The story fuses kapa haka, acrobatics and breath-taking aerial artistry to tell a story of reclamation, remembrance and return. Photo / David Cooper
A teenage discussion around the kitchen table about the tūī’s true voice has culminated decades later into a spectacular, enchanting blend of Māori story-telling with contemporary circus theatre.
Te Tangi a Te Tūī – a circus show performed solely in te reo Māori - has received rave reviews and will light up Whangārei and Kerikeri stages next week.
Tainui Tukiwaho and Amber Curreen, Te Pou Theatre co-founders, teamed with Dust Palace’s co-founder and lead circus performer Eve Gordon to bring this show about. Tukiwaho explains.
“I started taking performing arts seriously at high school in Rotorua, that’s how I met Eve. We did drama together and she was my first girlfriend, and we continued to acting school at Unitech together as well.
“We drifted apart and had our own lives but came back together as good friends over the years with her later becoming god mother to my son Te Rongopai.”
While Gordon’s career led her to high-end circus, Tukiwaho (Te Arawa, Tūhoe and Tūwharetoa) continued to become an experienced theatre maker, teaming with a driving force in Māori theatre Amber Curreen (Ngāpuhi, Te Rarawa, Te Roroa) to create Te Pou Theatre.
But the recollection of a teenage discussion with Gordon’s mum was the catalyst for reuniting to co-write their latest show.
“Eve’s mum commented that, ‘No one’s ever heard the song of the real tūī before. The original song before humans arrived has never been heard by a human’, and I thought that was just amazing.
“After that comment, we just let that idea gestate in our minds for over 20 years and, meanwhile, I’d met Amber and, around five years ago, we sat down together and discussed this idea of the tūī.”
Teaming with Gordon was their first collaboration with circus and, in association with Performing Arts Network of New Zealand (PANNZ), Te Tangi a Te Tūī was born.
The story centres around a family curse. Two magical beings lay claim to the first-born son in this bloodline, played by Tukiwaho’s son Paku, 19.
It is up to the boy to decide which entity he appeases. The entities have the opportunity to tell the boy their story and once the boy hears their stories, he can choose.
The story fuses kapa haka, acrobatics and breath-taking aerial artistry to tell a story of reclamation, remembrance and return. Intertwined throughout is the tūī, who soaks up the world around and responds in song. Though beautiful, its tune is now a faint echo of what it once was when Aotearoa was blanketed in the ngāhere (forest).
“Te Tangi a Te Tūī is about our collective remembering,” says Tukiwaho, who has a reputation for fearless storytelling and uplifting Māori voices and received the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award in 2023.
“It’s about reclaiming language, whakapapa and the stories that have been waiting patiently for us to return to them. And we’re doing it in a way that celebrates Māori innovation, power and wairua.”
Te Tangi a Te Tūī is a powerful theatrical experience and unfolds as an evocative meditation on identity and resilience, in the face of colonisation.
The 1.45-hour show features a cast of about 10 including Tukiwaho and two of his sons – Paku and Te Rongopai, 13, and their mother.
Performed entirely in te reo Māori, the production surrounds audiences with the richness of the language and its cultural resonance.
Those who are fluent or on their te reo Māori journey will enjoy the full immersion experience.
Those with limited knowledge of te reo Māori and wishing to engage more deeply will be provided with a full English-language synopsis and radio play upon booking. This ensures the work remains accessible to all, allowing audiences to connect with the performance at whatever level suits them.
“I was insistent the English language would not be present in the show,” explains Tukiwaho, adding that a link to the radio play is sent when tickets are purchased with an even mix of people choosing to listen to it either before or after the show.
It was instrumental for their international premiere in Vancouver two years ago, which was received ‘amazingly’ by the audience with one review describing the power of te reo Māori and circus together as breath-taking.
“It was just an amazing experience with a lot of indigenous people who came along to the show,” he recalls, adding that the international audience were more impressed with the cultural context, whereas their subsequent Kiwi audience, more impressed with the circus.
“Overseas the cultural context and the language was exciting for them but that’s because our audience here are lucky they get to experience it often whereas, in Canada, it was a novelty.
“I did notice our performers were far more nervous about performing at home. For one thing, our audience can know what we’re saying.”
The impact of the play inspired Gordon to enrol to learn te reo. She said the circus acts are used to enhance the narrative.
“If we create the show in a way where people who don’t understand the language can understand the narrative, then they can just be immersed in the beautiful waiata that is the reo.”
Dust Palace producer Rachael Dubois adds: “This work lives at the intersection of everything we love – high-calibre physical performance, kaupapa Māori storytelling, and deep collaboration. It’s an incredibly special show, and audiences who see it are going to be moved, challenged, and inspired”.
After its international premiere in Vancouver in 2023 and an acclaimed Aotearoa season at Te Pou Theatre during Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki/Auckland Arts Festival the following year, Te Tangi a Te Tūī is traveling to five North Island centres, including Tauranga, Rotorua, Taranaki, Whangārei and Kerikeri.
“We love going up north every year,” says Tukiwaho.
“Northland is from my cultural context as it has a huge population of Māori.
“Our people receive it in the way that we intend it to be received because they understand it in the context in the way we’re applying it. Our whānau up north open-heartedly respond.”
Tukiwaho said the tūī is more of an allegory for the Māori language and how the loss of the tūī’s voice is similar to the journey of the Māori language.
“The tūī can no longer remember what their original voice was... our people were dangerously close to that as well. And that’s why we’re using the tūī in this particular way to show that. That’s the journey that our people could have gone on.”
Te Tangi a Te Tūī will be at Whangārei Forum North, Tuesday, August 19 and Kerikeri Turner Centre, Friday, August 22 - Saturday, August 23.
Visit www.tetangi.show for booking details.