Experience a live art journey with the Taniwha and various beings of Wellington Harbour during Fringe Festival 2024
Updates are moved to the end of the page.
Taking place on February 24th during Fringe 2024, Dialogue Before Sunset, a site-specific performance unfolds as part of HT’s personal odyssey from China to Aotearoa, intertwining her roles as a practicing artist, musician, and researcher with her collective Temporary Show. They busked along the harbour until one day she heard Taniwha (water spirit) whispering and felt the legends guiding her steps. They responded with sounds and ritualised acts, with pieces of birch bark that has travelled across Pacific Ocean. This dialogue, starting along the old shoreline of Te Whanganui-a-Tara at sunset, seeks to elongate the essence of spatio-temporal beings through co-creating acts while capturing these moments through documentary videos.
The performance pays homage to the pūrākau, Ngake and Whātaitai, the taniwha who resided in the now Wellington Harbour and occupy an important presence in the collective reimagination of Te Whanganui-a-Tara. Performers will use birch bark pieces as spiritual creatures from Ewengki/Evenki tribe in China, and sounds and objects found from the shoreline and captured by cameras and speakers. Together, the debris co-create a space for tī kōuka (cabbage tree), pōhutukawa, harakeke, tūī, and various beings living around the ocean, Waimapihi stream, and Waitangi stream.
The work provides glimpses of explorations along the old shoreline, fostering a shamanic connection to the modernized waterfront, once a wetland, through collective encounters filled with play and improvisation. Rooted in creative research at Victoria University of Wellington, the work initiates a transdisciplinary dialogue between architecture, art, and spiritual technologies. It seeks to generate discussions on more-than-human relations in urban public spaces, drawing from tangible and intangible connections inherent in shamanic traditions, and evaluating through autoethnographic documentaries rooted in a feminist posthuman perspective. This informs the agencies of transdisciplinary creative practice research, drawing from ‘latencies’ within place to reimagine public spaces.
Temporary Show emerged out of streets and roof gardens of Shanghai in 2018 and journeyed to Te Whanganui-a-Tara in 2022. This experience in Fringe 2024 is led by artist and researcher HT (Shannon Xiao), together with filmmaker Lu Pang and many indigenous & non-indigenous open members. With support from Wellington City Council, Victoria University of Wellington, and the local community, the event prioritizes feedback, seeking permission from the mana whenua, Te Ātiawa, Taranaki Iwi, as well as from various plants and beings. Rongoā practices of speaking and weaving from Māori women were carried out both before and after the process to ensure the health and wellbeing of participants and all involved parties within the local environment. The team and volunteers will distribute pamphlets explaining the artwork and historical places, and the documentary will be exhibited afterward for a wider audience.
Gather at the main entrance of Wellington Museum, and let’s walk to Waitangi Park together at 7:30 pm on February 24! The event is proudly supported by Wellington City Council’s Public Art Fund. All are welcome to join our co-creating act! Please note that the event is weather-dependent, and we’ll provide updates accordingly (back-up rain day Feb 26th).
Artist: HT in collaboration with Paula Mac Ewan, Lu Pang, Tanya Ruka. Performers: HT, Lu Pang, Paula Mac Ewan, Rana Rizi, and everyone!
Special thanks for performance, research and cultural advice from: Mani Nigelai Kuderin, Ewengki tradition inheritor; Paula Mac Ewan, Rongoā healer; Richard Te One, Te Ātiawa, Taranaki Iwi; Simon Twose, Hannah Hopewell, Tanya Ruka, Herewini Easton, Moe Nanai, Raymond Dunn, Mary Roberts-Schirato, Elvie Majuddin, Nancy Marquez, Kirsten Reid, Deborah Laurs, Victoria University of Wellington. Pippa Sanderson, Helen Smith, Toby Acheson, public art panel, Wellington City Council.
Thank you Public Art Fund, Fringe Festival, Wellington.Scoop, Victoria University of Wellington, Culture101, Wellington Access Radio, Art Murmurs for information sharing!
Ngā mihi nui: Alexandra, Lucas, Maria Rogers, Sophie Jerram, Lu Li, Hongshuo, Yuwei, Laura, Leandro, Dan, Negar...
UPDATES:
📸 Exciting News! Our Photo Show is Now Live! 📸
We’re thrilled to announce that our photo show is now live! 🎉 Dive into the captivating moments captured by our talented collaborators and participants. Each image tells a story of creativity, connection, and exploration.
Join us in celebrating our journey, and don’t hesitate to share your favorite moments with us! We will keep adding more captured moments to celebrate our co-creation! 🌟
Ngā mihi nui,
—————————————————-Temporary Show, March 2024
🎶 More Exciting News! 🎶
Dive into the vibes of our latest sound creation! 🌟 Introducing the digital album “Dialogue Before Sunset,” a profound exploration and documentation of our live art journey with the Taniwha and other beings in Wellington Harbour.
Your support means the world to us, and we can’t wait to share this experience with you.
Feel free to share the love and let the music speak! 🎵✨
———————————-Temporary Show, March 2024
Kia ora,
Exciting news! “Dialogue Before Sunset” has received many reviews and comments that beautifully capture the spirit of our artistic exploration. Here are some for sharing:🌟
Review 1 by Sophie Jerram: [I felt like we became a band of nomads performing calming rituals – we developed a strong ‘thing’ together – time+place-and the bark paper + sound – created a bond between us against the wind.]
Sophie Jerram, an urbanist, artist, and arts-based researcher, encapsulates the participatory experience of our performance, showcasing the unique vision of “Dialogue Before Sunset.”
Review 2 by Jenny Nimon from Art Murmurs: Spiritual and Explorative
Jenny Nimon, an arts (theatre) reviewer, thoughtfully reflects on various aspects of our Fringe journey. We appreciate the reviewer’s sentiment of feeling spiritually and exploratively engaged throughout our performance. Moving forward, we will focus on enhancing certain aspects to further elevate the audience experience.[Link to the full review]
We’ve also received heartfelt feedback from our incredible community:
Review 3 by Anonymous: [I felt lost and free. Tawhirimatea rocked. Aniwaniwa was the star of the show. #1 I saw the Harbour settle when u did your thing #0 I loved how we participated #Our whenua needs more of this. Thank you for the experience]
Our performance aims to generate discussions on the other-than-human aspects of the harbour hidden in plain sight, so we are so glad to hear that the reviewer experienced a lot on the tour.
We’re overwhelmed with the incredible shots shared by most of you, our talented photographers/participants. In this journey, everyone is the expected photographer featured in the show! Stay tuned for upcoming photo sharing, sound, and film recordings from this transformative journey.
Our Facebook page is a platform for information sharing and contact.
Your ongoing support has been instrumental in our artistic exploration, and we are excited to continue this journey.
Thank you for being an integral part of this incredible experience!
Ngā mihi nui,
—————————————–Temporary Show, Feb 2024
🌞Kia ora 你好 こんにちは wonderful attendees of “Dialogue Before Sunset”!
A massive thank you to each of you for joining us on this special journey along the waterfront, amidst the wild winds. Your presence made the taniwha adventures under the full moon rainbow🌈🌕✨🎺 truly magical. We hope the experience resonated with you as much as it did with me.
I’d love to hear your thoughts and reflections on the performance. Feel free to share your📓 comments,🎨 drawings, 🎵or anything that the performance inspired in you by sending it to our account, scanning the QR code at the end of this page or in the booklet. Your feedback is invaluable as it helps shape the essence of this ongoing project. And we will definitely share the sound and film recordings as our co-creation in the future!
Have a wonderful sunny Sunday, and I look forward to staying connected and hearing from you all. 🌄🍵
Ngā mihi nui, ———————————-HT, 25 Feb
Kia ora! 🌟
Quick update on the “Dialogue Before Sunset” performance scheduled for tomorrow evening: We’ve decided to go ahead as planned. To accommodate the potential windy weather, we might move through the event a bit more swiftly, possibly finishing a bit earlier. Please dress appropriately for potential wind and rain – it’s all part of the taniwha adventure!🐲 🌬️🌦️
Stay tuned for any further updates, and we can’t wait to share this unique experience with you all! See you there! 🎭🌙✨
————————5:00pm 23Feb HT
🌞Saturday will be performance day!… forecast says rain – we will make the call at around 5pm today so check here for updates.
Back up date Monday 🌞
🌄a journey of Dialogue Before Sunset is waiting for you:)
Temporary Show 临时演出 