10 October 2000
CITY GALLERY WELLINGTON
PO Box 2199, Wellington, New Zealand
'Two Plays, One Story'
Sunday 15 October, 1pm
"It's subject matter is the history of the chicanery, the patronising incomprehension, and the sheer failure of the
imagination, which have bought us to a condition verging on spiritual apartheid."
NZ Listener review of Songs to the Judges
Two pieces of New Zealand drama, which can still provoke today, will be explored this weekend. They will be accompanied
by presentations by first and second year students from the NZ Drama School Toi Whakaari.
Poet, playwright, and performer Brian Potiki will recall directing Te Raukura, The Feathers of the Albatross - a play by
Harry Dansey written in the mid-1970s about the military occupation of Parihaka. He will be joined by former cast
members in sharing insights into the work. First and second year students from the NZ Drama School Toi Whakaari will
present a directed reading of excerpts from the play. In Wellington, Te Raukura was presented by the Te Reo Maori
Society at the Ngati Poneke Hall, Thorndon, in 1974.
Drama students will also bring to life excerpts from the Song-play Songs to the Judges, first performed in 1980. Set in
a law court, this work grew out of a collaboration between playwright and actor Mervyn Thompson and composer and music
critic William Dart. It focused on Maori attitudes to land, confiscation and New Zealand law using parody and satire.
After the Auckland premiere, there were standing ovations and rave reviews, along with talk of boycotts and picketing.
The students will be directed by Sally Barratt-Boyes, Rawiri Paratene and Vanessa Burns.
A partnership project between City Gallery Wellington and Parihaka Pa Trustees. Generously supported by: New Zealand
Millennium Office; The New Zealand Lottery Grants Board; Creative New Zealand Arts Council of New Zealand Toi Aotearoa;
Wellington City Council; Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa; Taranaki Museum. Generously sponsored by: Bell Gully
Barristers and Solicitors; Wakatu Incorporation; Tohu Wines; Parininihi Ki Waitotara Incorporation; The Dominion; The
Evening Post; Saatchi & Saatchi; City Gallery Wellington Foundation. City Gallery Wellington is managed by the Wellington Museums Trust with
major funding from the Wellington City Council. ENDS.
Anne Irving Publicist T: 04 801 3959 F: 04 801 3950 Parihaka - The Art of Passive Resistance 26 August - 19 January
2001 Admission Free Check out: http://www.parihaka.city-gallery.org.nz