Tawata Productions

The final performance.

E karanga tēnei ki a koutou nō Ōtautahi! For one night only, Ngā Rorirori is being presented in Christchurch in partnership with Mahi Mahi Productions Limited is performing the brand new work from Hone Kouka in Te Waipounamu.

📌 Aurora Centre for the Performing Arts
🗓️ 7PM Friday October 04
🎟️ https://premier.ticketek.co.nz/shows/show.aspx?sh=NGARORI24

📷 Dave Richards
Featuring Regan Taylor & Rongopai Tickell

Last night we opened Ngā Rorirori at Te Pou Theatre as part of Kōanga Festival. The season here at Kōanga is one that is significant for us - a festival led by Māori held at a theatre dreamed of and led by Māori.

Te Pou Theatre and Kōanga Festival are a beacon for Tawata Productions - we share the dream of sovereign creative spaces, built by us, for us and able to lead Aotearoa New Zealand into a new creative future.

Only three more shows in Tāmaki Makaurau!

📍Kōanga Festival ki Te Pou Theatre
✅ 19-22 SEPT
🔔 https://www.koangafestival.nz/nga-rorirori

📸 Roc+ Photography

Have you booked your tickets?
Four shows only in Tāmaki Makaurau as part of Kōanga Festival 2024.

📍Tāmaki Makaurau
Kōanga Festival ki Te Pou Theatre
19-22 SEPT
🔔 https://www.koangafestival.nz/nga-rorirori

Image by

📍Opening in Tāmaki Makaurau

🙌🏾 Kōanga Festival ki Te Pou Theatre
✅ 19-22 SEPT
🔔 https://www.koangafestival.nz/nga-rorirori

Review by Mauatua Fa’ara-Reynolds for Salient Magazine

📣 Karanga mai ki a koutou ki Tāmaki Makaurau! 📣

Showing in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Tāmaki Makaurau & Ōtautahi, Ngā Rorirori 2024 is on stage in Aotearoa now.

It’s been a ride of many ups and down - making live performance in Aotearoa right now is no easy feat. It is a deeply political act, it is a privilege and it is a joy. Especially with this creative team.

We have four shows only at Te POU Theatre as part of Kōanga Festival.
Have you booked your tickets?

Nau mai, haria mai,
Turou, oro mai!

📍Tāmaki Makaurau
Kōanga Festival ki Te Pou Theatre
19-22 SEPT
🔔 https://www.koangafestival.nz/nga-rorirori

📍Ōtautahi
Aurora Theatre
04 OCT
🔔 https://premier.ticketek.co.nz/Shows/Show.aspx?sh=NGARORI24

Images by ROC+ Photography

Ngā Rorirori 2024

The first look.





Images by Roc+ Photography

"Add to that a recent stint in Canada, a Banff Film Residency, and it’s quite a list. With 20 years of work behind her, does anything stand out as significant?

“I couldn’t name a singular work — every production is a triumph regardless of its singularity or scale. It’s the feeling the work evoked in those who were part of the creation process,” she explains, and the feeling of those who were in the audience. “That is the significance of all of the work that I have produced.”

How I make It work: Poet, film-maker and theatre producer Mīria George 'You have to practise — without practice, there is no creativity.'

“As an artist, I see it as up to me to put things like a mirror [up] for our people,” he says. “That’s our job.”

“It’s just embrace who we are. Be more Māori, you know.

“It’s the strangest of times having so many people who are coming towards us, and I mean non-Maori as well in regards to our reo and everything like that.

“And yet at the top echelon, they’re trying to suppress us or take us backwards.

Kouka says he’s following the king’s advice.

“I take that advice too and go yeah let’s embrace it. Let’s celebrate being Māori.

“Let’s take the mickey out of ourselves a little bit. And for me, that means we have a strong culture.

“People saw that at first and went, ‘Yeah, it’s good we can do that for ourselves, to ourselves.’

“But also, actually, it paints the picture of what it’s like to be Māori in Aotearoa at this time.

“But have fun doing it too.”

Hone Kouka’s Ngā Rorirori plays in Te Whanganui-a-Tara (12-14 September), Tāmaki Makaurau at Kōanga Festival (19-22 September) and Ōtautahi at WHAO Festival (4 October).

"...It’s a play, Kouka admits, that has taken on new meaning under a new government since it was first developed in 2022. He has made extensive rewrites.

That’s also been a chance to make the work better. Ever pushing boundaries, Ngā Rorirori combines three of Kouka’s loves: farce, dance and theatre. The story is told by three dancers and two actors. The dialogue is recorded rather than live, with the voice parts doubled. This sees a total of 11 performers involved on and off stage.

Mīria and Hone joined Culture 101’s Mark Amery to play ‘Fast Favourites’. Among their shoutouts: choreographer Bianca Hyslop , the participants and crew of George’s documentary series Big Hair, Don’t Care, musician Karnan Saba, Tama Waipara and Kouka’s daughter Maarire Brunning-Kouka, better known as MĀ."

https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/culture-101/audio/2018954564/tawata-turns-20-miria-george-and-hone-kouka

“Both my parents said I wasn’t allowed to become an actor because there’s no money in it,” she laughs.

Instead, they encouraged Maarire to follow her passion for music.

“As a child, we made sure that she learned to read music and play the keyboards,” says Hone...

Today, Maarire, of Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Raukawa and Tūhoe descent, has become one of New Zealand’s most promising musicians. Combining soul and hip-hop with the Māori language, she released her debut album Breakfast with Hades to critical acclaim..."

How Nancy's loved ones honour her through their play, Ngā Rorirori The Shortland Street star’s loved ones have made a special project together: a powerful play called Ngā Rorirori

📣 Karanga mai ki a kōrua 📣

⫸ Rehearsal Director Bianca Hyslop (Te Arawa, Ngāti Whakaue)
⫸ Assistant Choreographer Stela Dara Resende Albuquerque (Brazil)

It's our pleasure to introduce to you Bianca and Stela who are the multi-talented storytellers who are working alongside Ngā Rorirori's Writer, Choreographer & Director Hone Kouka. Both company leaders in their own rights, Bianca and Stela are pushing the physical possibilities of Ngā Rorirori - our story of greed masquerading as aroha.

“…Add in the current political climate and it is fertile territory for artists, especially Māori.

“This time especially with the political [environment], the way we are in the country at the moment - oh, it’s ripe as.

“I mean that’s normal for us as Māori artists. Doesn’t matter what we do - comedy, drama, all these sorts of things. We’re political by nature.”

‘Let’s celebrate being Māori’: playwright Hone Kouka Hone Kouka is heartened by the encouragement to 'just be Māori'.

📣 Meet The Live Performance Cast 📣

Stela Dara Resende Albuquerque (Brazi)

Stela Dara Resende Albuquerque is a Brazilian-born performer residing in Aotearoa, whose diverse cultural background shapes her worldview and artistic expression. As a freelance performer and choreographer, she explores movement and creation to connect with her true self, focusing on experiences unique to multicultural lives.

Stela is the founder of Andança Company and the creative director of the award-winning "Show do Café," which is touring in 2024. She has also received the Fringe Award for "Most Promising Upcoming Artist."

Her performance credits include collaborations with Java Dance Company, Le Moana Dance Company, Tupua Tigafua, Malia Johnson, Eliza Sanders, World of Wearable Art, Caio Silva, and others.

📣 Meet The Live Performance Cast 📣

Nomuna Amarbat (Mongolia, China)

Nomuna is an actor, producer and creative based in Tāmaki Makaurau and working primarily in the performing arts/screen industry. A graduate of Toi Whakaari, she recently co-created and produced CREATING HER (with Johanna Nyberg-Rydstrom), a new dance/theatre work at the 2024 Nelson Fringe Festival.

As an actor, Nomuna works across theatre, screen and voice; her credits include CHICK HABIT (2023, dir. Nahyeon Lee) and ASIAN 8 (2023, dir. Nahyeon Lee), NGĀ RORIRORI (2022, dir. Hone Kouka), LOST AT SEA (2024, dir. Asuka Sylvie), TALES OF NAI NAI S2 (2020, dir. Becky Kuek), and video game INTO THE DEAD 2: INITIATE (2020).

Earlier this year, she completed an internship with Silo Theatre for Proudly Asian Theatre’s Producer In Training Programme, and produced her first work, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE (created by Josiah Morgan) at the 2024 Auckland Pride Festival.

Having just returned from a summer of clown school in France, Nomuna is very excited to use her new learnings for the 2024 season of Ngā Rorirori!

📣 Meet The Live Performance Cast 📣

Sefa Tunupopo (Vaiala, Puipa'a, Sāmoa)

Sefa (he/they) is an artist who centers movement and connection and is currently based in Wainuiomata, Aotearoa. He is a graduate of the New Zealand School of Dance (2021), and is currently an independent/freelance dancer, theatre maker, and co-director of a collective of Te Moana Nui-a-Kiwa artists called Shifting Centre.

Sefa's conviction in dance is synonymous with love and he aspires to make art that will serve his intersecting communities.

📣 Meet The Live Performance Cast 📣

Manuel Solomon
(Te Rapuwai, Waitaha, Kāti Mamoe, Tumata Kokiri, Kai Tahu, Sāmoa)

Manuel is a proud father, partner and a passionate storyteller of Pacific and Indigenous stories through the forms of dance, theatre and film in Aotearoa.
Manny received his Bachelor's Degree in Performing Arts (Acting) from Te Kura Toi Whakaari O Aotearoa: New Zealand Drama School in 2012.

With a movement background in hip hop also branching out later into contemporary and Māori contemporary works like Hatupatu | Kurungaituku, A Forbidden Love.
Most recently Manny had the privilege of being in Hawai’i representing Aotearoa as a contemporary artist at the 13th Festival of Pacific Arts and Culture (FestPAC)

He is very excited to be joining Tawata Productions again and looks forward to sharing his skills and bringing Ngā Rorirori to life across the motu. Mauri ora.

📣 Meet The Live Performance Cast 📣

Mycah Keall (Taranaki Iwi, Te Whānau-ā-Apanui)

Mycah is an actor and writer. Since graduating from Te Auaha in 2020, she has worked with various theatre companies around Aotearoa including Centrepoint Theatre, Tawata Productions, Taki Rua, Capital E, Te Rākau Hua O Te Wao Tapu, Kia Mau Festival and Pūtahi Festival.

Mycah’s most recent credits include He Reo Aroha, Mokomoko and Unreel. In 2021 she received the Tūngia Baker & Taki Rua Emerging Māori Writers and Actors Scholarship and in 2022 was a nominee for Most Promising Newcomer at the Wellington Theatre Awards

🙌🏾 Meet The Cast 👏🏽

Ngā Rorirori will feature the Live Performance Cast:

Mycah Keall
(Taranaki Iwi, Te Whānau a Apanui)

Manuel Solomon
(Te Rapuwai, Waitaha, Kāti Mamoe, Tumata, Kai Tahu, Sāmoa)

Sefa Tunupopo
(Vai'ala, Puipa'a)

Stela Dara
(Brazil)

Nomuna Amarbat
(Mongolia, China)

For more:
www.tawataproductions.com/ngarorirori