TUHONONGA - CONNECTION

TUHONONGA - CONNECTION

CREATIVITY, RESEARCH AND FACILITATION 2017

TUHONONGA is a project to facilitate New Zealand exchange with First Nations dance companies, independent contemporary dance practitioners and their respective communities in Vancouver-Montreal, Canada, Skagastrond, Iceland and Sydney, Australia.

Connection and the Tuhononga Crowd

Dear friends, colleagues and supporters,

Tena koutou, my name is Charles Koroneho. I am an independent artist, choreographer and director seeking your support for my latest project Tuhononga. This is my first Boosted campaign and aspirate to establish a crowd to share with and support my creative vision of New Zealand and community exchange.

I ask you to join my Boosted campaign and invite you to be part of the Tuhononga Crowd. Follow me offshore, connect, meet and observe the artists and communities I will be exchanging with and creatively sharing space.

I am asking for your assistance to raise $5000 to fund the costs of my travel, accommodation and living expenses for the duration of the project. Your generosity will be greatly appreciated; I welcome your support and have a genuine desire to share my creative, research and facilitation experiences with you, the Tuhononga Crowd!

Whano, whano! Haramai Te Toki Haruru! Haumi ?! Hui ?! T?iki ?!                                                     Proceed, proceed! Come to The Resounding Adze! Join! Gather! Bind!

Who am I working with?

Tuhononga begins late January in Sydney, Australia with Dance artist Victoria Hunt. I will be working with her as a collaborative director on the re-staging of her performance Tangi Wai - the cry of water. Following on, I will facilitate the first Tua o Te Arai performance workshop, a 5-day workshop intensive at Critical Path.

Victoria Hunt: Tangi Wai - cry of water                           

Critical Path: Tua o Te Arai

In March I will attend the Coastal First Nations Dance Festival in Vancouver, Canada hosted by The Dancers of Damelahamid, Museum of Anthropology and festival programs with the Dance Centre and University of British Colombia. In late March-April I will be convening a Tua o Te Arai residency in Skagastrond, Iceland in collaboration with Kerryn McMurdo New Zealand Dance artist and Iceland based Co-director of the NES Artist Residency.

Dancers of Damelahamid: CFNDF                     

NES Artist Residency: Tua o Te Arai

In mid-April, I will facilitate a Tua o Te Arai performance workshop, a 5-day workshop intensive at Studio 303, a Montreal based dance organization that provides professional artist workshops, supports live art, the development of emerging practices in contemporary dance and interdisciplinary performance. I will continue and remain in Montreal to work with ONISHKA to present The Song, for the Indigenous Contemporary Scene, OFFTA.

Studio 303: Tua o Te Arai                       

Onishka: Indigenous Contemporary Scene

What is the Idea?

1. Tua o Te Arai is a new performance project I am developing to explore bereavement, funeral practices and lamentation songs, an aspiration to symbolically crossover to the lifeless and contemplate the various viewpoints of an afterlife and the creative possibilities of the unknown. Tua o Te Arai has a deeply contestable subject matter. However I believe it is important to bring to bare an indigenous viewpoint to the idea and exchange it with diverse cultural, political and creative perspectives. At the present, Tua o Te Arai forms a critical element for my work, offering possible pathways and understandings of the passage of death, how it affects our life experience and informs my engagement with performance as a transformative art.

How I am going to explore the idea?

Residency and Workshops

- Critical Path, Sydney Australia, January 23-27 2017                                    

- NES Artist Residency, Skagastrond Iceland, March 27 - April 14 2017                

- Studio 303, Montreal Canada, April 17-21 2017

What work will I be performing?

2. The Song is a performance of poetic retrieval, a moment in time capturing the lives, voices and bodies of tribal leaders and singers living in 1950's New Zealand. The performance explores the ethnographer and informant as an eloquent paradox; my intention is to perform as an ancestor of today, to experience the use of esoteric language and poetry to occupy an ethnographic space. The objective of the work is the ceremonial transformation of the space and the songs contextual return to their spiritual and cosmological origins.

Where/who are presenting the performances?

Solo Performances

- First Nations Coastal Dance Festival, Museum of Anthropology Vancouver Canada, Dancers of Damelahamid.

- NES Artist Residency, Skagastrond Iceland, NES Artist Residency/Te Toki Haruru.

- OFFTA Festival, Montreal Canada, Indigenous Contemporary Scene, ONISHKA.                      

Other Workshops and Master-classes

- Culture Workshop, Indigenous Studies Program, University of British Colombia.  

- Masterclass - Movement Culture Series, The Dance Centre, Vancouver Canada.

Museum of Anthropology

The Dance Centre