KAITIAKI

Newtown Community Centre, Wellington

10/09/2013 - 14/09/2013

Production Details



In this engaging theatre performance for young people, the audience is called upon to collectively make decisions that will directly impact the world of the play. Created by Hank of Thread, a new Wellington interdisciplinary arts collective, Kaitiaki, showing at the Newtown Community and Cultural Centre theatre in September, promises to be a surreal, interactive adventure that inspires young people to think about the impact they can have on their world today and how it will affect the future.

A visual spectacle of song, dance and puppetry, Kaitiaki is an empowering new work exploring the possibilities and potential of the role of young people in the preservation of the natural world.

Kaitiaki fuses narrative and surreal performance styles, juxtaposed with moments of hilarious physical comedy, as the audience is introduced to the fantastical residents of a typical New Zealand forest.  A dark threat looms over their world and only with the help of the audience can these whimsical creatures hope to save their home.

The Newtown Community and Cultural Centre theatre will be transformed into a labyrinth of unexpected encounters and challenges that provide the perfect platform from which to explore the themes of the play. The show is presented as a promenade piece that blends performance languages, with each chapter crafted specifically to facilitate group decision making processes through a different performative medium. The audience will find themselves transported to a world where the characters ebb and flow while on their respective journeys, creating interesting dynamics, both emotionally and physically.

Expect a theatrical pastiche that culminates in a tumultuous, yet ultimately welcoming exploration of Kaitiakitanga in contemporary Aotearoa – New Zealand.

From collaborators with experience in such diverse mediums as music  (Tristan Carter and Erika Grant), theatre (former members and collaborators of BabyshadS Productions) and puppetry (Jon Coddington, Puppet Fiction), Kaitiaki will deliver an experience that is brimming with big ideas and bold images.

KAITIAKI 
The Newtown Community and Cultural Centre Theatre
Corner of Rintoul and Colombo Streets, Newtown, Wellington
TIMES & DATES
1.30pm shows:  Tues 10 September (sold out);  Thurs 12 September;  Sat 14 September 2013 
8pm shows: Wed 11 September; Fri 13 September 2013; Sat 14 September 2013
TICKETS
Full: $20;  Concession: $10;  Group (5+): $15 

TO BOOK email: hankofthread@gmail.com – CASH ONLY


CAST: 
Susan:  Sherilee Kahui or Jimmy Sutcliffe
PA: Daniel Fraser
Dancers: Milo Haigh, Jaci Gwaliasi, Tania Sawicki Mead & Jane Yonge 
Ponga: Simon Haren 
Patricia: Freya Sadgrove or Sherilee Kahui  
Hedgehog: Izzy McKinnon 
Shaman: Calvin Petersen 
Oracle: Hannah Clarke    
Newt: Tristan Carter 
The cutest sprite: David Randall Peters 
Singing co-ordinator: Frances Moore 
Musicians: Erika Grant, Frances Moore, Ben Wood and Tristan Carter

CREW: 
Producer: Hank of Thread Collective 
Co-directed by: Milo Haigh, Jimmy Sutcliffe, Calvin Petersen, Sherilee Kahui 
Stage Manager / Designer: Jimmy Sutcliffe 
Set Mentor: Sally Ogle 
Costume: Rachel Massey & Samantha Kellaway 
Lighting design: Staci Knox 
Graphic design: David Randall Peters (Aeroshop) 
Puppets: Jon Coddington 
Set / Costume / Props makers: Nic Lane & Nell Williams 
FoH: Sherilee Kahui 



Innocent surrealism and whimsy but simplistic

Review by Hannah Smith 12th Sep 2013

Kaitiaki is described as an ‘interactive theatre experience for young people.’ It is a work with a lot of appeal for kids, and for those who are kids at heart.

At the entrance to the Newtown Community Hall and Cultural Centre we are met and ‘processed’ by Susan (Jimmy Sutcliffe) a squawking property developer in a business suit accompanied by her lugubrious PA (Dan Fraser), before being led off into “a very boring and ordinary sort of a forest.” Once in the forest we meet with dancing sprites, an Oracle, a ponga tree, a shaman, a bat, and various other characters who welcome us into their forest home, and suggest that maybe it isn’t so boring and ordinary as we have been led to believe. 

The story is episodic – discrete sections that take place in different parts of the hall – and we are guided on from place to place by the numerous characters. Plot strands come and go without being fully explained or integrated, meaning that some things are set up without a payoff being delivered (the kererū and the berries, the creature behind the door). Meanwhile changes of mood and locale are aided by the lighting design (Staci Knox), helping create atmosphere, and the musicians (Erika Grant, Frances Moore, Ben Wood and Tristan Carter) who support and occasionally take over the action through various instruments, percussion and song.

The production design is inventive: vibrant costumes, coloured fabric, shrubs and draperies. The work as a whole is informed by a kind of innocent surrealism – a zany ‘why-not?’ whimsy that reminds me of the Mighty Boosh. Much of the comedy springs from a sense of the absurd, or else from simple-minded characters encountering complex ideas and emotions. Simon Haren in particular shines as the Ponga tree, giving his lines just enough weight to sell them, but keeping a lightness of touch. 

The audience interaction is generally successful – I can imagine that this show really flies with an audience of kids who are keen to dance in the forest glades with the bouncing blue sprites. Our more hesitant adult audience displays a slight sense of reluctance in some circumstances. The performers are unfazed by this though, and keep the action clipping along. 

The interactive promenade model offers an opportunity for an audience to be forced to assess their own culpability in the actions of the play – a subject danced around, but not really addressed in Kaitiaki. The environmental issues at the heart of the work are dealt with in simplistic terms – fine for a child audience, but I feel there is room for more shades of grey and complexities to be addressed.

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