This comprehensive text traces a cultural history of acting practice in Aotearoa / New Zealand, whose Indigenous Maori practitioners have made a significant impact on acting processes, principles and values in this post-colonial nation.
This comprehensive text traces a cultural history of acting practice in Aotearoa / New Zealand, whose Indigenous Maori practitioners have made a significant impact on acting processes, principles and values in this post-colonial nation.
Each chapter outlines not only historical aspects of acting in Aotearoa but also the way in which the phenomenon of acting has been modified by contingent local conditions. Interwoven into each chapter is a consideration of cultural, political and historical forces that have influenced the artform of acting in Aotearoa. Chapters include vivid personal accounts from the contributors, all of whom are also professional artists as well as being scholarly experts in their fields. Interweaving the chapters are interviews with key practitioners and actors, which provide eloquent, first-hand accounts of current innovative actor training practice.
Representing a wide range of approaches to acting and actor training for stage and screen, this book will be of use to scholars, students and theatre practitioners alike.
Introduction by Hilary Halba and David ODonnell. Te o Mori: the Mori
World through Acting
1. A Wairua Workout: Mori Experiences of Acting in
Aotearoa/New Zealand By Nicola Hyland and Trae Te Wiki
2. Everything is
Wairua: Hilary Halba interviews Te Rkau Theatre
3. Lightning Flashes: A
Personal Journey through Fifty Years of Actor Training in Aotearoa by Annie
Ruth. Physical and Visual Approaches to Acting
4. Making the Mask Move by
Murray Edmond
5. The body is psychology. The body is the unconscious. David
ODonnell and Hilary Halba talk to Pedro Ilgenfritz
6. Lecoq is in my
whakapapa: The Influence of Jacques Lecoq and Philippe Gaulier on Acting in
New Zealand by David ODonnell
7. I Would Trust Gaulier with my Performance
Life: Le Jeu in Aotearoa. David ODonnell interviews Samantha Scott.
Psychophysical Approaches to Acting
8. Stanislavsky and Meisner: aspects of
western actor training in Aotearoa by Hilary Halba
9. Acting is a Form of
Spiritual Practice Hilary Halba talks to Elena Stejko
10. Mike Alfreds and
the (R)evolution of Text-Based Praxis in Performance: The actor is
absolutely the essence of theatre by Vanessa Byrnes.11. An Organic
Moveable Feast: Hilary Halba and David ODonnell talk to Lara Macgregor
Krero with Actors
12. Taulaaitu: The Channeler of Spirits: Acting in
Aotearoa from a Pasifika Viewpoint. David ODonnell interviews Anapela
Polataivao.
13. Storytelling is a very spiritual place: Hilary Halba
interviews Ahi Karunaharan.
14. Our own stories: Hilary Halba interviews A
Different Light
15. Pan-Asian Acting in Aotearoa. Hilary Halba and David
ODonnell interview Lynda Chanwai Earle. The Current State of Actor Training
in Aotearoa
16. It Starts with Truth Hilary Halba interviews Tanea Heke
17.
The Actor is Already the Person they Need to Be. Hilary Halba interviews
Miranda Harcourt. Kupu Whakamutunga: Rangimoana Taylor with Hilary Halba
and David ODonnell.
Hilary Halba is associate professor of theatre studies at the University of Otago, Aotearoa/New Zealand, and an award-winning professional actor. She is widely published and is on the editorial boards of the journals Theatre, Dance and Performance Training and the Journal of New Zealand and Pacific Studies.
David ODonnell is an award-winning theatre director, actor, dramaturg and adjunct professor of theatre at Victoria University of Wellington, Aotearoa/New Zealand. He has written and edited numerous publications on New Zealand and Pacific theatre and was the recipient of the Mayoral Award for Significant Contribution to the Theatre at the 2023 Wellington Theatre Awards.
