Ko wai tēnei: Jen Cloher
Having spent years in Australia, indie music icon Jen Cloher (Ngāpuhi, Ngāti Kanu ki Whangaroa) is back in Aotearoa and on a journey of reclamation of their language and culture. They have also released a new season of a podcast profiling indigenous musicians from Aoteraoa and Te Whenua Moemoeā.
Ko wai koe? Nō hea koe?
Tēnā koutou, he uri tēnei no Ngāpuhi me Ngāti Kahu ki Whangaroa. E noho ana au ki Ōtaki. I whakatipu au ki Naarm, Te Whenua Moemoeā. Ko Huriata tōku ingoa.
I whakapapa to Te Tai Tokerau, near Whangaroa Harbour up north but I grew up in Melbourne, Australia. I'm currently living and studying in Ōtaki, about an hour north of Te Whanganui-a-Tara.
What ' s the kaupapa that drives you right now?
Right now, I'm at Te Wānanga o Raukawa where I'm doing a year-long te reo Māori immersion course. Having lived in Australia my whole life, I started the course with the basics: a handful of greetings, a couple of karakia and my pepeha – so it's been a steep learning curve! It's been a slow start to my haerenga but I'm starting to understand more of what is being said and can put some basic sentences together. I feel so grateful to be able to step into such a beautiful kaupapa ia rā ia rā.
I've also just released the second season of my podcast Everybody's Trying To Find Their Way Home which are conversations with Māori and First Nations (Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islands) songwriters and performers who are writing and performing in their languages. Making a podcast about writing and performing in indigenous languages during an intense year of beginning to learn mine has helped me to keep going. Hearing how people have worked so hard to reawaken their language so they can share it through song is tino ataahua.
What ' s the best piece of advice you ' ve ever received?
You're not here to be perfect.
What ' s one challenge you ' ve had to overcome on your journey?
Learning that a lot of my thoughts are negative but they're not the truth. Learning how to feel my feelings. It's giving self help but honestly, those two things have been a massive challenge.
What ' s a moment you ' re really proud of?
I'm really proud of my podcast. Indigenous women and queer folks are rarely centred in the music industry. I love that I get to create a longform audio documentary that takes time telling their stories with respect and care. I think the thing I'm most proud of though, is their honesty and courage – there's vulnerability in every episode that makes things feel closer. In the words of my editor and mixer Jon Tjhia: 'It speaks to the resonance and longevity of communal voice – and in a time where cultural industries are beholden to the narrative insistences of their patrons and masters – it draws me back to the importance of culture and song as a lifeline of knowledge.'
What does success look like to you?
British-American writer and orator Alan Watts once said: 'Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence.'
Late stage capitalism has wrought havoc on the planet, greater than human beings and humanity. Slowing down and learning how to be in relationship with everything feels like the antithesis of capitalism and so I'm choosing it more and more. Stop, breathe, see who's in front of you and love them with everything you have.
Who are three people you admire and why?
Shellie Morris, Whirimako Black and Byllie-jean. Three of the guests on the new season of my podcast. They've all lived big lives, they tell it straight and you always come away feeling better and wiser for being in their presence.
What keeps you grounded?
Karakia, waiata and mōteatea ia rā, ia rā.
What ' s one whakaaro you want to leave our readers with?
Ko tōku reo, tōku ohooho; tōku reo, tōku mapihi maurea; tōku reo, tōku whakakai marihi. My language is my awakening, my language is the window to my soul.
Flat or round doughboys in your boil up?
Both, of course.
What ' s something about you most people don ' t know?
I won't sleep in a room where the window doesn't open. I've left hotels on tour to find another that has a window that opens. The thought of air not being able to circulate or just being in an air-conditioned environment sends me sideways. I need fresh air.
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8 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Toi Tū Toi Ora reframed: Doco reveals Auckland Art Gallery politics of landmark Māori exhibition
The artists are all here tonight. The always-too-small foyer of SkyCity Theatre is bursting with a sold-out crowd for the premiere of Toi Tū: Visual Sovereignty, Chelsea Winstanley's documentary about what happened five years ago and a kilometre away at Auckland City Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki. There had been a crowd back in 2020, too, with many of the same people in it, for the opening of Toi Tū Toi Ora, which was not only the largest show in the gallery's history, but also the largest exhibition of contemporary Māori art there had ever been. Yet, amid the celebration, there was a whisper that something had gone wrong, that even as Toi Tū opened its doors, its curator, Nigel Borell, had resigned. A cover story in the NZ Herald's Canvas magazine a few weeks later finally told the public what the artists knew – that Borell and the gallery's director, Kirsten Lacy, had fallen out over what he described as 'different ways of viewing aspirations for Māori'. Winstanley had been on the inside of it all, filming what she had imagined would be a celebratory film that would accompany Toi Tū as it toured internationally. The show never toured, and she wound up with a different story to tell. Curator Nigel Borell: 'You have a moment to make some change.' Photo / Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki This is an audience that knows the story. It's also an extraordinarily engaged crowd. The next 100 minutes are dotted with swirls of applause, knowing laughter and even cheers as one artist or another comes up in the tale. What had originally seemed like an obstacle to the production – the pandemic – turned out to be something of a gift. The lockdown Zoom meetings with Borell, the gallery's longstanding artists' advisory board Haerewa, and Lacy and the gallery's senior management, all tiled across the screen, are rich documents in retrospect. There are murmurs and an audible gasp when Lacy, an Australian appointed to run the gallery in 2019, just as Borell's five-year dream for the exhibition was becoming a reality, is shown announcing her intention to go off on her own to conduct 'informal meet and greets' with iwi about how they would like to engage with the exhibition – effectively over the heads of Borell and Haerewa. Borell, sitting at home on Zoom, simply gets up and leaves the frame, to laughter from the audience. 'She's got to go with someone,' says painter and Haerewa's chair and founding member Elizabeth Ellis at a follow-up hui without Lacy. 'She's going to be discussing Māori stuff. We can't send her off, this young Australian woman, to carry our message.' Ellis and five other Haerewa members would eventually follow Borell in resigning. The film turns on an understanding of mana – translated on screen as 'authority to lead' – that will be familiar to many New Zealanders, but was not evident to Lacy. The gallery director arrived with an admirable record of working with indigenous artists in Australia but, it seems, an incomplete sense of the moment she was entering here. 'You have a moment to make some change,' says Borell at one point in the film. 'And if you don't use it in that way, then you're just taking up space.' Winstanley has gone out of her way not to be inflammatory, to the extent that some viewers could even wonder what all the fuss was about. She's after a teachable moment rather than a pile-on. Former Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki director Kirsten Lacy. Photo / Auckland City Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki 'I don't think she's a villain,' Winstanley says of Lacy the following morning. 'I think she is someone who … She's not Māori, she doesn't have the experience of having lived in this country, she doesn't understand or know that, and I think that's what comes across. And there's an opportunity, I think, for people in these positions. You can do what the beautiful Dr Maya Angelou says: 'Do the best you can until you know better – and when you know better, do better.'' Winstanley's original, more celebratory film survives through the twists of the story. We're taken straight from a troubled Zoom meeting to Reuben Paterson working out the lighting for Guide Kaiārahi, the crystalline waka taua that was Toi Tū Toi Ora's most prominent commissioned work, by virtue of its position at the gallery entrance. As commissions from Shane Cotton and Mataaho Collective take shape, we get a glimpse of the artists as purposeful engineers. The film, also commissioned by the gallery, provides an enriching context for the exhibition that will make viewers wish for a chance to see the art again with it all in mind. Indeed, that was the role it would have played had the exhibition toured as planned. Those plans were let go after Borell's departure – but the artists travelled even if the show did not. Eight New Zealand artists were invited to present at the Venice Biennale last year; all were Māori and all had been part of Toi Tū Toi Ora. An investment from the barrister Kahungunu Barron-Afeaki allowed Winstanley to fly there to capture the event, where Mataaho Collective claimed the Biennale's Golden Lion prize. Mataaho Collective won the Golden Lion award at the 60th Venice Biennale for their installation Takapau. Photo / Creative NZ Although Toi Tū Toi Ora had made its case by breaking gallery attendance records – at least since the return of the landmark Te Māori exhibition from New York in 1987, to which it is consciously connected in the film – following the story to Venice meant, says Winstanley, that 'we were able to truly celebrate what having that kind of sovereignty meant and that's what I'd envisioned in the beginning. Because if the whole point of Toi Tū Toi Ora was to enable our art to live and thrive through a Māori lens, it didn't feel like it was able to do that fully, opening the way it did and with what happened.' Lacy, who resigned in April and left in June, saw a rough cut of the film before she departed. By that time, she had received the recommendations of an independent review of the gallery's relationship with Māori and appointed Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei chief executive Tom Irvine as her deputy director. The move had the effect of further stirring debate about Lacy's personal cultivation of mana whenua at the expense of the mana of Haerewa. Ngāti Whātua seems like a missing voice in the film. Irvine is currently acting director. Whoever is permanently appointed to the role will find plenty to think about and much to respond to in Toi Tū: Visual Sovereignty. A day after the premiere, the friends I went with were still exchanging messages about what it meant. Perhaps that's what teachable moments are meant to do. After selling out its screenings at the Auckland leg of the NZ International Film Festival, Toi Tū: Visual Sovereignty has screenings in Wellington (Aug 17, 23), Dunedin (Aug 24) and Christchurch (Aug 17, 21), see for more. Plans are underway for screenings beyond the festival. To request a screening go to Director Chelsea Winstanley: 'I'm not putting words in people's mouths.' Photo / Supplied Things Fall Apart Chelsea Winstanley on filming in a crisis. For film-maker Chelsea Winstanley, Toi Tū: Visual Sovereignty represents her most serious film in years. Her recent producer duties have been on former husband Taika Waititi's Oscar-winning Jojo Rabbit and before that What We Do in the Shadows and giving Disney's animated hits te reo makeovers. But TT:VS is also her debut feature as a director. Her career began with directing Whakangahau, a documentary short about cousins from her Paparoa marae running a tourism venture. 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NZ Herald
9 hours ago
- NZ Herald
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NZ Herald
10 hours ago
- NZ Herald
Te Tangi a Te Tūī: Māori circus show comes to Whangārei, Kerikeri
While Gordon's career led her to high-end circus, Tukiwaho (Te Arawa, Tūhoe and Tūwharetoa) continued to become an experienced theatre maker, teaming with a driving force in Māori theatre Amber Curreen (Ngāpuhi, Te Rarawa, Te Roroa) to create Te Pou Theatre. Te Tangi a Te Tūī is performed solely in te reo Māori and has received rave reviews internationally and in Aotearoa. Photo / David Cooper But the recollection of a teenage discussion with Gordon's mum was the catalyst for reuniting to co-write their latest show. 'Eve's mum commented that, 'No one's ever heard the song of the real tūī before. The original song before humans arrived has never been heard by a human', and I thought that was just amazing. 'After that comment, we just let that idea gestate in our minds for over 20 years and, meanwhile, I'd met Amber and, around five years ago, we sat down together and discussed this idea of the tūī.' Teaming with Gordon was their first collaboration with circus and, in association with Performing Arts Network of New Zealand (PANNZ), Te Tangi a Te Tūī was born. The story centres around a family curse. Two magical beings lay claim to the first-born son in this bloodline, played by Tukiwaho's son Paku, 19. It is up to the boy to decide which entity he appeases. The entities have the opportunity to tell the boy their story and once the boy hears their stories, he can choose. The story fuses kapa haka, acrobatics and breath-taking aerial artistry to tell a story of reclamation, remembrance and return. Intertwined throughout is the tūī, who soaks up the world around and responds in song. Though beautiful, its tune is now a faint echo of what it once was when Aotearoa was blanketed in the ngāhere (forest). Te Tangi a Te Tūī is a powerful theatrical experience and unfolds as an evocative meditation on identity and resilience, in the face of colonisation. Photo / David Cooper 'Te Tangi a Te Tūī is about our collective remembering,' says Tukiwaho, who has a reputation for fearless storytelling and uplifting Māori voices and received the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award in 2023. 'It's about reclaiming language, whakapapa and the stories that have been waiting patiently for us to return to them. And we're doing it in a way that celebrates Māori innovation, power and wairua.' Te Tangi a Te Tūī is a powerful theatrical experience and unfolds as an evocative meditation on identity and resilience, in the face of colonisation. The 1.45-hour show features a cast of about 10 including Tukiwaho and two of his sons – Paku and Te Rongopai, 13, and their mother. Performed entirely in te reo Māori, the production surrounds audiences with the richness of the language and its cultural resonance. Those who are fluent or on their te reo Māori journey will enjoy the full immersion experience. Those with limited knowledge of te reo Māori and wishing to engage more deeply will be provided with a full English-language synopsis and radio play upon booking. This ensures the work remains accessible to all, allowing audiences to connect with the performance at whatever level suits them. 'I was insistent the English language would not be present in the show,' explains Tukiwaho, adding that a link to the radio play is sent when tickets are purchased with an even mix of people choosing to listen to it either before or after the show. The story centres around a family curse and two magical beings lay claim to the first-born son in this bloodline. Photo / Ralph Brown It was instrumental for their international premiere in Vancouver two years ago, which was received 'amazingly' by the audience with one review describing the power of te reo Māori and circus together as breath-taking. 'It was just an amazing experience with a lot of indigenous people who came along to the show,' he recalls, adding that the international audience were more impressed with the cultural context, whereas their subsequent Kiwi audience, more impressed with the circus. 'Overseas the cultural context and the language was exciting for them but that's because our audience here are lucky they get to experience it often whereas, in Canada, it was a novelty. 'I did notice our performers were far more nervous about performing at home. For one thing, our audience can know what we're saying.' The impact of the play inspired Gordon to enrol to learn te reo. She said the circus acts are used to enhance the narrative. 'If we create the show in a way where people who don't understand the language can understand the narrative, then they can just be immersed in the beautiful waiata that is the reo.' Tainui Tukiwaho, pictured, and Amber Curreen, both co-founders of Te Pou Theatre, teamed with Dust Palace's co-founder and lead circus performer Eve Gordon to bring this show about. Photo / Philip Merry Dust Palace producer Rachael Dubois adds: 'This work lives at the intersection of everything we love – high-calibre physical performance, kaupapa Māori storytelling, and deep collaboration. It's an incredibly special show, and audiences who see it are going to be moved, challenged, and inspired'. After its international premiere in Vancouver in 2023 and an acclaimed Aotearoa season at Te Pou Theatre during Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki/Auckland Arts Festival the following year, Te Tangi a Te Tūī is traveling to five North Island centres, including Tauranga, Rotorua, Taranaki, Whangārei and Kerikeri. 'We love going up north every year,' says Tukiwaho. 'Northland is from my cultural context as it has a huge population of Māori. 'Our people receive it in the way that we intend it to be received because they understand it in the context in the way we're applying it. Our whānau up north open-heartedly respond.' Tukiwaho said the tūī is more of an allegory for the Māori language and how the loss of the tūī's voice is similar to the journey of the Māori language. 'The tūī can no longer remember what their original voice was... our people were dangerously close to that as well. And that's why we're using the tūī in this particular way to show that. That's the journey that our people could have gone on.' Te Tangi a Te Tūī will be at Whangārei Forum North, Tuesday, August 19 and Kerikeri Turner Centre, Friday, August 22 - Saturday, August 23. Visit for booking details.
