Atamira was founded in 2000 by a collective made up of Jack Gray, Louise Potiki Bryant, Dolina Wehipeihana and Justine Hohaia. Together they created a platform for Māori artists to express themselves through their mātauranga Māori and dance. Now in the 21st year of the company, Atamira has created the new powerful work TE WHEKE that highlights working collaboratively along with the model of hauora created by Dr Rangimarie Rose Pere.
“The Māori students from the different [dance] institutions, we kind of discovered a bond, a commonality between our experiences and we wanted to bring our thoughts and feelings as Māori people with our new skills around creativity," founding member and artistic director of Atamira Dance Company Jack Gray says.
“I think no matter where you are on the continuum of time, you’re always taking the past with you, you’re always experiencing the possibility of new futures."
Listen to the interview here:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018798564
“Oftentimes when we get them we realise their reo is not something that they’ve had a lot of contact with and that they have limited understanding of how to apply their mātauranga within a dance context.
“Those are the things that we are specialists at and that we learn about and we try to develop and I think that people really see the combination of all of those ideologies within our new work Te Wheke.”
