Te Puna Toi 2015: Footprints/Tapuwae

Free Theatre presents:

Te Puna Toi 2015: Footprints/Tapuwae

Director - Peter Falkenberg

Poutokomanawa – Taiporoutu Huata

The unique bicultural opera Footprints/Tapuwae, which juxtaposes motifs from Wagner’s Ring Cycle with waiata and haka, opens for a two-week season in The Gym from June 2nd. Footprints/Tapuwae is part of an event called Te Puna Toi, which fosters contemporary interdisciplinary performance. Free Theatre Christchurch are collaborating on the opera with performers from Te Pao a Tahu and Te Ahikōmau a Hamo Te Rangi, the Ngāi Tahu kapa haka groups who recently represented the Waitaha (greater Canterbury) region at Te Matatini. Footprints/Tapuwae is a reimagining and restaging of the opera that was first presented in 2001 in collaboration with Taiporoutu Huata.

Te Puna Toi has programmed a series of public workshops and a symposium during the performance season of Footprints/Tapuwae, which explore the discoveries made by bringing together Maori and Western forms of performance. Te Puna Toi is supported by Christchurch City Council Events funding.

Producer George Parker says this performance and event is a continuation of Free Theatre’s developing New Works and Education Programme at The Gym in the Arts Centre. The company has produced a series of popular events called Ubu Nights, which combine performance and hospitality, and last year presented Kafka’s Amerika to critical and popular success. “With Footprints/Tapuwae, we’re taking further our aims to develop new cross-over audiences in the Arts Centre” Parker says. “We create entertaining work that is unique in this country and certainly in this city, and we’re excited by the opportunities that events like this can create by bringing together artists from different disciplines. The Gym really is a great example of the old and new coming together in dynamic ways to create something quite distinct and special in the Arts Centre”.

Reviewer’s comments from the popular and critically acclaimed 2001 production of Footprints/Tapuwae:

“immensely satisfying… the sheer nerve of the idea really impressed”- Alan Scott, The Press

“powerful and edgy, this creation gets you where you feel it” - Barry Grant, The Christchurch Star

For more information on the Te Puna Toi event and Footprints/Tapuwae please see our website: http://www.freetheatre.org.nz/te-puna-toi.html. For all media enquiries and interview requests please contact George Parker on george@freetheatre.org.nz or call 022-395-4037.

Footprints/Tapuwae Performance Information:

8.00pm: Tuesday 2 June 8.00pm: Tuesday 9 June

8.00pm: Wednesday 3 June 8.00pm: Wednesday 10 June

8.00pm: Thursday 4 June 8.00pm: Thursday 11 June

8.00pm: Friday 5 June 8.00pm: Friday 12 June

8.00pm: Saturday 6 June 8.00pm: Saturday 13 June

Location: The Gym, The Arts Centre, Worcester Boulevard. Tickets: Waged $30. Unwaged $20. Online Bookings Essential

ENDS

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