how is the Development Season useful for you as a playwright?

It is the chance to take bold swings for all elements of the play. As far as the script's concerned, already the development season is introducing me to aspects of the world I hadn’t realized. Having Natano, Shadon, Acushla and Hone knocking their heads together also means we get to fearlessly explore the world. The growth of the play is the natural next step. When we take 2080 in to full production next year I expect to know all the street names in the brother’s neighborhood, no stone left unturned.

Using animation for the set is a big job. Even simple animation like what we want to look at for 2080. It’s amazing not having to rush straight to an end result, trying to avoid broad strokes in order to get to an end product and aiming for specificity. The development season lets us explore our options and also see how it reads to an audience. The hip hop is in the same boat as the animation.

5.  With 2015 being the year of full production for 2080, what's your idea for your next stage play? 

Ladies. Leisure. Love. Lust and loss. We’ll start there.

6.  As we're celebrating Matariki, what are your hopes and dreams for the forth coming year?

I have some travel on the cards in August this year and if I’m well behaved February next year. I’m blessed to be a part of Tawata’s Auckland season of Sunset Road after Hikoi finishes up for this year. There is a play for the ladies wandering around my head looking for a piece of paper to get all over, I very much hope this can be a collaboration of wahine toa writers and actors. I hope to get up to Auckland in October to work with Nga Rangatahi Toa on a project called Manawa Ora telling stories from our South Auckland brothers and sisters. And then it will be time to get this Maori / Pasifika Sci-Fi production (2080 that is!) up and singing.  Woo-hoo.

The MDF Development Season of 2080 runs in Circa Two from 25-28 June, with a preview on 24 June. Hikoi runs in Circa One from 28 June to 12 July, with a preview on 27 June. A series of free rehearsed readings will take place as part of the Matariki Development Festival on 4 and 5 July. To book for any of these fantastic works, visit www.circa.co.nz or ring the Circa Box Office on 801-7992.

Find out what the cast and crew think of Pasefika

This week on drama on the waterfront, meet the cast and hear from the designers of Pasefika, Circa's show for the New Zealand Festival. 

From the Cast...

George Henare

Baudelaire / Te Rangi

“Insane! I love it!” My immediate reaction on reading this wonderful, articulate romp through French history. Stuart has given us all the theatrical elements, the intrigue, the dissembling, the emotional turmoil, the pleasure and the drama that only ‘ze’ French could experience in one day, let alone in 2 hours. 
Loving working with the Circa team again. Can’t wait to share this craziness with the audiences."

Jason Whyte

Charles Meryon

“It is an honour to be sharing the stage with some of NZs finest actors, and a wonderful challenge to get inside the mind of Charles Meryon.” 

Emma Kinane

Jeanne Duval / Madame Bourgeois

“Pasefika is an inspiring production to be involved in; the rehearsal room is buzzing. An exciting new script, a creative design team that's twice the usual size, and the added zest of being part of the Festival. It's like Theatre Christmas in February.”

Aroha White

Louise Niveau / Ruiha

“I feel as is Stuart was living in Paris with Meryon and Baudelaire while he was writing Pasefika.  His words are cheeky, challenging, lusty and a pleasure to commit to memory.”

From the Designers…

 Andrew Foster 

Set Design

There's no escaping Pasefika as a complex design proposition. A weaving of diverse cultures, multiple locations, and I think most intriguingly; of memories. Stuart Hoar pronounces his surrealism by anachronistically allowing the play to slip in and out of its historical period. Contemporary urban references float through Paris in the late 1800's, and as in the central character's art works, the boundaries of culture, geography and physics become blurred in recall. During the design process I've been fascinated by the way in which the mind reconstitutes images from memory, and the distortion of facts by feelings. Charles Meryon's etchings reflect a hyper-real amalgam of both his experience and his emotional responses, with the effect of endorsing perception over reality. I suppose that this has become my key premise in designing Pasefika. An attempt, if you will, to chronicle a landscape of the mind.

In collaborating with 3 other very talented designers (in the areas of AV, sound and light) I've also been conscious of trying to maintain a sense of space for the audience to allow room for the viewers imagination to engage with the work.

Marcus McShane

Lighting Design

Pasefika is a play that thinks a lot about conventionality, both in art and in history, and explores the life of someone who breaks with it. It seems only right to follow this lead, and break with a lot of lighting conventions as well. 

We're working with a layering of angle and texture along (and even through) the set, and are repurposing an architectural light-work that bridges traditional light and projection in order to incorporate it as well.

Johann Nortje

Video Design

The AV (video projection) in this show is used as a very important part of creating each scene as well as aiding in the story telling. As the design of the show is very abstract compared to standard realism, the video projection thrives on this freedom to create and aid in the turmoil and visions of the characters.

Tane Upjohn-Beatson 

Sound Design

When Captain Cook first heard traditional maori music he was awed and unnerved by its passion but unfamiliarity and out of tune-ness to the western ear. Meryon must have had similar experiences of the natural soundscape and music of New Zealand, that haunted him for decades to come.

Instead of focussing on realism, the sound design and music of Pasefika focuses on creating for the audience the same sense of infatuating otherness, and a dreamlike juxtaposition 19th century France, New Zealand, and New Zealand today. 


Pasefika is on at Circa Theatre from 22 Feb – 16 March. For Festival dates, please book through Ticketek (details below). For the post-Festival season, please book at Circa (details below).

BOOKINGS: for performances 22 Feb-16 Mar (New Zealand Festival), call TICKETEK on 0800 842 538 (www.festival.co.nz or www.ticketek.co.nz)

BOOKINGS: for performances 21 Feb and 18-29 March, call Circa Theatre on 801-7992 (www.circa.co.nz)

Show Times: Tue and Wed 6.30pm, Thu-Sat 8.00pm, Sun 4.00pm.