Te Tangi a te Tūī will be staged at the Sir Howard Morrison Centre on August 10 and 11.
Te Tangi a te Tūī will be staged at the Sir Howard Morrison Centre on August 10 and 11.
Former Rotorua high school sweethearts Eve Gordon and Tainui Tukiwaho are returning home with a project that has been in the making for 25 years.
Gordon said Te Tangi a te Tūī was not a “Māori show with circus slapped on top”. Instead, it was the “perfect synergy” of twoartforms.
The show, written by Tukiwaho and Amber Curreen, and co-created with lead circus artist Gordon, will be performed at the Sir Howard Morrison Centre on August 10 and 11.
Gordon was 15 and Tukiwaho 16 when they got together after meeting in drama class at Western Heights High School in 1997.
“We went off on our own journeys,” Gordon said. Both sought to reshape the creative spaces they entered, feeling what was on offer “wasn’t enough”.
Gordon co-founded The Dust Palace, an Auckland contemporary circus company that taught aerial and ground-based circus skills.
Tukiwaho emerged as a leading figure in Māori theatre, co-founding Te Pou Theatre in Auckland.
Te Tangi a te Tūī lead circus artist and co-creator Eve Gordon.
Gordon said that although they had parted ways as a couple, their friendship remained strong and collaborating was something they had “always talked about”.
Gordon was working in Canada in 2020 when approached by a local producer who was looking for a new project.
Gordon revisited a 25-year-old idea sparked by a settler’s diary Gordon’s mother had read to Gordon and Tukiwaho.
The diary described how the tūī’s beautiful song, once full of forest calls, had changed to mimic the sounds of human industry and machinery.
“That image stuck with us,” Gordon said. “Even back then, we thought this would make an amazing show.”
Te Tangi a te Tūī tells the story of a bird that lost its song, navigating a world shaped by colonialism, displacement and identity.
Te Tangi a te Tūī co-writer Tainui Tukiwaho.
The show premiered in Canada in 2023 and made its Aotearoa debut in Auckland last year. It is performed almost entirely in te reo Māori, with a single English-language scene used for effect.
Gordon said the physical storytelling invited audiences to “let the [Māori] language wash over you”.
English audio recordings of the script were available.
Tukiwaho said te reo Māori was “more common than it used to be” and the focus had shifted from accessibility to integration.
He said it was important that te reo and Māori culture were not just taught, but embedded across artistic and cultural spaces.
Tukiwaho’s mother raised him to speak te reo Māori and he was excited to share the show with her in Rotorua. For him, she represented all Māori mothers, grandmothers and the wider community.
“I still make decisions when I’m making shows for our audiences based around whether my mother would approve of it or not.”
Bringing the show to Rotorua was a way for Tukiwaho and Gordon to give back.
“Bringing it home is a necessary given for us,” Tukiwaho said. It was about “returning the gifts that we received”.
The show, presented by Te Pou Theatre, The Dust Palace and Performing Arts Network New Zealand, heads to Rotorua as part of a five-centre North Island tour after sell-out seasons in Vancouver and Auckland.
For more information and tickets, visit the Sir Howard Morrison Centre website.
Annabel Reid is a multimedia journalist for the Bay of Plenty Times and Rotorua Daily Post, based in Rotorua. Originally from Hawke’s Bay, she has a Bachelor of Communications from the University of Canterbury.
