Kōanga Festival: The ‘beating heart’ of Māori storytelling turns 10

This year’s festival is the biggest and longest, expanding from a two-week event to a three-and-a-half-week festival. Photo / Andi Crown

Kōanga Festival, an annual event that focuses on Māori storytelling, turns 10 this year, and is celebrating with its biggest and most jam-packed three-week program of new work and more than 12 events.

Hosted at Te Pou Theatre in Tāmaki Makaurau from September 6-28, Kōanga, spring in the maramataka Māori, is a season that is traditionally to plant for the next harvest. In the same spirit, the role of Kōanga Festival is to cultivate Māori and indigenous storytelling focusing on developing new creative talent and work.

Kōanga Festival director Amber Curreen says the festival has been successful for 10 years because of community and industry support for, and keen interest in, Māori storytelling.

“Kōanga has become the beating heart of the Māori performing arts landscape. It brings people together who pour all of their love and support into indigenous storytelling,” she says.

This year’s festival is the biggest and longest, expanding from a two-week event to a three-and-a-half-week festival.

Kōanga is on from September 6-28 at Te Pou Theatre.

Audiences will be treated to new work from experienced Māori theatre practitioners like Hone Kouka, whose play Ngā Roriori is a comical dance theatre work about one whānau’s relationship with their whenua. Following sold-out performances in Pōneke, Scotty Cotter’s work NEKE makes its Tāmaki debut — a physical theatre work about self-discovery featuring Moana Ete and Dominic Ona-Ariki, and design by acclaimed visual artist Tracey Tawhiao.

New works premiere from rising talent Hone Taukiri in Māori Krishna, and Acacia O’Connor with AltarNative. Both plays explore what it’s like to be Māori and grow up in alternative upbringings.

This year, Kōanga is partnering with New Zealand Opera for Tōiri, hosted by opera star Kawiti Waetford with four kaiwaiata who will sing opera in te reo Māori. The special event is during Te Wiki o te Reo Māori. Running alongside the shows is an International Indigenous Programme, and a seminar on writing plays in te reo Māori. The festival will end with the new show from award-winning performer Rutene Spooner, Be Like Billy?

Te Pou Theatre in West Auckland will host Kōanga Festival in September.

“The heart of Kōanga is supporting Māori storytelling in its purest forms, whether you’re an experienced writer or a new voice,” Amber says.

Throughout the 10 years, Kōanga Festival has supported nearly 50y Māori playwrights, and 10 plays have been fully produced after the workshops, including Jason Te Mete’s Little Black Bitch, Ani-Piki Tuari and the Tuari siblings’ Whakapaupakihi, and Poata Alvie McKree’s The Handlers, which premiered at Te Pou Theatre in May.

• Kōanga Festival, at Te Pou Theatre in Auckland from September 6-28. For more information go tot: kōangafestival.nz