BLOOD WATER EARTH

Te Uru Contemporary Gallery, Titirangi, Auckland

09/03/2019 - 10/03/2019

Auckland Arts Festival 2019

Production Details



THE NEW ZEALAND PREMIERE OF AN EXHIBITION AND PERFORMANCE SERIES BY ARTISTS LOUISE POTIKI BRYANT AND SANTEE SMITH

 Choreographed and performed by Santee Smith

Blood Water Earth is a ritual, an embodied incantation, traversing sacred alignments from cosmos to womb to whenua. Weaving performance, video, and music, it channels the ancestral, elemental, and the dream, awakening pre-colonial knowledges. Acknowledging inter-connectedness and shared experiences of Indigenous woman, Blood Water Earthplaces Konkwehon:we/Mana Wahine worldview in the vanguard.

This will be the premiere performance of Kaha:wi Dance Theatre’s Blood Water Earth in Aotearoa and Santee Smith’s first time performing in Tāmaki Makaurau.

EXHIBITION
Blood Water Earth is an immersive video installation and ceramic display arising out of an international Indigenous collaboration between Kahnyen’kehàka artist Santee Smith (Artistic Director of Kaha:wi Dance Theatre) and Ngāi Tahu video/dance artist Louise Potiki Bryant. Blood Water Earth re-contextualises video designed for a series of dance productions by Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, which focus on the reawakening of the sacred feminine and incorporate imagery from both Aotearoa and Six Nations of the Grand River, Ontario, Canada. Blood Water Earth activates sacred alignments from cosmos to womb, its symbolic ritual renewal, and a conscious stripping away of colonial impacts on Indigenous women.
2 March – 19 May, Te Uru

 

 


Credits

Producer Kaha:wi Dance Theatre
Artistic Direction / Concept / Performer Santee Smith 
Video Designer / Editor Louise Potiki Bryant 
Director of Photography Paddy Free 
Costume Design Adriana Fulop, Elaine Redding, Leigh Smith
Music Composition Cris Derksen, Paddy Free 
Additional Music Adrian Harjo, Semiah Smith (vocals), Jo’el Komene (taonga pūoro)
Pottery Steve T. Smith of Talking Earth Pottery
Video Performers Nancy Wijohn, Bianca Hyslop, Santee Smith
Production Support Shane Powless, Evan Sandham

Image: Tony Nyberg

 


Performance installation , Multi-discipline , Maori contemporary dance , Dance , Cultural activation , Contemporary dance ,


30 mins

Wellingon City Council
Aotearoa Gaming Trust
Creative NZ
Auckland City Council