Te Huamanuka Luiten-Apirana recently opened Ngā Reta, Basement’s first full te reo Māori solo show, and we couldn’t be more stoked that she brought it into our whare. Our Programmes Navigator, Amber Liberté caught Te Huamanuka during the season.

What was the process of putting together a fully te reo solo show, Ngā Reta, like?

I went to a Rumaki Reo course last year at Te Wānanga Takiura. It's really tough competition to get a spot, so I signed up two years in advance, put everything on hold and turned all my jobs down so I could learn te reo. They don’t have any written assignments, they’re all oral. You’re not allowed any notes, the only aids you’re allowed are pictures. The first assignment is an eight-minute speech, then they just increase in length until the final one, which is a one-hour speech. So throughout the year in each oral assessment, I was trying out different theatre forms. I did a puppetry one, a radio play one, I taught myself how to switch characters, and did a musical to test all those different forms so that by the time I go to the final one-hour speech I could make a solo instead of standing there and doing a speech in front of the class. I knew what would work with an audience because I had tested all those different forms out.

It took about 3 weeks to write & rehearse - so did my final assessment as a one-hour fully te reo Māori show, and Te Pou then bought it for their Rangatahi season. From there lots of people reached out thinking it was really cool, asking “Can you come to Rotorua, can you come to Kerikeri?” And I was like “Oh, lots of people want this, okay?!” So we did it at Mahuru Māori which felt like a very fitting time to share my whakaari this September.

The idea that I had for Ngā Reta was before I went to Takiura. It’s based on a true story - I received some letters from my mum that she’d written to her mum. I got really lost in them. I was reading about her experiencing life at my age, and it was the first time in my life I had seen her as her own person, without the idea of her as “my mum.” I thought “Oh my gosh, this chick sounds SO cool! I would totally be her friend if we were the same age at the same time,” so there were themes of my identity wrapped up in that, and my relationship to her, the way that I viewed her, and how she shaped us when we were born. When I learned more about te ao Māori, I felt it fit perfectly - the identity themes, and learning more about yourself and where you come from.

It was incredibly beautiful and rewarding to have the time to explore yourself and where you come from. I feel so lucky to do what I do, and I hope to spark that in other people. I did this crazy intense journey doing te reo, and learning about myself and te ao māori and my whakapapa, and then I got to package it up neatly with a bow in a show and people get to come and watch it, and I hope are inspired to do something similar themselves.

How would you like to see more te reo and te ao Māori being celebrated in the arts sector?

Even though I wish I could have spoken te reo my whole life, I feel lucky that I wasn’t able to in the past, because it kind of gave me a bit of a different perspective. I do think that people who come to my show and can’t speak te reo can really feel and have an understanding of what I’m saying, or the core of the storytelling.

I would love to see more reo Māori shows around - we don’t necessarily need to understand every single word to feel and celebrate it. Even just...  more bilingual shows. There are some really clever writers out there who write bilingual shows and you just understand the Māori, the dialogue is super clear.

I think immersing yourself in te reo is important to do in an understandable environment. When I perform, it’s very physical. The story is with my body and my voice, instead of going to a class where you might just be reading books or learning from books. It’s engaging and fun going to the theatre, and having an hour of te reo, and understanding it is a good way to learn.

How did you feel after opening Basement’s very first fully te reo Māori solo show?

I feel really inspired after opening night. It’s been such a huge journey - being a storyteller, then learning another language, then blending those two and trying to be a storyteller in another language is actually quite scary. I’m still a beginner. Yes, I can speak te reo now, but I’m not a pro-master at a high level. I’m just fluent. Sharing it and seeing the response from it was quite inspiring, I was like “Oh, wow, my worlds do blend together, and people have really enjoyed it” which makes me hungry to keep making work like this.

What parts of the show did/do you find the hardest, and what parts did/do you enjoy the most?

I found it quite hard working by myself - I do like working alone, and have a strong work ethic and motivation to work, but the fact I couldn’t see myself.

I also missed out on all the funding, so I had to do all my own producing, and marketing when all I wanted to do was rehearse but there were logistical things that meant the show might not go ahead if I didn’t sort them straight away. Wearing different hats was quite difficult.

The best parts have been finding the fun and the bits that weren’t that funny in the writing but grew and developed in rehearsals. I LOVE being Kim Kardashian. It’s my favourite part of the show. I love that the letters are based on true life but with amped-up drama. Sometimes when I’m performing, I get flashes of “Wow, that’s so crazy, I’m just acting out what I imagine my parents were like when they fell in love.” That’s so playful and childish and dreamy.

The final song where I’m singing as Kim Kardashian is a song about how being Māori is awesome, which is totally polar. But because of the rest of the show it works, which I love. 

In the original script, Kim wasn’t a character. She was just on the poster and represented the life that Mia [the main character] wanted: Glamorous, beautiful, sexy, lives in a big city and has exciting things happening all the time, and lots of people adore her. I wasn’t very happy with the original ending because it was very talky and I’m aware lots of non-reo speakers were watching, so I was getting to the end of the hour and just talking more te reo. I felt like this wasn’t really a banger of an ending?” So I made a musical number and thought, “Wait, what if I was Kim Kardashian?” And it worked!

I was reflecting on it the other day, and was questioning why her? I didn’t really second guess who it was, it just was her. And I didn’t really think about why until recently. But I realised: she’s a solo mum, and so is the mum in my play. She’s fighting for human rights but has some days where she has to dress up as a barbie and go do photoshoots. So the duality and responsibility that someone like that holds is relevant.

If you were given a dream budget/venue, and you had to make another show what would you make?

My next step is to write a bilingual musical set in an alternate reality in New Zealand, where every single person is Māori, and your status and popularity are based on how “Māori” you are so if you can prove you have strong whakapapa, or if you know heaps about tikanga then you’re really famous and popular and get paid lots of money. Whereas if you’re only a “little bit Māori”, you’re looked down on by society. I want to comment on the tokenism in Māori culture at the moment. I’ve been on both sides of the coin as a Māori who can’t speak Māori and feeling the pressure in the room when people want to do a karakia - and then everyone looks at the Māori person, who feels that shame of not knowing one. OR, there’s the other side where people ask you to do a karakia, and you know heaps but think “If you wanna do a karakia, then learn one.”  I also want to comment on lots of corporate company values in te reo these days, but where is that reflected in the work of the company?

Anyway! I want lots of singing and lots of dancing. I want to work on that over summer.
I’d love to do it anywhere, but somewhere BIG, with lots of expensive, loudspeakers and bright lights. I had so much fun with the sound design of Ngā Reta writing those numbers, so I just thought “Oh, I should do a musical?”