Te Houhi - The People
and The Land Are One
Dancers roll, dive and leap to the heady beat of Paddy Free’s electronic music score as a 10 metre wide visual display hangs in the middle of the stage and transforms the space. Louise Potiki Bryant’s exquisite AV score includes complex spiraling designs and moving landscapes that blend with the dancers’ movement. John Verryt’s set design brings the floor alive and reflects Vanda Karolczak’s striking lighting design as dancers disappear into space. Marama Lloydd’s costumes fuse colonial and contemporary design to create a uniquely NZ flavour.
Te Houhi recounts the inconceivable history of Ngai Tuhoe hapuu Ngati Haka Patuheuheu and their connection with the land in the magical Te Urewera.
For generations they lived as one with the land. Then came the foretelling of the arrival of a strange being with skin the colour like that of the earth worm - red and white. At first the people resisted, but they kept coming, seizing more and more of the Whenua to place under their crown.
Te Kooti Arikirangi arrived and brought with him the promise of God’s deliverance from the injustices experienced at the hands of the Crown. He was the shield that protected Ngai Tuhoe from the upside down claw that ripped them from their land and their way of life. Through the prophecy of Te Umutaoroa, Te Kooti foretold of the tragic events which would befall the people of Ngati Haka Patuheuheu and their separation from the land at Te Houhi.
A Scorched Earth policy ensued and all pa, waahi tapu, kainga and food supplies were destroyed and all people either killed or captured.
Native Land Legislation and the loss (through fraud) of their ancestral land Te Houhi, containing their major kainga and their Tipuna Whare - Tama ki Hikurangi saw the people becoming dispirited and helpless. Eviction ensued and decades later the Government agreed to return Tama ki Hikurangi to its rightful owners and in a poignant act symbolising the spirit and political defiance characteristic of Ngai Tuhoe, the people carried their sacred building by hand to Waiohau, reclaiming with it their faith in each other and the land.
For some Te Umutaoroa is a symbol for all lands lost where the connections between an unjust past and a restorative future are sought through the spiritual dimension after the failure of the human.
Ngati Haka Patuheuheu await the fulfilment of the prophecy and continue to hold their heads up high until such a time when the people and the land will again be one.
Maaka Pepene, brings this poignant story to life, Te Houhi captures the spirit of the Tuhoe people and Te Urewera where ‘lightening comes to play, Taniwha roam, and waterfalls speak’.
Tragic, Magical, immersive, and beautiful; TE HOUHI combines the finest in Contemporary Maori Theatre.
Videos:
Taster Video
Research and Development
Print:
NZ Herald interview with choreographer Maaka Pepene
Reviews
Arts on Sunday review:
Technical Rider
