Performing Te Whare Tapa Whā: building on cultural rights to decolonise prison theatre practice

ABSTRACT

Ngā Pātū Kōrero: Walls That Talk (2019) is a documentary theatre production staged by incarcerated men at Unit 8 Te Piriti at Auckland Prison in Aotearoa New Zealand. The performance was built around Te Whare Tapa Whā (The House of Four Sides) – a model of Māori health that participants engaged with as part of their therapy for being convicted of sex offences. This article discusses the use of masks in performance and the significance of Te Whare Tapa Whā as a dramaturgical device. What insights for decolonising prison theatre practices can be advanced by building on foundations of cultural rights?

KEYWORDS:

• Applied theatre
• prison theatre
• sex offender treatment
• decolonising methodologies
• Māori knowledge

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank members of Te Piriti for their support and the cast for their perseverance and dedication. Research for this paper has been informed by conversations and consultations with Māori colleagues. The authors would like to acknowledge the generosity and expertise of Assoc. Prof. Krushil Watene (Ngāti Manu, Ngāti Whātua) and Prof. Meihana Durie (Ngāti Kauwhata, Rangitāne, Ngāti Porou, Rongo Whakaata, Ngāi Tahu), who have both guided our understanding and research for this paper. Special thanks also to Assoc. Prof. Margaret Forster (Rongomaiwāhine, Ngāti Kahungunu) for providing valuable feedback on an earlier draft. Ngā mihi nui ki a kotou.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes on contribuotrs

Rand Hazou is Senior Lecturer in Theatre at Massey University. His research explores theatre engaging with rights and social justice. His research interests are applied theatre, refugee theatre and decolonial theory and practice. In Aotearoa, he has led teaching and creative projects engaging with prison, aged-care, and street communities.

Sarah Woodland is the Dean’s Research Fellow in the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music at the University of Melbourne. Her research interests are applied theatre, socially-engaged and participatory arts, with a particular focus on intercultural praxis in criminal justice settings. Sarah teaches undergraduate theatre courses and has published extensively in the fields of applied theatre and participatory arts.

Pedro Ilgenfritz is Senior Lecturer in Theatre at Unitec, Performing and Screen Arts Department. His research explores acting training, theatre masks, clowning, movement-based theatre and devising. He is a PhD candidate at the University of Auckland researching the genealogy of Jacques Lecoq theatre pedagogy in New Zealand and Brazil. He is the director of Mahuika Theatre Company.

Notes

1 The documentary project followed from a series of creative engagements at Auckland Prison involving Rand Hazou and Pedro Ilgenfritz. In November 2016, Hazou was invited with storyteller Derek Gordon to visit Unit 8 to introduce the men to different approaches to directing and performing the monologue ‘To be or not to be’. In May 2017, the Theatre Behind Bars programme, facilitated by Hazou, offered six introductory theatre workshops to participants at Unit 9, including storytelling, physical theatre skills, and mask work led by Ilgenfritz. In December 2017 Gordon and Hazou co-directed Puppet Antigone at Unit 9 which involved incarcerated men performing an abridged version of Sophocles’ play using Bunraku-style puppets (Hazou 2020).

2 As part of the Prison Voices project, Sarah also worked with the cast to create a documentary podcast episode about the creative process. For more details this, see Vachon and Woodland (2021).

3 The simplicity and accessibility of the model may help to explain its universal application within health and education sectors in Aotearoa. However, its simplicity has also been criticised for failing to define the uniqueness of Māori as a cultural entity (see McNeill 2009).

4 For further detail refer to the NZ Ministry of Health website: https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/maori_health_model_tewhare.pdf

5 An editorial decision was made to include five short one-liner jokes to help provide some levity and a narrative through line for one of the characters who was identified as ‘the funny guy’. Hoar also decided to limit the amount of ‘filler’ sounds transcribed from the interviews such as ‘ums’ and ‘ahs’ which were thought to impede the flow of the lines and the overall rhythm of scenes.

6 The concepts of mana and utu are complex and it is beyond the scope of this article to do them justice. For more detailed discussion, Toki (2018) explores these and other key concepts of tikanga Maori in the context of law and criminal justice in New Zealand, and Webb and Jones (2008) describe in detail the impacts of sexual offending on different aspects of mana.

7 An exploration of the cultural significance of mask within Māori culture is beyond the scope of this paper. While there does not appear to be developed tradition of using mask in Māori performance, there are documented examples of their use and several scholars draw parallels between traditional art of tattooing the face (tā moko) and concept of mask. See for example Farrimond (2007).

8 See for example the listing of Te Whare Tapa Whā on the Ministry of Health Website: https://www.health.govt.nz/system/files/documents/pages/maori_health_model_tewhare.pdf

9 Meihana Durie, interview by Rand Hazou, Auckland, 20 August 2019.

Additional information

Funding

Ngā Pātū Kōrero was supported by Creative NZ’s Creative Communities Scheme (CCS) through the funding of the Prison Voices project (Application CCS19_1_258). The project was also funded by the Massey University Strategic Research Excellence Fund (SREF). The project was also funded through a grant from the Australian Arts and Humanities Council.