THE SAVAGE COLONISER SHOW
Tusiata Avia
Fierce, furious, fabulously unforgiving: from its premiere at Auckland Arts Festival comes the celebrated stage adaptation of Tusiata Avia’s unapologetic poetry collection.
Inspired by the poems of celebrated New Zealand Samoan poet, Tusiata Avia who became the first female Pasifika poet to win the Ockham Book Award for poetry for The Savage Coloniser Book, this show presents a sometimes blistering, sometimes amusing, but always clear-eyed examination of colonisation and the continually thorny subjects of race in Aotearoa.
Following on from the triumphant, internationally acclaimed Wild Dogs Under My Skirt, and again under the artful direction of Anapela Polata’ivao, Avia’s examination of race and racism, the colonised and the coloniser, is full of bold humour, courage and lacerating truths.
Not to be missed!
“a production of unparalleled excellence” – Spinoff
“honest, disruptive, and empowering” – Theatrescenes
ACCESS PROGRAMME:
The Friday 20th of October performance of The Savage Coloniser Show will be New Zealand Sign Language (NZSL) Interpreted.
To book reserved seats close to the front of the stage for a good view of the interpreter/performance, call the NCMA Box Office on 03 548 9477 or email access@nelsonartsfestival.nz.
This performance will no longer be Audio Described. For more information or pre-show Audio Described notes please email access@nelsonartsfestival.nz or call 027 241 4599.
Tusiata Avia MNZM
Tusiata Avia was born in Christchurch in 1966, of Samoan descent. She is an acclaimed poet, performer and children’s book writer.
Her poetry collections are Wild Dogs Under My Skirt (2004; also staged as a one-woman theatre show around the world from 2002 to 2008, and restaged by FCC in 2016 culminating in an Off-Broadway season in 2020), Bloodclot (2009), Fale Aitu | Spirit House (2016), shortlisted at the 2017 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, The Savage Coloniser Book (2020), winner of the Mary and Peter Biggs Award for Poetry, and Big Fat Brown Bitch (2023).
Tusiata has held the Fulbright Pacific Writer’s Fellowship at the University of Hawai’i in 2005 and the Ursula Bethell Writer in Residence at University of Canterbury in 2010.
She was also the 2013 recipient of the Janet Frame Literary Trust Award. In the 2020 Queen’s Birthday Honours, Tusiata was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to poetry and the arts.
Supported by:
THEATRE ROYAL
Thurs 19 + Fri 20 Oct | 8pm | 70 min
Pay What You Can (PWYC)
14+
Content Warning: The content of this show touches on important but difficult historical societal themes such as colonisation, slavery, genocide, sexual abuse and racism. Contains strong language.