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Why I Made is a fortnightly feature in which artists and writers share with listener.co.nz the behind-the-scenes stories of their creations. Here, Leki Jackson-Bourke talks about the first arts festival he’s curated, the one-day A Niu Dawn in Auckland this Saturday, and why he made the decision to take on the role.
Leki Jackson-Bourke is the first to admit that he looks more like an All Black than a dancer, but the Tongan-Niuean-Samoan has been dancing, singing, acting and writing plays for Pasifika youth since his teens.
“Not every brown boy was made to play for the All Blacks,” he says, with a wry smile on his face.
Now 32 and a qualified secondary school teacher, he has already achieved more than many might in double that time. He’s won multiple awards - from organisations as diverse as Creative New Zealand and Auckland Council - for writing and producing his own plays, and now runs Strictly Brown to “redefine the narrative of Pasifika performing arts”.
He is worked alongside The Guerilla Collection, led by Black Grace founder Neil Ieremia, to curate his first festival. Described as a pocket arts festival, A Niu Dawn features Moana Oceania Artists and community groups focused on celebrating life in Aotearoa since the Dawn Raids.
Leki Jackson-Bourke, why did you want this job?
I’ve been working with Black Grace intermittently for the past three or four years. When Neil asked me about it, he was like, ‘I think you’re the perfect person [to curate A Nui Dawn] because you understand how we work in our company, but also have community connections and we need to go beyond our normal networks and branch out, and you know the industry and how things work’. I told him, ‘I am that person. I know a lot of people and I can do it’ and jumped onboard.
The Guerilla Collection did this once before in 2018?
Yes, and I was the emerging choreographer. I made a piece called Tick Tick Boom, which looked at modernising traditional Pacific dance culture and how here, in Aotearoa, we do things differently compared to our Pacific cousins back home in the islands.
So, how did you feel about going from an emerging artist to curating because it’s quite a step up?
I was confident I had the skillset to do it – and I was the Auckland Writers Festival’s Pasifika curator in 2022. Also, I had an idea of what I wanted and the people I would approach, so I didn’t have any negative feelings. It’s been a good challenge and a good task to take on at the right time.
Why have you picked the acts that you have?
We’re trying to be as diverse as possible and programme acts that are very different to one another but, in doing that, we realised that certain people were well-suited to being part of the festival either because they’ve never been given this opportunity before or they’re really good at what they do.
We’ve got renowned actors and directors Anapela Polata’ivao and Vela Manusaute, South Auckland Pacific dance theatre company Sau E Siva Creatives, Pacific Theatre Company Strictly Brown, poet Daren Kamali, Tuvaluan dancer Molia Alama-Tulafono, film-makers Benji Timu and Josiah Tualamali’i, and Ieremia is creating a new Black Grace work.
I have declared some conflicts of interest. Anapela and Vela tutored me back at PIPA [the Pacific Institute of Performing Arts] and they kind of still are! We’ve worked on adapting the film Red, White and Brass for Auckland Theatre Company and then my play Pring It On and I just love having them around. We needed a senior artist or two who we knew could deliver.
I’m involved with Sau E Siva Creatives; we celebrated our 10th anniversary last year. There are around 60 dancers, who sing as well, so it’s about large ensemble performances. This show is slightly smaller – 40 dancers and a four-piece live band.
Strictly Brown is the company I run with my friend Saale Ilaua. We left our fulltime teaching jobs to start the company.
Why would you leave a safe fulltime job to start your own company?
I taught for about three years. I decided to be a teacher and then I decided not to! I think being in the school system is very different from coming in as an external teacher or visitor to run workshops. As a fulltime teacher, you’ve got to deal with the internal politics, the admin side of things and all of the “contrived learning”.
Being in the system, I could see how it’s not always suitable for young people. They’re told to meet criteria that don’t always take into account things like prior knowledge and the skillset they have out of the classroom.
There were some amazing students that I couldn’t assess because they didn’t fit a set criteria. I just have a different vision for our young people and so did Saale, so we decided to go back to being an artist because I felt I could better help kids that way.
We wanted to create our own platform where we could make work that would resonate with our community, particularly with the young Pacific audience.
Everyone thinks we’re these sporty rugby type guys, but we actually love to sing and dance at night!
How’s it going so far?
We’ve done a few school workshops this year. Probably the most enjoyable for us was a visit down to the South Island to Marlborough Boys’ College. It was great to be out of Auckland but also to see in the regions that there’s a need for the type of work we’re doing.
I’m not talking specifically about Marlborough Boys’ College, but in the regions in general there are issues around under-resourcing and they don’t have the support and networks that we have in, say, Auckland. There’s a lot of kids who have cultural identity issues that are struggling in school and need support through the arts.
The Guerrilla Collection A Nui Dawn, Saturday, November 23 at Te Pou Theatre, Corban Estate Arts Centre, Henderson, 10am – 8.30pm.
