Hone Vivian Kouka MNZM is a New Zealand playwright. He has written 13 plays, which have been staged in New Zealand and worldwide including Canada, South Africa, New Caledonia and Britain. Kouka's plays have won multiple awards at the Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards, the 'Oscars' of New Zealand theatre. Kouka has also worked as a theatre director and producer. In 2009, Kouka was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to contemporary Māori theatre.
Born in Balclutha in New Zealand's South Island, Kouka graduated in English from the University of Otago in 1988. Later, he graduated from Toi Whakaari: NZ Drama School in 1990, with a Diploma in Acting. [1] [2]
Kouka has ancestral ties to the Māori tribes of Ngāti Porou, Ngāti Kahungunu and Ngāti Raukawa. [3]
Kouka's 1994 play Nga Tangata Toa (The Warrior People) is heralded as a masterpiece in New Zealand theatre. [4] Directed by veteran theatre director Colin McColl, Nga Tangata Toa was first staged at Taki Rua Theatre in Wellington during the 1990s and won numerous awards at the prestigious Chapman Tripp Theatre Awards. The lead role, Rongomai, was played by award-winning actress Nancy Brunning. [5] Nga Tangata Toa was inspired by Henrik Ibsen's play The Vikings of Helgeland. [6] Nga Tangata Toa was later re-staged at Downstage Theatre in 2006 under the direction of James Beaumont. [7]
In 1996, Kouka was commissioned by the New Zealand International Arts Festival to write Waiora , which later toured nationally and internationally in 1997. Waiora became the first play in a trilogy that includes Home Fires (1998) and The Prophet . [8] Waiora shows the effects on Māori of urban migration, with the whānau having left Waiora for work. In Homefires, Kouka writes about the people who stay behind and 'keep the home fires burning' and the stories remembered. [9] The Prophet shows the return 'home' of teenage cousins who have visited but never lived in Waiora. [10]
Other plays include Hide 'n' Seek, co-written with Hori Ahipene, and Five Angels. [1]
In 2015, Kouka's play Bless the Child won the Adam NZ Play Award before it had even been performed. The play's theme is violence against children in contemporary New Zealand. [11]
Kouka established the Kia Mau Festival (initially called the Ahi Kaa Festival) in the Wellington area. The festival showcases Māori, Pasifika and indigenous performing arts and runs biennially in June. [12] [13] In 2001, Kouka co-founded Tawata Productions with Miria George. Tawata Productions stages new New Zealand plays nationally and internationally. [14] Kouka and George are Co-Directors of Tawata Productions. [15]
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)In 1992, Kouka received the Bruce Mason Playwriting Award, [16] and in 2015 he won the Adam Play Award for Bless the Child. [11]
In the 2009 Queen's Birthday Honours, Kouka was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to contemporary Māori theatre. [17]
Tungia Dorothea Gloria Baker was a New Zealand actor, weaver, and administrator. Her notable acting roles included Ngahuia in the 1980s television drama Open House and Hira in the 1993 film The Piano. Baker was influential in contemporary Māori theatre, Māori film making and Māori arts. She named the Taki Rua Theatre, and was a founding member of Māori artists' collectives Te Manu Aute and Haeata.
Nancy Brunning was a New Zealand actress, director, and writer who won awards in film and television and made a major contribution to the growth of Māori in the arts. She won the best actress award at the New Zealand Film Awards for her lead role in the film What Becomes of the Broken Hearted? (1999). In 2000, she won the Best Actress in Drama award at the New Zealand Television Awards for her lead role in the television series Nga Tohu.
Briar Grace-Smith is a screenwriter, director, actor, and short story writer from New Zealand. She has worked as an actor and writer with the Maori theatre cooperative Te Ohu Whakaari and Maori theatre company He Ara Hou. Early plays Don't Call Me Bro and Flat Out Brown, were first performed at the Taki Rua Theatre in Wellington in 1996. Waitapu, a play written by Grace-Smith, was devised by He Ara Hou and performed by the group on the Native Earth Performing Arts tour in Canada in 1996.
Riwia Brown is a New Zealand playwright. She is the screenwriter of the popular and award-winning New Zealand movie Once Were Warriors (1994). The Once Were Warriors screenplay, adapted from the book of the same name by Alan Duff, gained Brown the Best Screenplay award at the 1994 New Zealand Film and TV Awards. Brown has written for theatre, television and films.
Rangimoana Taylor is an actor, theatre director, storyteller from New Zealand with more than 35 years in the industry. He has performed nationally and internationally and was the lead in the feature film Hook Line and Sinker (2011). He was an intrinsic part of three Māori theatre companies, Te Ohu Whakaari and Taki Rua in Wellington and Kilimogo Productions in Dunedin.
Mīria George is a New Zealand writer, producer and director of Māori and Cook Island descent. Best known for being the author of award-winning stage plays, George has also written radio, television and poetry, and was one of the film directors of the portmanteau film Vai. In November 2005, she won the Emerging Pacific Artist's Award at the Arts Pasifika Awards. Mīria George was the first Cook Islands artist to receive the Fulbright-Creative New Zealand Pacific Writer's Residency at the University of Hawai'i.
Albert Alexander Amahou Belz is a New Zealand actor, writer and lecturer.
Whiti Hereaka is a New Zealand playwright, novelist and screenwriter and a barrister and solicitor. She has held a number of writing residencies and appeared at literary festivals in New Zealand and overseas, and several of her books and plays have been shortlisted for or won awards. In 2022 her book Kurangaituku won the prize for fiction at the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards and Bugs won an Honour Award in the 2014 New Zealand Post Awards for Children and Young Adults. She lives in Wellington, New Zealand.
Emily Tess Duncan is a New Zealand playwright. She is co-founder of Prospect Park Productions, an organisation aiming “to create and produce original New Zealand theatre and collaborative projects that reach into other art forms." Duncan held the 2019 Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand. She lives in Dunedin.
Roma Potiki is a New Zealand poet, playwright, visual artist, curator, theatre actor and director, as well as a commentator on Māori theatre. She is of Te Rarawa, Te Aupōuri and Ngāti Rangitihi descent. As well as being a published poet, her work is included in the permanent collection of the Dowse Art Museum.
Taki Rua is a theatre organisation based in Wellington, Aotearoa / New Zealand that has produced many contemporary Māori theatre productions. Taki Rua has been going since 1983 and has had several name changes over that time including The New Depot, Depot Theatre and Taki Rua / The Depot. The full current name is Taki Rua Productions. Since inception the mission of Taki Rua has been to showcase work from Aotearoa. Because of this and the longevity of Taki Rua many significant New Zealand actors, directors, writers, designers and producers have part of the history including Riwia Brown, Nathaniel Lees, Rachel House and Taika Waititi.
Nga Tangata Toa is a 1994 play by New Zealand playwright Hone Kouka. The play has themes of revenge, family honour, and long-held secrets.
The Kia Mau Festival, previously called Ahi Kaa Festival, is a biennial performing arts festival in Wellington, New Zealand. In te reo Māori, kia mau is "a call to stay - an invitation to join us".
The Prophet is a 2004 play by New Zealand playwright Hone Kouka. The play has themes of teenage pregnancy and suicide. It is the third play in the Waiora trilogy of plays. It was first performed at the 2004 New Zealand Festival of the Arts in Wellington. It was published by Playmarket in 2006, and televised as part of the six-part series of Māori plays Atamira in 2012.
Rob Mokaraka is a New Zealand playwright and actor. He affiliates to Ngāpuhi and Ngāi Tūhoe.
Waiora Te Ūkaipō - The Homeland is a 1996 play by New Zealand playwright Hone Kouka. The play describes the social dislocation that happens to Māori who leave their tribal lands. It is the first part of a trilogy with Homefires (1998) and The Prophet (2004), and the teenagers of The Prophet are the children of Waiora's Amiria, Rongo and Boyboy.
Mitch Tawhi Thomas is a New Zealand playwright, actor and drama teacher.
Jason Te Kare is a New Zealand director, playwright and actor.
Helen Pearse-Otene is a New Zealand Māori playwright, film actor, author and psychologist.
Tawata Productions is contemporary Māori and Pasifika performing arts company established in 2004 based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington), New Zealand. They produce theatre, screen and digital work as well as the festivals: Kia Mau, Breaking Ground and the Pūtahi Festival. Tawata showcases work by Māori, Pasifika and Indigenous writers and makers and is led by Hone Kouka and Mīria George.
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