ABSTRACT
In 1966, the year Briar Grace-Smith was born in Whakatane, New Zealand Opera mounted a nationwide tour of the American musical, Porgy and Bess, with an all-Māori cast. From this, the Māori Theatre Trust was formed. Dedicated to providing quality roles for Māori actors, it gave impetus to the development of a vital indigenous theatre tradition, fuelled at various points by key political events. Prominent among these was the 1970s Māori Renaissance, a period characterised by demands for indigenous recognition and land rights. The theatre of this era, as Hone Kouka notes, can be firmly located in the agit-prop tradition as performance born with politics:
During this period of protest we had found a means of venting our frustrations and victories. In theatre we found a tool that was able to fluently express our ideas and our concerns, and it was all under Māori control – here was tino rangatiratnaga [self-determination] in action – a medium of little cost, with the ability to communicate to many and yet keep the message pure.
(Kouka 1999: 13)