The Eighth Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art

model where the audience is invited to respond in a wānanga (educational forum) after each performance. With its precedents in the 1990s, dance groups like Te Kanikani o Te Rangatahi and Māori theatre groups used this as a way of co-opting Western forms to grow their own audiences. In this way every ‘performance’ is a form of cultural learning for practitioners and audiences alike. The revival of taonga pūoro (traditional Māori instruments) has taken place over the past 30 years led by the late Hirini Melbourne, Richard Nunns and Brian Flintoff. Taonga pūoro are used in sacred rituals and storytelling and evoke a bygone era. The Tohunga Suppression Act 1907 severed our links to the old sounds, and those played today are being invented by the taonga pūoro makers. Charles Ahukaramū Royal has reclaimed the Whare Tapere, a model of iwi (community) houses of storytelling, dance, music, karetao (puppet), games and other entertainment. They were a pre-European form whose origins reach back to ancient Polynesia. Through a series of hui (gatherings) and learnings, contemporary dance and puppet theatre is performed outdoors, often under the stars. There are times of the night when certain types of learning take place. Today it is Pacific Island artists who are leading the way in contemporary performance art, and this may slip anywhere between endurance work, dance, drama, ritual and the use of video. Like the wānanga feedback model used within some Māori performances, MAU dance company, led by Lemi Ponifasio, completes his works with fono. 1 Again , this ritual component is where hybrid performance and cultural dance practice is taking place. I would argue that Māori and Pacific artists use their performances, and sometimes realise museums as marae, 2 and they provide a voice for the many. Given this increasing diversity in performance, and its growing acceptance within institutions, have you observed changes in how it has been presented and discussed in your country in recent years, and has this greater institutional interest had an impact on your practice? SK Performance is presented as an interdisciplinary practice in institutions. Rather than focusing on what had been the core idea of performance, it is consumed in institutions as an event. However, from a rather different perspective, performance can also be interesting in that it offers a direction that artists can approach museums with, one they may not be able to take with commercial galleries, for example. KALISOLAITE ’UHILA Umu Tangata 2012 Rocks, found branches, smoke machine, light / Performance, ‘No’o Fakataha’, Mangere Art Centre Ngā Tohu o Uenuku, Auckland,2012 /Photographs:LisaReihana / Images courtesy: The artist and Lisa Reihana / © Lisa Reihana