Kila Kokonut Krew

Last updated

Kila Kokonut Krew is a theatre company and music producer in Auckland, New Zealand. They have produced 12 music albums, a web series, a TV skit series as well as theatre productions. [1]

The company was started by Toi Whakaari graduates Anapela Polataivao and Vela Manusaute in Manurewa, South Auckland, in 2002, along with 11 other Pasifika artists. [1]

Their first production was comedy/drama Taro King by Manusaute, which was revived in August 2012 at the Mangere Arts Centre for the tenth birthday of the Krew. [2] The play revolves around Manusaute's experiences working in a supermarket in Otara. Manusaute and Polataivao co-directed the cast, which included Goretti Chadwick and Aleni Tufuga. [1]

Other productions included the Pasifika musical The Factory, which played at three locations in Auckland and the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe, and the comedy Once Were Samoans. [3] [4]

Related Research Articles

Rosita Vai is a New Zealand singer who rose to musical fame as the winner of the second season of New Zealand Idol in 2005. Now married, she is also known as Rosita Gibbons. Prior to her win, Rosita managed to stay out of the "bottom three" placings for the entire competition, the only contestant to have done so in the history of NZ Idol. The very first female crowned New Zealand Idol, she also appeared on TV2's Showstoppers and Pop's Ultimate Star, which featured various winners from New Zealand Idol and PopStars; however, she was voted out in the second week of the competition.

Oscar Kightley

Oscar Vai To'elau Kightley is a Samoan-born New Zealand actor, television presenter, writer, journalist, director, and comedian. He acted in and co-wrote the successful 2006 film Sione's Wedding.

Albert Wendt Contemporary Samoan poet and writer

Albert Tuaopepe Wendt is a Samoan poet and writer who lives in New Zealand. His notable works include Sons of the Return Home, published in 1973, and Leaves of the Banyan Tree, published in 1979. His works are part of the foundation of Pacific literature in English.

The Naked Samoans is a New Zealand comedy group made up of Polynesian entertainers, most of whom are Samoan. The group performs social humour and satire that attracts a broad audience, especially among white New Zealanders, without sacrificing the group's Pacific Island identity. The group has gained success in both television and film projects as well as in theatre, which remains their primary base in entertainment. The members of this group are David Fane, Mario Gaoa, Shimpal Lelisi, Oscar Kightley, Robbie Magasiva and Iaheto Ah Hi.

Vela Manusaute is a Niuean writer and director. He is the creator and writer of New Zealand's first bilingual English-Tongan television series, Brutal Lives - Mo'ui Faingata'a.

Tusiata Avia New Zealand poet and childrens author

Donna Tusiata Avia is a New Zealand poet and children's author.

Victor Rodger New Zealand playwright

Victor John Rodger is a New Zealand journalist, actor and award-winning playwright of Samoan and Pākehā heritage. He has a recurring role as Dr. Henry Mapasua on Shortland Street. Rodger's father is from the village of Iva from Savai'i island in Samoa.

Stephen Sinclair is a New Zealand playwright, screenwriter and novelist. He is the co-author of stage comedy Ladies Night. In 2001, the French version won the Molière Award for stage comedy of the year. Other plays include The Bellbird and The Bach, both of which are prescribed texts for Drama Studies in New Zealand secondary schools.

Pacific Media Network Radio station

The Pacific Media Network is a New Zealand radio network and pan-Pasifika national broadcasting network, currently owned and operated by the National Pacific Radio Trust and partly funded by the Government. It includes the PMN 531 radio network, PMN News and Auckland-only broadcast station PMN NIU combined are accessible to an estimated 92 percent of the country's Pacific population. The network targets both first-generation Pacific migrants and New Zealand-born people with Pacific heritage. As of 2009, it was the only specifically pan-Pacific broadcaster in New Zealand.

Victoria Schmidt

Victoria Schmidt is a New Zealand theater, film and television actress. She is most known for her role as Aaliyah in Sione's Wedding (2006). She is also a playwright.

Anapela Polataivao is a New Zealand actor, writer, and director of stage and screen.

Goretti Chadwick is a Samoan-New Zealand stage and television actress, writer, director and tutor.

Pacific Underground New Zealand performing arts collective

Pacific Underground is a New Zealand performing arts collective, founded in 1993 in Christchurch, New Zealand, to produce contemporary performing art that reflects the group's Pacific Island heritage. In 2016 they received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Pacific Music Awards. They are the longest running Pacific contemporary performing arts organisation in New Zealand.

Massive Theatre Company, also called Massive or Massive Company, is a professional theatre company in Auckland, New Zealand.

The PlayhouseTheatre is a theatre in Dunedin, New Zealand. It was converted from a lodge into a 100-seat theatre by the Southern Comedy Players in 1962. Since the late 1960s it has been home to the Dunedin Repertory Society, who regularly perform youth productions for children.

Lisa Warrington Academic, director, author in New Zealand, b. 1952

Lisa Jadwiga Valentina Warrington is a New Zealand theatre studies academic, director, actor and author. She has directed more than 130 productions, and established the Theatre Aotearoa database. In 2014 she was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award in the Dunedin Theatre Awards, and was three times winner of a New Zealand Listener Best Director award, including one for Tom Scott's The Daylight Atheist.

Catherine Patricia Downes is a New Zealand theatre director, actor, dramaturg and playwright. Of Māori descent, she affiliates to Ngāi Tahu. Downes wrote a one-woman play The Case of Katherine Mansfield, which she has performed more than 1000 times in six countries over twenty years. She has been the artistic director of the Court Theatre in Christchurch and the director of Downstage Theatre in Wellington. She lives on Waiheke Island and works as a freelance actor, director and playwright.

Māngere Arts Centre Ngā Tohu o Uenuku is an Auckland Council-owned and operated arts venue in the suburb of Māngere, in Auckland, New Zealand. The purpose-built facility was opened in 2010, and is considered by Auckland Council to be the home of Māori and Pacific visual art and performing arts in Auckland.

Justine Simei-Barton is a Samoan theatre and film director and producer in New Zealand.

Jason Te Kare is a New Zealand director, playwright and actor.

References

  1. 1 2 3 Lisa Warrington; David O'Donnell (2017). Floating Islanders: Pacifika Theatre in Aotearoa. Dunedin: Otago University Press. ISBN   978-1-98-853107-6. Wikidata   Q106816829.
  2. "The Kila Kokonut Krew celebrates 10 years of leading Pacific theatre in Aotearoa". www.creativenz.govt.nz. Archived from the original on 17 May 2021. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  3. "Once Were Samoans – Heartfelt and hilarious with a moral heart". theatreview.org.nz. Archived from the original on 17 May 2021. Retrieved 17 May 2021.
  4. "PRODUCTION INFORMATION: THE FACTORY – A PACIFIC MUSICAL". www.theatreview.org.nz. 2014. Archived from the original on 17 May 2021. Retrieved 17 May 2021.

Vela Manusaute talking about Kila Kokonut Krew's tenth birthday on Tagata Pasifika 23 August 2012