Embattled arts troops join forces

A Sydney trip for Tainui and the NZSO could revive their flagging fortunes, writes MIKE HOULAHAN.

The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Tainui - two punch-drunk fighters both badly in need of a victory - are joining forces to try to win an artistic gold medal at the Olympics.

This alliance may seem unlikely, but between them they have concocted a bold plan which resulted in an invitation to the Olympics Arts Festival, which opened on August 18 and runs until September 30.

Olympics founder Baron Pierre de Coubertin regarded his brainchild as being as much about the mind as the body, and an arts festival has long run alongside the Games.

Both the orchestra and Tainui could do with some glory.

The NZSO is proud of its status as a cultural flagship but has come perilously close to major difficulties.

After urgent talks with the Government over a $1.46 million loss in the 1998/1999 year it was bailed out by the Government's cultural package.

Tainui has also been in a turmoil over the past 12 months. The way the tribe invested its $170 million Treaty of Waitangi settlement has come under intense scrutiny and its high-risk Maori Development Corporation closed.

The NZSO-Tainui venture is known as Taaua - We Two Together, the brand-name of First To The Future, a company formed by the iwi and the orchestra.

Sarah-Jane Tiakiwai and Gordon Chesterman represent Tainui on the board, and Brian Burge and orchestra chief executive Ian Fraser the NZSO.

Its creators hope Taaua will take the NZSO and Tainui to Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Centre and the Lincoln Centre in the United States and the Royal Albert Hall in London.



Gareth Farr has been commissioned to write the first Taaua composition, Te Wairua o te Whenua (The Spirit of the Land), in collaboration with Tainui's Piripi Munroe, who will co-ordinate the staging.

The work, about 22 minutes long, incorporates kapa haka and waiata. Twenty Tainui performers will take part and both the NZSO performances in Sydney will see the women of Tainui performing a stylised version of the karanga.

The audience will be called into the auditorium, farewelled at intermission, called back in again, and farewelled at the end of performances.

"This is not a one-off," says Craig Pollock, First To The Future general manager and former NZSO employee. The expectation is that what is created for Sydney will lead to further works for similar forces.

Taaua started two years ago when the NZSO, wanting to tour overseas but hard pressed for corporate support, decided to tackle the problem laterally. Maoritanga was identified as having great potential.

"It did seem strange, to be frank," Tiakiwai says of the initial approach. But after the expectations of the project, especially from the NZSO, were set out it was just a matter of defining how the process would work best for both.

Tainui knew people were going to question whether it was an appropriate use of the tribe's money, particularly after controversial investments.

"People will think it is frivolous and ask why we are doing this," Tiakiwai says. "I can understand that and I think it is a relevant question. But because we are involved in these performances we are being given a valuable opportunity to express our culture and performing traditions in a different environment."

The tribe sees Taaua not only as a chance for Tainui to gain exposure on the world stage, but also as a chance to create something new by bringing together the Maori tradition and performing arts with the Western performing art form of the symphony orchestra.



The artistic competition in Sydney includes The Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition, a show of 300 Leonardo da Vinci manuscripts and more than 4000 artists appearing in 53 major productions.



On September 25 the NZSO will perform two New Zealand works at the Sydney Opera House concert hall, John Psathas Fanfare and Gareth Farr's Hikoi, featuring acclaimed Scottish percussionist Evelyn Glennie. Vaughn Williams' Sinfonia Antarctica is also on the programme.

The next day will see the premiere of Te Wairua o te Whenua, featuring opera singers Jonathan Lemalu and Deborah Wai Kapohe.



"If we succeed in ensuring that the NZSO is seen to be a tool with which we can communicate New Zealand culture to an international marketplace, it will provide a very strong argument for the maintenance and development of the NZSO in the future," Pollock says.

"The link with Tainui gives us the opportunity to ensure the NZSO develops as a bicultural organisation - let's face it, it is anything but that. But there is a recognition by the NZSO that it must go down that track."

Tiakiwai believes the concept may be harder to sell to New Zealanders than to overseas concertgoers.

"Overseas we are seen as exotic, but that's not the case here," she says. "I think it goes back to the idea of changing perceptions. I think this is a way our two cultures can go forward with a greater understanding, as part of our bicultural society.

"We've moved out of our comfort zone and the orchestra has moved out of its comfort zone and we're trying to work out a way of working things out together.

"We weren't sure what was going to happen, but it was important to take the journey."

* The Olympics Arts Festival continues until September 30. NZSO performances are on September 25 and 26. Tainui performs on the Sydney Opera House steps on September 24.