Head west with whanau for a wicked day out

Performers from Maori Theatre company Ruia Taitea Creative will be performing at the Whanau Day Koanga festival at Te Pou, part of the Going West Festival.

Get your sway on: enjoy the hula show and more at Te Pou’s family day, writes Dionne Christian

Any weekend or week night I join an army of mums, dads or caregivers sitting in draughty halls or the sidelines of sports fields and pools watching their kids take steps toward becoming dancers or athletes. But this was my first experience of hula champs.

Miss 6 and I have gone west to Te Pou, the new home of Maori theatre, opened this winter in New Lynn. My daughter has joined a group of girls at a keiki (children's) hula class to become an honorary hula sister. She is quickly discovering there's a lot more to this than learning the dance steps and moving to the beat of the ipu heke, a traditional Hawaiian percussion instrument made from gourds.

The class, led by teacher Aruna Po-Ching from Pasifika Sway, The Hula Journey, involves learning the language and culture of the Hawaiian islands as well as the dances. Miss 6 is enthusiastic, commits to the dance steps and relishes the chance to play a few language and movement games. But she doesn't think she's quite ready to join the girls, aged 4 to 10, for today's performance at the Koanga Festival @ Te Pou.

The Koanga festival is a three-week celebration to herald the start of spring. It's also part of the 20th Going West literary festival which, today and tomorrow, holds its annual Books and Writers Weekend. That programme includes author talks, book and poetry readings, theatre performances and the Koanga Festival @ Te Pou's Whanau Day. The day is a chance for all Aucklanders to learn more about Te Pou. As well as being a home for Maori theatre, it also welcomes other groups that use Tikanga Maori principals: respect for whanau (family), manaakitanga (care for a person's mana) and aroha (love). It has fast become a popular rehearsal base for a number of performing arts groups and has staged a number of plays. Whanau member Amber Curreen says it opened with a very successful family day and the Te Pou team was keen to do it again.

"We hope people come and experience a warm sense of welcome and know that they are part of this community," Amber says.

"It's a great way for kids to see all the different ways you can tell a story and acknowledge that they can be story-tellers."

As well as performances, there will also be poi making, colouring in, the chance to build your own cupcake or puppet, make a musical instrument and soundscape and enjoy treats from various food stalls.

As part of Koanga @ Te Pou, award-winning writer Albert Belz has run a week-long programme of master classes for budding playwrights.

Next week, there's a chance to see his latest work-in-development. The Great American Scream is a comedy inspired by real-life events of 1938 when a radio play based on H.G. Wells' book War of the Worlds was so realistic some Americans thought their country really was being invaded by aliens. Belz sets his play in a small US town where fear and paranoia turns the American family dream into a nightmare.

Story-time for younger ones is a chance to enjoy the relaunch of Tiberius the Titirangi Mouse, first published 45 years ago by Patricia Ross, about a small brown field mouse that made friends with a caged white mouse.

Six years ago, local artist Edith Diggle painted roadside boxes as story boxes for children, putting the story of Tiberius on the large Chorus cabinet outside a superette on Woodlands Park Rd. Patricia read the book at the launch party for local children. The kids' enthusiasm prompted her to write another story - Tiberius The Titirangi Mouse Has More Adventures, which Edith illustrated and published, and was launched at Titirangi Library yesterday as part of the festival.

Need to know

Whanau Day, today 10am to 4pm. Events include stories in Mandarin, English and NZ Sign Language, play Ruia Te Kakanoby Te Rehia Theatre (11am, 3pm), Pasifika Sway Hula performance and stories (noon, 2pm) and kapa haka story time.

• Te Pou, 44a Portage Rd, New Lynn. Free. tepoutheatre.nz

The Great American Scream, September 17-19 , 7pm. $20.

• The Going West Books & Writers Festival Weekend takes places at various venues today and tomorrow.