Performing arts in New Zealand

canoe paddle (c.1880–1890). Art-objects used in Māori performing arts. New Zealand production in 1909, author and theatre director (1949) Māori performing arts, toi and whare tapere The Indigenous peoples of New Zealand are Māori. The Māori worldview is different to that of the settler colonists and Western perspective, and performing arts was interlinked with aspects of daily life. The closest word for arts in the Māori language is toi. ...'toi' often translates as knowledge, skill, excellence, source, origin, or mastery. (Ranea Aperahama, 2018) Pre-European Māori culture was oral, passing on knowledge through story, song and genealogy. Knowledge was transferred and preserved in art, including carvings (whakairo), weaving (raranga), song (waiata) and dance (haka). Artefacts were handed down through generations. Artist and scholar Rangihiroa Panaho relates to viewing and understanding Māori art as a meandering river, through the viewpoints of both a 'traditional' and 'contemporary' lens. Māori art is an idea, not so much a form: it is the flow, not so much where the flow settles. (Rangihiroa Panaho, 2015) Academic Te Ahukaramū Charles Royal says of Whare Tapere: "They fell into disuse in the 19th century and new ways of performing were subsequently developed by Maori communities." The well-known form of kapa haka is part of the new ways of performing in Aotearoa. Haka is translated into English as dance but as scholar Tīmoti Kāretu says it is more than a pastime; it is a composition, an expression of disciplined emotion and can hold a variety of roles including as welcome, as entertainment, as challenge, and as defiance and contempt. Settler colonists started arriving in New Zealand at the beginning of the 19th century with trading stations established in the north. The first Christian mission station was established in the Bay of Islands in 1814 by Samuel Marsden. The first ship of settlers from the New Zealand Company arrived in Wellington in January 1840. Working-class people from England, Ireland and Scotland were the biggest earliest migrant groups and they brought their performing arts traditions of singing, folk dancing and storytelling. Chinese immigrants came to New Zealand during the 1860s gold rush, with over 2,000 Chinese men settled in Otago by 1869. Other groups came to New Zealand too such as Dalmatians in the 1880s. There is very little written about performing arts of non-British migrant groups such as those from China and Europe over this period. Once there were British settlements in New Zealand, touring theatre and music productions with English actors and managers toured through New Zealand and Australia. J.C. Williamson was one of these companies and Mrs W. H. Foley was a well-known performer of revues that included dramatic sketches and music. Pollard's Lilliputian Opera Company toured in Australia and New Zealand for thirty years from 1880. Entrepreneurial theatre managers built theatre buildings in every town as the settler populations increased. In Wellington the first theatre opened in 1843, only three years after the first settler ship arrived. This first theatre was called the Royal Victoria Theatre, it was a small wooden building with stalls and a gallery, lit by whale oil. In Auckland the Fitzroy on Shortland Street opened in 1844. Early 20th century In the 1920s, performing arts in cities changed with radio and cinema being introduced. Drama and entertainment consisted of touring British or Australian companies, for example English Shakespearean actor Allan Wilkie, who toured New Zealand seven times between 1916 and 1930. There were some New Zealand poets, novelists and short story authors but creating original New Zealand-based plays was not common. Rosemary Rees tried to established a theatre company in the 1920s and Ngaio Marsh was a member. Marsh also was part of Wilkie's touring company in 1919 and 1920. The 1910s and 1920s saw growth of amateur theatre in New Zealand, where people "put on plays for their own recreation and to present to other people". There were many writers contributing and three quarters were women. Violet Targuse was one who won several Drama League competitions with her work. == Establishment of professional New Zealand performing arts ==