Ngai Tahu 32 weaves together Maori story

A land sale is the catalyst for change in Ngai Tahu 32 with Dolina Wehipeihana (left), Maaka Pepene and Justine Hohaia (in suitcase). Picture / John McDermott

Ngai Tahu 32 first made a splash at Auckland's dance festival, Tempo, last year.

The stunning work, which weaves together tribal history, genealogy, myth and imagination, is set for a second Auckland season and a national tour, including a special performance at the Otakou Marae in Dunedin.

It is also scheduled for the Bay of Islands at the end of the year, and the Pacifika Styles festival in London, at the end of next year.

Choreographer Louise Potiki Bryant's central character in the work is Wiremu Potiki, her great-great-great-grandfather, and Otakau is the family marae.

"I wanted to take the work to the South Island right from the beginning," she says, "and I am especially excited about taking it back to my marae. I was brought up in Dunedin, but it is a few years since I have been back. I seem to make a lot of work about my family, although it works on a universal level as well. It is very special to be able to gift these old stories, in a new form, back."

The work takes its name from a file in the Ngai Tahu Corporation office - file number 32 - created in 1848 and detailing the Kemps Purchase, a major sale of Ngai Tahu land to a man named Mantell, and to which Potiki was a signatory.

The file name and the story have been important to Bryant from childhood. Research, and a fascination with the concept of whakapapa as a subject for dance, have led her to flesh-out the tale in dramatic fashion.

She describes Potiki setting out on a long journey with his heavy load of coins from the land sale, his destination "The Future".

Another strong visual idea in the work comes from Bryant's learning that many of her people at that time who had contracted measles, jumped into the water to cool their fever, then caught pneumonia and died. The image of abandoned bodies, with the remnants of their adopted European-style clothing adhering to the bones, affected her deeply, and she has placed her ancestor "in that lonely place" in her dance work.

A central column of water is a feature of the work's stage setting, into which the performers interact.

The water is also symbolic of the tukutuku panels in a marae, sometimes described as the "oceans" between the carved figures central to the whakapapa. As Potiki travels through this water, he is also travelling symbolically through time.

The presence of this water, overhead projections, Paddy Free's score for electronic band Pitch Black, and sophisticated lighting lend an eerie power to the work.

"There is a lot of pain in telling of the deaths and the grieving of people for those who have passed," Bryant says, "and it brings up a lot in us as we perform." Karakia, or prayers, have been part of rehearsals.

But it is not all doom and gloom. Bryant has borrowed a figure from Ngai Tahu mythology describing her as a girl "shimmering on the horizon" and as Potiki's symbol of hope which he feels compelled to carry into the future.

Ngai Tahu 32 will be performed by dancers Dolina Wehipeihana, Justine Hohaia, Maaka Pepene and Cathy Livermore, with singer Waimihi Hohaia and karanga by Corinna Hunziker.

What: Ngai Tahu 32
Where and when: Auckland Performing Arts Centre, Western Springs, Aug 10-11 8pm.