Artist to artist: The poet and the producer

In the final of a series of artist-to-artist conversations celebrating the Aotearoa New Zealand Festival of the Arts in Wellington, theatre producer Tanea Heke and acclaimed poet Tusiata Avia kōrero on their provocative works – Witi’s Wahine and The Savage Coloniser Show.

Tusiata: I was reading about you today. I’ve known you for a long time, but my mind was nearly breaking by the end of it because how do you have a brain that can do everything: CNZ, Venice Biennale, Witi’s Wahine, bringing up a family … ?

Tanea: There’s the creator aspect, which everybody wants to know about, but there's also the real-life part, trying to organise the children and paying the bills which actually drove me to do all those different jobs. I always surrounded myself with extremely capable people and was able to bring great teams together. I am also that one that when you tell me I can’t do something I just have to because then I just get the shits.

Tusiata: And so what about Witi’s Wahine? Tanea: I promised Nan (Nancy Brunning) that we would do the play. She was always the boss back in the day, I just tagged along. And so the promise continues. She directed it for the first and only time, she only ever saw it once before she passed away. And so it feels very beautiful and right to bring it home back to Wellington, her creative base. And so for it to be at the Aotearoa New Zealand festival is such a lovely thing with it because Mere Boynton, who was in the original play, is the director Ngā Toi Māori. I think this is a natural ending for Witi’s Wahine, whereas I think Savage Coloniser is starting its journey.

Tusiata: I hope that it takes on its own life. Wild Dogs is still going strong and doing an Australian tour this year.

Tanea: In Witi’s Wahine, all of the characters are recognisable to everybody. But the essence of it is women speaking to women, hearing those stories and seeing themselves. What’s your thinking with Savage Coloniser and Wild Dogs? Who is your audience?

Tusiata: When I’m writing poetry, I always write it for myself. I never think about the audience because it will change what

I write and it will freak me out. I’ve been doing other kinds of writing lately for screen, writing inside particular parameters. It’s such a different experience.

Tanea: Do you have a writing time, like 7am every morning?

Tusiata: I usually write when I’m taken with something – I remember driving and being so angry about something I had to pull over to the side of the motorway and write the poem on the back of an envelope. I’ve always written by myself but I’m not a solo person. I’m way too Samoan, I get lonely in 20 minutes, so I don’t really know why I’m a writer.

Tanea: I’m afraid you’re just so dang good that we wouldn’t be able to have you not writing. You are able to turn thoughts into spears that you throw so that they always hit their mark. My impression is of this incredibly selfcontained story creator and wordsmith. We might say the same things but it’s the order in which you say them and the power that is generated by them of which I’m in awe. I’ve never had the discipline of having the idea and then creating a whole complete story around it. When I look at you, I say ‘ just go’. Has that always been your superpower?

Tusiata: I don’t look at myself like that but I’ll write until I die. It’s weird, I’m not disciplined at all. Being a writer is lonely. I feel a bit like the kid with their nose pressed up against the glass looking at the acting kids, they’re having such a good time and they’re all together, and I wish I could do that.

Tanea: When I heard that Wild Dogs was becoming a play with other people I thought ‘that’s not going to work, is it’? OG was the storyteller – not inhabiting, she was just telling the story. I have never forgotten seeing you on stage in your full mana going for it – you are an amazing performer. Bugger looking through the glass at the cool kids, you were fully in there, mate!

Tusiata: It’s taken me 23 years to get really good at writing, so I’ve got permission to be a writer but there’s a bunch of other things that I’m still pressing my nose up at. My secret wish is to act but I don’t feel I have permission, other than from Victor Rodger, he’s the person who says to me, ‘ if you want to do it you can do it’.

Tanea: I’ve seen you step the line and it is a force to be reckoned with. And of course, The Savage Coloniser Show is coming back for the festival. How did you deal with all the controversy on a personal level?

Tusiata: It was really crazy and really ugly and it characterised The Savage Coloniser Show, which is a show about racism and about colonisation and being racist.

Tanea: When you read Savage Coloniser, it’s off the page, but Anapela [director Anapela Polata’ivao] brings it visually.

Tusiata: She really has taken it to a level that I actually could never have imagined. I’m very image driven and I see all kinds of things in my head when I’m writing, but the way she can visually portray that on stage is just Taulaaitu, the Samoan word for anchor of the spirits, because that’s what she does, she anchors the spirits on stage, brings them down in and puts them on stage – it’s a kind of channelling.

Tanea: I’ve had that feeling once, and it was when I did that film Cousins. I played this amazing aunty and she actually always was with me.