Bianca Hyslop and Rowan Pierce · Aotearoa New Zealand
Riddu Riđđu has spent more than three decades holding open a space where Sámi culture and the cultures of other Indigenous peoples meet on Sámi terms. He Huia Kaimanawa is a work about exactly what that space is for: a language that a state set out to remove, and the generations now taking it back — the ones who were never given it, and the children who will never remember being without it.
We are not bringing a work about Māori culture to explain it to a Sámi audience. We are bringing a work about the specific, unglamorous, unfinished labour of language reclamation to a festival whose community knows that labour from the inside. What we would hope for alongside the performance is time — with Sámi language practitioners, with the young people at the festival, with those doing the same work in their own reo.
Contemporary dance, kapa haka, mau rākau, live and recorded voice, original composition, spatial design and projection — held together by te reo Māori, spoken in every register from karanga to a beginner's stumbling sentence.
A black box hangs in the dark. Inside it, a language that was suppressed, put away, and is now being brought back. Around it, seven performers across three generations: a kaumātua who holds the reo, adults who lost it and are learning it as a second language, and tamariki who speak it without effort and who close the work.
Between them, a machine translates te reo Māori into English in real time — glitching, lagging, flattening, losing what it claims to carry. The audience watches a language being handled by the one that replaced it.
He Huia Kaimanawa does not explain Māori culture and does not teach its audience the language. It puts them inside the experience of being outside a language, and then inside the effort of taking one back.
Full performance recording (Melbourne, September 2026) — [LINK], password [PASSWORD]
Three-minute trailer — [LINK]
In September 2026 the work gave its Australian premiere at Kindred People, the inaugural Indigenous-led international festival presented by Monash University on Boonwurrung Country — two nights at the Alexander Theatre, programmed by Indigenous curators alongside Australian First Nations premieres.
Most of that audience had no connection to te reo Māori and no prior claim on it. They wept. And a number of them returned the following night to see it again.
That is the clearest answer we have to the question every presenter asks about a work performed in an Indigenous language: whether it reaches people who do not speak it. It does. Not through translation, and not through explanation — through voice, movement, image and the plain sight of people doing something difficult in a language that was taken from them.
Audiences who carry their own history of language suppression recognise the shape immediately. Audiences who do not spend sixty minutes discovering what it feels like from the outside.
Independently reviewed by DANZ and Theatreview across its Aotearoa seasons, and selected for presentation by Indigenous-led festivals in Aotearoa and Australia.
“Language is danced, embodied.”
Lyne Pringle, Theatreview
Reviewing the premiere season for Theatreview, Rachel Rucksthul-Mann wrote that the work grabs you from all directions and does not let go, that she would not forget it, and that she hoped it would tour Aotearoa and beyond.
Writing for DANZ, Jenny Stevenson read the work's central image — the bird placed in a box — as the symbol of a language actively suppressed before regenerating and taking flight again, and described the closing chant by the tamariki as an exemplar of a new generation of fluent speakers.
Reviewers have consistently identified the same three qualities: the seamless fusion of kapa haka and contemporary dance, the integration of design, light and projection as dramaturgy rather than decoration, and the intergenerational casting that carries the work's argument without a word of explanation.
| March 2023 | World premiere — Te Ahurei Toi o Tāmaki / Auckland Arts Festival, Te Pou Theatre, Tāmaki Makaurau |
| June 2023 | Kia Mau Festival, Te Whaea National Dance & Drama Centre, Te Whanganui-a-Tara — Aotearoa's flagship Indigenous performing arts festival |
| September 2026 | Australian premiere — Kindred People, Monash University, Naarm/Melbourne, supported by Creative New Zealand's international programme |
Bianca Hyslop (Te Arawa, Ngāti Whakaue, Tūhourangi-Wāhiao) is a choreographer and dancer who has worked in the Māori contemporary dance sector for over a decade, including with Atamira Dance Company and Ōkāreka Dance Company, and in Indigenous development and cross-cultural laboratories internationally.
Rowan Pierce is an award-winning performance designer and live artist working across image, projection, spatial and object design.
The self-producing partnership creates immersive performance that moves between contemporary dance, live art and design. Their previous works include Pōhutu, Te Mauri o Pōhutu and Pōhutukawa.
Tūī Matira Ranapiri-Ransfield is Mātanga Mātauranga Māori, co-devisor, composer and performer — the cultural authority at the centre of the work and the composer of its score.
The company travels with cultural protocol as part of the work, and we would rather set it out than have a presenter guess.
| On arrival | [WHAT THE COMPANY ASKS FOR — mihi whakatau, welcome by local First Nations hosts, time on Country before bump-in] |
| Cultural leadership | [WHO TRAVELS AND IN WHAT ROLE] |
| Taonga | The work uses carved taonga including patu and rākau. [HANDLING, STORAGE AND WHO MAY TOUCH THEM] |
| Tamariki | Young performers travel with whānau. [SCHEDULING AND CARE REQUIREMENTS] |
| Freight and customs | Carved taonga may be treated as cultural property, restricted timber or weapons depending on jurisdiction. The company will provide documentation; early advice from the presenter's freight agent is welcome. [STATUS PER TERRITORY] |
| Duration | Approximately 60 minutes, no interval |
| Language | Performed in te reo Māori, with English translation integrated into the work |
| Suitability | All ages |
| On stage | Seven performers, including tamariki |
| Touring party | Company, production and cultural leadership, and whānau accompanying the tamariki — [INDICATIVE NUMBER] |
| Presentation | [BUY-OUT / CO-PRESENTATION / SHARED BOX OFFICE — state preference] |
| Fee | [PERFORMANCE FEE RANGE, CURRENCY], exclusive of travel, freight and accommodation |
| Availability | [WINDOWS BY YEAR] |
| Venue | Mid-scale theatre with full blackout, flying capacity and projection; local crew required |
| Effects | Haze, strobe lighting and loud sounds. The company provides audience warnings and supports venue access booking arrangements. |
| Technical | Full rider available on request |