Briar Grace Smith Photo: Ebony Lamb Photography
Touring to five regional centres across the North Island from 6 to 25 October Upu sees performances by seven leading actors of almost 40 texts by Māori and Pacific Island writers.
Among the writers is acclaimed artist Briar Grace-Smith (Ngā Puhi and Ngāti Hau). Best known as a playwright and screenwriter, Grace-Smith wrote, starred in and co-directed hit feature film Cousins, and also recently directed Emmy award-winning Rūrangi.
But in Upu, Grace-Smith is represented by a single poem: ‘How I got my name’.
Grace-Smith has also been travelling of late: most recently, an international theatre exchange in Japan and the Kupu Māori Writers Festival in Rotorua.
She has many current writing and screen projects on the go, but back in 2015 Briar was one of a series of Māori playwrights who contributed to RNZ radio drama series Skin Writing, which we are replaying on Culture 101 in October.
Produced and directed by Jason Te Kare, Skin Writing is set in a tā moko studio where an emerging artist is guided to learn more about tā moko and its tikanga. Briar wrote episode one, ‘Niwa and Matt’.
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