Developed from its first outing at Basement Theatre in 2018, the Pacific poetry theatre show UPU will tour to five centres across Aotearoa from 6 – 25 October as part of the Performing Arts Network of New Zealand (PANNZ) touring programme.
Curated by award-winning poet Grace Iwashita-Taylor and directed by Fasitua Amosa (Best Director, Wellington Theatre Awards), UPU presents almost forty Oceanic texts brought to life by a cast of seven of our best Tagata Moana actors: Maiava Nathaniel Lees (The Matrix Reloaded), Mia Blake (The Tattooist), Ana Corbett (Totally Completely Fine), Shadon Meredith (King Lear), James Maeva (Mortal Kombat), Nicola Kāwana (One Lane Bridge) and Nora Aati (Duck Rockers).
The tour will transform stages across Aotearoa into moana by the power of storytelling, connecting islands and people with song-like verses taken from poets including Kathy Jetnil-Kijiner, Selina Tusitala Marsh, Hone Tuwhare and Craig Santos Perez. The poetry spans topics from colonisation, family, love, religion, and the impact of climate change on the people of the Moana.
“UPU is a pathway towards our Māori and Pacific literature pioneers who have paved a way for our stories in the past, retold and relived in the present, so that we can collectively work together on how our stories progress forward in the future.” – Theatrescenes
Director of UPU Fasitua Amosa has starred in a variety of New Zealand films and television series, as well as a number of theatrical roles. He portrays Sika Anoa’i in the NBC sitcom, Young Rock – the international award-winning TV comedy series about wrestler turned actor Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.
Curator of UPU Grace Iwashita-Taylor is the author of poetry collections Afakasi Speaks and Full Broken Bloom, and the play My Own Darling. She is co-founder of the South Auckland Poets Collective and Rising Voices Youth Poetry Slam, and was the recipient of the CNZ Emerging Pacific Artist Award 2014 and the Auckland Mayoral Writers Grant 2016.
Produced by UPU Collective and presented as part of the PANNZ (Performing Arts Network New Zealand) touring programme.
