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Abstract
The Modern Māori Quartet (MMQ) has been a significant ambassador of Aotearoa music, theatre and indigenous culture in the contemporary global live performance marketplace. Initiated by James Tito in 2010 with founding members Maaka Pohatu, Matutaera Ngaropo, Matariki Whatarau and Francis Kora, MMQ is a musical group with a theatrical focus, bridging contemporary Aotearoa music and entertainment with the Māori showbands phenomena of the 1960s and 70s. MMQ has navigated a range of local and global live performance markets, touring extensively throughout Aotearoa and internationally across Australia, Rarotonga, UK, USA, Germany, Uzbekistan, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, Japan, Hong Kong and China. Utilising MMQ’s archival records, press interviews, and an audience survey collected during MMQ’s performance at the 2019 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, this chapter offers an account of the evolution of the Modern Māori Quartet and the importance of whakawhanaungatanga (establishing relationships and connections) in their performances.
Abstract
This essay applies theoretical concepts to do with journeys, beaches, islands and star paths to analyse two interdisciplinary, trans-cultural, group-devised theatre works created in Ōtepoti (Dunedin), Te Wai Pounamu (the South Island of New Zealand). Like star navigators, the creative ensembles who produced these pieces traversed the complex waters of creating cross-disciplinary theatre works in which mātauranga Māori and global scientific discourses co-exist on-stage. The essay analyses the creation of the devised theatre works that resulted from these collaborations, Fission/Wēhenga (2019) and Wairua (2020), in particular exploring the process of cross-disciplinary and transcultural devising, implementing both Western and kaupapa Māori methodologies. Devising privileges both Indigenous and Western discourse whilst at the same time challenging an ascribed sense of legitimacy assumed by Euro-centric ways of knowing. It allows for and encourages multiperspectivism, where more than one discourse co-exists in the time and space of the stage. Thus, these projects opened up performative conversations between Māori understandings of the cosmos and globalised scientific theories, mediated through a collaborative theatrical process.