The power of women — to challenge, to overcome, to nurture and to create — is being celebrated by this year's Tauranga Arts Festival amid a diverse range of voices and cultures.
Based on the poetry collection of the same name by New Zealand-born Tusiata Avia, Wild Dogs Under My Skirt is an examination and celebration of what it means to be a Samoan woman and the sometimes uneasy intersection of Samoan and Kiwi cultures. The play follows six women as they navigate religion, sexuality, clothing, domestic abuse and food, all leavened with a generous sprinkling of humour.
Still Life with Chickens is a heart-warming play about a lonely, older Samoan woman (Goretti Chadwick) living in Auckland — and the chicken (a puppet operated by Haanz Fa'avae-Jackson) that invades her vege garden. What starts out as war turns into an unlikely friendship.
![Still Life With Chickens,by D.F. Mamea, dir Fasitua Amosa, Cast: Goretti Chadwick, Haanz Fa'avae-Jackson (puppeteer); an Auckland Theatre Company production. Production photography: Michael Smith](https://www.nzherald.co.nz/resizer/v2/6EXASLL7FVU6LK7UGU7OSLYTTQ.jpg?auth=22daf63dbac053474dbf5461ee91be54e377772fcc2ada5abc1badd0ea0a5ff9&width=16&height=11&quality=70&smart=true)
"From one tired mama to another" is the subtitle of Emily Writes' best-selling book Rants in the Dark, which has now been adapted into a play. Honest, authentic and laugh-out-loud funny, the play is full of the things that every parent thinks at 4am, but would rarely be brave enough to say out loud.