Innovation Online Extends Kia Mau Festival Across The Greatness Of The Ocean

Kia Mau Festival presents
MOANA NUI
Launching June 2
As part of the 2021 Kia Mau Festival, June 4-19
Te Ūpoko o Te Ika a Māui (Wellington Region)

Kia Mau Festival are proud to launch a brand-new platform today, June 2, to bring online audiences into the festival season in a digital venue, extending their 2021 programme beyond the physical space with Moana Nui. Providing bespoke and curated programming to connect with those who cannot be in the live, but want to participate in the 2021 Festival remotely, the technological capacity of Moana Nui has been developed in collaboration with Shift72, known for their work on the Cannes Film Festival, NZ International Film Festival, and South by Southwest.

A sovereign Indigenous digital arts platform, Moana Nui extends the kaupapa of Kia Mau into a new online realm, to highlight and showcase the global Indigenous and PoC artists that have been working in partnership with the Festival since its inception. A deliberate digital festival curated by Mīria George that has been almost a year in the making, Moana Nui speaks to the scale and visibility of the international connectedness of Kia Mau, to bring overseas whānau into the fold for 2021. The programming has been led by the live programme from Hone Kouka, a complement to the in-person programme, with a nod to future-proofing and innovation. More than simply a place for content hosted in perpetuity, all works part of Moana Nui have been programmed for a maximum of 10 days, allowing audiences to ‘rent’ a piece of work for its strictly limited season. Accessibility has been a priority, so in addition to enabling a venue that all can participate in regardless of location or access needs, cost has also been considered - with all ticketed events priced at only $10, and many experiences available free of charge.

In many ways, Moana Nui is an ocean that connects us. Mīria George sees the name as providing inspiration for how the platform will function to foster connection, saying "As Indigenous peoples, Māori and Pasifika are global by nature. Moana Nui has the ability to connect us. Our stories are amplified across our digital ocean - reaching across Aotearoa but also throughout Te Moana-nui-a-Kiva and the world. In 2021, the global Indigenous world is more connected than ever - Moana Nui will work to enhance this. Moana Nui is for all lovers of great art and great story. Kia Mau is very proud to be exploring this new digital space."

Fittingly, Moana Nui is led by the Global Series, a collection of high-quality filmed theatre and dance works from acclaimed Indigenous companies from Canada. The landmark piece is Deer Woman by ARTICLE 11, which premiered at Kia Mau Festival in 2018, and was seen by programmers from the Sydney Festival where it was hailed as a highlight of their 2019 programme, playing to sold-out houses. Yet to be performed in its home country due to the ongoing impacts of Covid-19, Deer Woman is a solo-warrior-woman story of righteous vengeance created by the Indigenous arts activist company named for the eleventh article in the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. A personal account delving into human rights abuses in a country where over 1,600 Indigenous women and girls are officially recognised as being missing or murdered, Deer Woman follows Lila as she finds the perfect opportunity to avenge her baby sister’s murder.

Also hailing from Canada, Kaha:wi Dance Theatre offer Re-Quickening - a work conceived by Artistic Director Santee Smith to bring together a powerhouse ensemble of female performers that include Aotearoa’s own Louise Potiki-Bryant, Bianca Hyslop, and Nancy Wijohn in an international collaboration of Indigenous artists from Canada, Aotearoa, Australia, and Mexico. Last performing in the live programme at the 2017 Festival with Smith’s award-winning solo work NeoIndigenA, their captivating performances that carve space for Indigenous audiences to witness themselves.

Celebrating the work of artists from around Aotearoa, the Haukāinga Series compiles some incredible behind-the-scenes offerings, including documentaries, unreleased footage, and in-creation filming, as well as filmed performances of works that have previously been featured live as part of the Festival. One such work is Pōhutu by Bianca Hyslop & Rowan Pierce, premiered at Kia Mau Festival in 2019, to complement the installation of the interactive artwork Te Mauri o Pōhutu that is part of the 2021 live programme. To align with their one-night-only performance at the Opera House, a revealing behind-the-scenes documentary from The Māori Sidesteps will be part of Moana Nui’s Haukāinga Series. And recent Springboard recipient Moana Ete presents a theatre film work, All of the Above, working with her mentor Nicky Caro while developing this project. Rather than a static film, the camera is acts as an on-stage performance, livestreamed exclusively as part of Moana Nui.

Moana Nui is completed by the Ahi Kā series, consisting of 5 minute interviews from 15 Aotearoa based artists; a livestream series of various opening nights and events from the live performance festival programme on the Kia Mau Festival social media channels; and Kia Mau on Demand, which features filmed footage of eight works presented in the live Kia Mau Festival 2021 programme.

© Scoop Media