DANZ QUARTERLY Issue No 11
April, May, June 2008
The power of the art form
by Francesca Horsley
You are only as good as your last gig says Tama Huata. He should know - he has over 25 years in the performing arts business, and every gig along the way has counted. CEO of Kahurangi NZ Māori Dance Theatre, it has taken a lifetime of careful preparation, deep perception and strategic planning to build and sustain a company that has established a world reputation for exciting and innovative cultural dance theatre.
At home in sunny Hawkes Bay, Tama and his company, Kahurangi, are celebrating their 25th Anniversary and are preparing for a year of festivities which includes, not surprisingly, a bold new venture. The company has been preparing a major work, Waka, which tells the story of the origins of the Takitimu canoe, and is set to take it to the US - Los Angeles, Utah and Concord, New Hampshire - in September/October this year.
While this tour marks a new phase in Kahurangi’s life, with a performance in a 5,000 seat proscenium theatre in Utah, it is but one of a series of milestones that the company has met over a 25 year period. Slow growth and sound business planning has been the key to success. Kahurangi has established international performance markets that are the envy of any arts body. Tama says, “It has been a whole strategy of strategic sprinting for a number of years.”
Steeped in his Ngati Kahungunu whanau’s tradition of waiata and haka from babyhood, as a young man Tama was inspired to take the art form to the world, to be part of its evolution. It was a time of change. “The Beatles were hitting the world; I listened to Radio Hauraki when it was broadcasting from the Gulf – these were exciting years.” Sensing it was the right time for Maori performing arts, in 1967 Tama went to Sydney to learn about the performing arts industry. “It took 14 years of preparation,” he says laughing.
He studied “everything - the art form itself, technical aspects, music, dance. We formed our own singing group, I had a band over there and we worked in clubs for a good ten years and toured. I founded the Sydney Maori Festival, held every Easter,
went to the Australian Film and Television School, worked for Reg Grundy Productions – studied lighting, sound, voice, jazz ballet classes, food and beverage - everything to do with the industry – you name it I went through it.”
After 14 years, by then married with a young family, Tama came home to Hastings to put this knowledge to use. With funding from a Labour Department scheme he put together a performance group, training on the job. “You really had to make things work. When I look back I say I don’t know how I even survived.”
“We started off with about ten performers – it really was who was willing to come along.” Tama trained the performers, put the programmes in place, kept the momentum growing.
The concept grew quickly, but Tama found that it was a challenge to reintroduce traditional waiata to the students; they were more into reggae. “When I had left for Australia, it was a really vibrant scene in New Zealand, our leaders were dynamic. By the time I had come back, there had been a whole generational change in terms of our young people. Their head space was somewhere else, for a lot of them traditional waiata was not their cup of tea. We had to bring it in through popular music, so they could relate to it. We sort of started from a present base and actually had to move backwards in terms of the culture.”
The revival took a few years, but they were hitting milestones very quickly; the programme had to be delivered fast. “Our people were sprinters, not marathon runners, they move forward in short bursts, our history showed me that,” Tama explains.
As the performance group evolved, Tama began to see the need to design the training to meet the needs of the performance industry. Takitimu Performing Arts School offered the first Certificate of Maori Performing Arts to be accredited in NZ. “And I got our people to sit it. I hauled them yelling and screaming but they did it and they got it. So then I wrote a Diploma of Maori Performing Arts – and I pulled them yelling and screaming through that. We were just setting benchmarks all the time. Then finally I wrote the first Bachelor of Maori Performing Arts degree programme – well you know – we managed to get graduates out with their degrees.” Tama’s satisfaction is palpable.
“Students graduate from the school into the company which employs 25 fulltime dancers, spread over its three troupes.”
Tama says it was always a key factor to produce performers who were very knowledgeable and qualified. “Even when we were trying a whole lot of modern things, and finding our way - at one time we had a band backing our cultural groups – we could always say it was recognisable as being Maori – not Western.”
The Kahurangi style was not to everyone’s liking; they were lucky because a number of kaumatua, including his father, supported them. “If we were not sure of the pathway with a particular performance piece we would show them and then they would either give us the thumbs up or the thumbs down.” If they received the thumbs down they would revise it, because it had to be clear, true to the correct storyline. “They were all strong linguists in te reo Maori so they knew the words – there was nothing wrong with our lyrics - they just wanted to see the form that was associated with those words. But once we got the signoff it didn’t matter what anybody else was saying – we were comfortable with what we were doing.”
Kahurangi set about developing an educational theatre programme, which is now the biggest in the country, and still growing. It also developed a very strong international profile, touring to Canada for 20 years, and America for 16; establishing offices in Niagara Falls, and the Bronx, New York. It is currently building a strong presence in Kuala Lumpur. Tours last 30 weeks and they perform everywhere from the theatre, powwows, in the education sector and in major festivals. Highlights include performing in New York’s Lincoln Centre, the Kennedy Centre in Washington DC, with Kiri Te Kanawa at the Metropolitan, supporting the America’s Cup bid, and Academy Awards for Whale Rider and all of Jackson’s movies.
“We have made a commitment to working this market – but making that commitment means that we always had to maintain a presence there.” The market functions very differently to NZ, and a considerable amount of care and time is invested in building an audience. Agents will establish a network of engagements and book the troupe into working in schools, colleges, universities and festivals. When Waka is performed in Utah, it will serve as a platform, with agents and bookers invited to view and review it; making bookings years into the future. “Some of our present seasons have been booked for four or five years,” Tama says. “That means we need to get people to make a long term commitment to work in the market – they have to be serious about being in this industry.”
Waka is one of the largest shows they have mounted and brings together all performers of the three troupes. Jointly choreographed by both Tama and Liz Davey, who joined the company two years ago, it has already been presented in Nelson and Hastings; each time they have gone back to the drawing board to refine it, develop it further.
Other festivities include an exhibition in Hastings and in mid-September a retrospective performance of four works is planned. Never one to rest on his laurels, Tama is looking to the future; his next strategic sprint, among others, is to develop the international proscenium theatre market.
Kahurangi is very much a family affair, with his brother Te Rangi Huata as the technical adviser and daughter Narelle Huata as the performance manager and Ellison Huata the production manager.
Looking back, he says that “there have been some major challenges, and anybody who is in the arts world – especially in the performing arts – and being on the road, will fully understand what that commitment means. There have been lots of sacrifices – and the credit goes to all the company members and the many people who have helped us along the way.”
Tama feels considerable satisfaction, first at getting there, but also in shaping self-determination through cultural foundations. “There is also a sense of fulfilment that a lot of our people have grown through Maori performing arts, not only as performers but in terms of academic excellence.”
“So we are looking to see how a lot of things will pan out in the future - and I guess when we get to 40 years or so – or when we reach a certain point - we’ll say – ‘ok we’ve achieved this particular milestone’.”
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