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Reframing Literature Through a Maori and Pacific Lens

A new Massey University course looks set to radically reframe what we traditionally consider in the study of literature.

Novelist and Massey creative writing lecturer, Dr Tina Makereti (Te Ātiawa, Ngāti Tūwharetoa, Ngāti Rangatahi) has created a unique course entitled ‘Oceanic Literatures of Aotearoa: Ngā Tuhinga Kōrero o te Moana Nui a Kiwa.’

The course is being launched for second semester study both on campus and by distance and will allow students to explore customary Māori and Pasifika creation narratives, visual narratives and oral traditions.

Dr Makereti says when considering Aotearoa’s literary past, people tend to think of the first Māori literature as being produced in the 1960s and 1970s. But she says Māori and Pacific cultures were weaving narratives long before English explorers arrived on the scene. “Written literature was never alien to us because our ancestors were already using sophisticated coding built into carving, weaving and ta moko to tell our stories. Our wharenui are libraries of stories built into the walls and into the very faces of our tipuna.”

She says it is time academia acknowledged this visual communication is as much literature as oral and written forms and she believes students, especially Māori and Pacific students, need the opportunity to study the richness of their literary heritage.

“Viewing Māori and Pasifika literatures as a recent development devalues them – we can see this in the lack of courses on this subject available nationally, and the lack of research in this area. By re-contextualising the history of our literatures, I hope to re-energise interest in our contemporary writing too.”

Along with studying pre-colonial literature, students will also look at contemporary Māori and Pasifika stories and poems in English and critically evaluate how cultural and historical bias is embedded in reading and writing.

Full details of the course can be found here and it will commence on July 15.

Related articles

Māori literature deserves academic recognition
Excellence in Māori literature celebrated

Lifetime Achievement Award for Massey Luminary

Great theatre can change minds and lives, says Professor Angie Farrow, who credits her childhood amid the lively antics of her extended family in London’s East End with shaping her dramatic sensibilities.

Farrow, a professor in theatre at Massey, an internationally award-winning playwright and a community arts initiator, recently received the prestigious Lifetime Achievement in Theatre Award at the Manawatū Regional Theatre Awards. It’s the latest in a gamut of prizes she has received over her career, in recognition of her outstanding creative output on topics as diverse as love, death, refugees, the plight of the Manawatū river and Kafka, as well as her commitment to community theatre and her skill and passion in teaching theatre.

A dramaturg and executive producer of numerous community theatre events, including the biennial Manawatū Festival of New Arts, the Manawatū Street Theatre Project and the annual Manawatū Summer Shakespeare, she has won national and international awards for her plays, including The Pen is a Mighty Sword International Playwriting Competition in the US for Despatch in 2007 and Best Drama Script at the Auckland Short and Sweet Festival for Leo Rising in 2014. In 2011 she was awarded for her ‘Outstanding Contribution to New Zealand Drama’ by the Playwrights’ Association of New Zealand.

But, after 23 years at the Manawatū campus as a pioneer in the expressive arts and theatre studies programmes in the School of English and Media Studies, and having recently been promoted to a professor, she is about to exit stage left and down the stairs of the elegantly refurbished Sir Geoffrey Peren Building to Wellington, to embrace a new phase of her life.

Professor Farrow discovered her interest in theatre at age 16, although the seeds were there all along, she suspects. “I grew up in a multi-storey house in the East End of London that was full to the brim with my extended family – my nan and granddad, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters. There were plenty of dramas – fighting, cursing, arguing, celebrating, laughing, partying, which I must have absorbed unconsciously!”

When a brilliant ‘alternative’ drama teacher started teaching in her neighbourhood she went along with a friend who was “too scared to go on her own”.

The teacher introduced them to devised theatre, improvisation and dance drama. “It was like a foreign language to me, but I really took to it. In particular, it gave me a sense of power and, for the first time in my life, I understood how exhilarating it could be to make something from nothing.”

However, her “obsession” with theatre began when she discovered playwriting in her early 20s. “Writing my first play was a pivotal experience because I realised there were worlds and powerful voices inside me that I never knew were there,” says Professor Farrow, who has published five volumes of her short plays for stage and radio.

Theatre is a like a drug

Theatre has always been like a drug, she says. “Most of us who are involved in it see it as an addiction.” And while the process of creating theatre can be exhausting to the point of wanting to give it up at times, she invariably returns to it. “I do believe that theatre can change lives ­– I’ve seen it first-hand hundreds of times. People discover that they are so much more than they imagined. They find deep friendships, they sharpen their sense of integrity; they become politicised; they learn how to express themselves fully through voice, mind and body; they learn about discipline; and how to meet deadlines.”

Political focus

Other accolades include first prize at The Inspirato International Playwriting Contest in Toronto in 2013 for her short play The Blue Balloon, a magical, existential 10-minute play and an example of the power of short plays, or what she calls “haiku theatre where you say big things in small spaces”.

She believes that theatre can be a powerful agent of change for audiences when it addresses political issues without being preachy. “We live in a time when global issues can penetrate every aspect of our lives – we know about the famine in Yemen, the bush fires in Australia, the threat of climate change. Done well, theatre is capable of synthesising these ‘big picture’ realities into narratives that audiences are able to absorb without being overwhelmed.”

Receiving the lifetime award has, she says, humbled, honoured and delighted her. “Theatre is one of the best forms I know to cultivate and enhance community and because it gives me great joy to see people working harmoniously together and with a common purpose.” Over two decades, it also represents the “hundreds of people who have contributed to my experience, my success,”she says.

Teaching is her first love (in 2010 she won a $20,000 national tertiary teaching excellence award), and it is the students she will miss. “Theatre is an intellectually rigorous form, whether students are studying or writing plays or whether they are exploring a character as an actor. All of the courses we teach at Massey attempt to use critical and creative learning and it’s the combination that provides depth and rigour.”

The award has also helped her to focus on what happens next. She hopes to continue her playwriting as well complete an anthology of stories based on growing up in the East End. Mainly, she wants to make space for new things to happen, but right now she isn’t quite sure what those new things might be.

“Massey has been very good to me and has offered a place of discovery, stimulation and support, I will miss being around so many great colleagues and amazing students, but it really does feel time to open a new chapter.”

This year, Massey Community Theatre – made up of students and staff from the University’s varied drama programmes – swept up five awards in all. Firing Line, a piece of street theatre devised, written and performed by Creativity In The Community’s class of 2018, took out both the Best Ensemble and Best Original Script and Production awards. The show’s technical support team, comprised of Luke Anderson, Leith Haarlhoff, Sean Monaghan and composer/Massey artist-in-residence David Downes won the Technical Design and Operation award for their multimedia spectacle, and School of English and Media Studies staff member and technician Luke Anderson won the Gordon Alve Memorial Award in Technical Excellence.

Massey University and Square Edge Visiting Writer 2019 – Pip Desmond

Massey University and Square Edge Visiting Writer 2019 to work on Topical True Story

Massey University’s School of English and Media Studies and Square Edge Community Arts are excited to be hosting award-winning nonfiction author Pip Desmond as the Visiting Artist for 12 weeks from March 2019. Desmond will be working on the true story of a family faced with the suicide of their 21-year-old son while in the care of a DHB acute mental health unit.

Say creative writing lecturers, Dr Thom Conroy and Dr Tina Makereti:

“We had 63 applications this year, and we would have liked to support many of these for different reasons. We were lucky to see some very strong projects and writers. However, in the end, Pip’s project emerged as the most compelling and urgent, due to its subject matter. We note that just as we were making our final decision, the media reported the Coroner’s ruling that the young man’s death was avoidable. Though not related to our decision, this news was confirmation that the work Pip Desmond is doing is extremely timely and relevant, particularly to young people and mental health support systems in Aotearoa New Zealand.”

Desmond has an impressive publication record, which includes the New Zealand Post Award-winning Trust: A True Story of Women and Gangs (2010) and The War That Never Ended: New Zealand Veterans Remember Korea (2013). Her latest memoir, Song for Rosaleen, has been longlisted for the 2019 Ockham NZ Book Awards.

Desmond explains about her new project:

“My aim in telling this story is to shed light on issues that deeply affect our society: how we deal with mental illness and our burgeoning suicide epidemic, involvement of families in their loved ones’ care, political responses at district health board and government level, and the tragic pattern of inter-generational suicide created by Māori dispossession.”

While she is resident, Desmond will collaborate with the School of English and Media Studies at Massey University, Square Edge Community Arts and the Palmerston North writing community to share her work and writing experience. She has a particular interest in ethics in creative writing, and presented a TEDxTalk about the topic in Wellington, which can be viewed on YouTube.

We’re also very pleased to announce that our 2020 Massey University and Square Edge Arts Visiting Writer will be New Zealand speculative fiction writer and three time Sir Julius Vogel award winner Octavia Cade. 2020 is a great year to highlight an exciting New Zealand science fiction writer, since Wellington will be hosting the 78th World Science Fiction Convention, CoNZealand.

For more information about Pip Desmond, Octavia Cade, or the visiting artist residency, contact Anne Meredith (email: A.M.Meredith@massey.ac.nz) or Thom Conroy (Phone: +64 6 9517508; email: t.conroy@massey.ac.nz).

Massey Theatre Cleans Up at Regional Awards

The Regional Theatre Awards this year played host to a myriad of theatre companies from all across the Manawatu, and amongst the throng of talent shone Massey Community Theatre, made up of students and staff from Massey University’s varied drama programmes…and swept the night away with not one, not two, but five wins to their name.

In the spotlight was Firing Line, a piece of street theatre devised, written and performed by 139.333 Creativity In The Community’s class of 2018. Drawing on themes and imagery that evoked Palmerston North’s place in the First World War, the performance took out both the “Best Ensemble” and “Best Original Script and Production” awards for its skilled, colourful cast and engaging presentation. The show’s technical support team made up of Luke Anderson, Leith Haarlhoff, Sean Monaghan and NZ composer David Downes was not forgotten either, winning the “Technical Design and Operation” award for their enthralling multimedia work that turned Firing Line into such a spectacle.

Two Massey University School of English and Media Studies staff members also received individual awards; technician Luke Anderson won the “Gordon Alve Memorial Award in Technical Excellence”, and Professor Angie Farrow, known internationally as an award-winning playwright and coordinator of theatre papers at Massey, received the prestigious “Lifetime Achievement in Theatre Award”.

Massey Community Theatre endeavours to create further award-winning performances – and people – moving forward.

Short film fulfils a life-long dream

Lydia Peckham as Andy, in short film Virgo.

“Never underestimate your ability to live your passion,” says Massey University media studies graduate Adelaide McDougall, who has just written and directed her first short film, Virgo.

Narrating a day in the life of a young architect, Andy, who is striving to forge her path through a male-dominated world, Virgo highlights the gendered micro-aggressions Andy receives in the workplace.

The film shows how these constant slights, while seemingly small, pile up until they derail Andy’s ability to do her job. In the film, Andy gets her revenge – but it is the real-world nature of the subtle antagonisms leading up to that point that McDougall wants to highlight. They reflect her own experiences, and those of many of her friends and colleagues who contributed anecdotes to the scriptwriting process.

“I am really lucky with the experiences I’ve had, and I’ve met some truly wonderful people who have supported me non-stop along my film industry journey,” McDougall says. “However, what fascinated me was the small moments – the off-hand comments or jokes, made by both men and women – that support gender inequality, sexism and ageism that are still prevalent in many industries.”

“…what fascinated me was the small moments – the off-hand comments or jokes, made by both men and women – that support gender inequality”

McDougall was inspired to start gathering stories from friends, co-workers and family. “I found that absolutely everyone, male or female, has a story to tell where they have felt under-valued or side-lined by a passing comment, while the person delivering it isn’t even aware that they are speaking in such a way.” Her dream is that this film will shed light on “the seemingly insignificant moments, the inappropriate joke that left you feeling small, all the moments we brush off” so as to “facilitate people to make little changes in each day of their lives that will lend to a bigger cultural change in our society”.

Adelaide McDougall.

Making a socially significant film has been a life-long dream for McDougall. “I’ve always believed that my path is to help people – to help them see life through a different lens. For me, my medium for this passion is film. A tool that I believe is very powerful in facilitating this.”

After university she worked largely in producing for commercials and television in New York and New Zealand, but never lost sight of the goal of making her own work. She started writing the script while still living in New York, and saved $4,000 of personal funds to create Virgo’s budget. She also asked for, and received, a lot of support from film industry contacts and collaborators. “I am honestly awestruck by the generosity and support that I have received from all kinds of people.”

McDougall graduated from Massey in 2013 with a Bachelor of Communication majoring in media studies. She then worked in New York City at a film production company, and after returning to New Zealand had art department and production roles with Paramount Pictures’ Ghost in the Shell, television production company Robber’s Dog, and on Westside (Season Four) with South Pacific Pictures. On the side, she also produced a wide range of music videos, including for David Dallas, Die! Die! Die!, Suntory Time, and Evan Klar for EMI Australia.

Lydia Peckham as Andy in Virgo.

Virgo was McDougall’s final project in New Zealand, as she has now relocated to Vancouver, Canada and is currently working on a film as a Director’s and Producer’s assistant. She will continue to write scripts and make her own films with her new connections there. McDougall will also feature as a panellist on the Massey University youth creative activism conference, Create1World, beaming in from Vancouver to share her creative activism experiences with Kiwi young people at the Wellington event.

Virgo was written and directed by Adelaide McDougall, produced by Greta Cervin, with Tammy Williams as DOP. It stars Lydia Peckham, James Gordon and Tania Anderson. If you want to find out just how Andy got her revenge, check out Virgo at https://vimeo.com/277757273. Adelaide is happy to answer any questions via direct mail to her Instagram @adelaidehelena.  You can also see a great interview with her at The Twenties Club http://thetwentiesclub.co.nz/portfolio/an-interview-with-26-year-old-filmmaker-adelaide-mcdougall/

Create1World Flyer

Want some Create1World 2018 info to put up on your class noticeboard? Here’s our latest flyer.  Click here  Create1World 2018 Flyer PDF  for a PDF for you to download!

Our contribution to New Zealand Theatre Month

Kei te hiahia koe ki te tuhituhi? Are you interested in playwriting?

In honour of New Zealand Theatre Month, we’ve put together some short playwriting podcasts, with tips and examples from a few of our many award winning playwriting staff and graduates.

Click here to go through to our Playwriting Podcasts page – and  find out more about the inaugural New Zealand Theatre Month while you’re there.

Create1World 2018

Create1World 2018

Nau mai, haere mai. Welcome to the Create1World Competition and Conference information pages – Join us to create one world through expressive arts and creativity! Hono atu ki te whakataetae Create1World.  Mahi tahi mo te rangimarie.

Massey University invites high school students in years 9-13 to enter the 2018 Create1World competition, and/or to join us for a fabulous day of creative inspiration including local and international panellists answering your questions, along with performances, workshops and activities.

The competition asks you to produce a creative piece that encourages audiences to join together as a global community and solve some of the big problems we face as a planet.  It could be a video, song, poem, short story, speech or theatre performance – your choice – but it must help us think about ways of working collaboratively for the betterment of all humanity. There are cash prizes!

“We are still raving about it.” (Teacher, Wellington)

The conference days are free to attend, and give you a feast of creative inspiration from other young people and leading artivists (that’s artists who use their creativity to generate change)!  There’s one conference at Massey Wellington, 9am – 3pm on November 15, and one at Massey Auckland, 9am – 3pm on November 22.  We provide morning tea and lunch, a goody bag, and a wealth of information and inspiration about creativity and global citizenship.

If you already know you want to come to a Create1World conference day near you – please register here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeNlSNKwVI01F44LTWZ0uiyuYKP0JsUi1EcbPZo3JH33UCvOw/viewform Registration for the Auckland event has been extended until 5pm on November 8, 2018.

You can attend a conference day without having to enter the competition – but we really hope you’ll do both! It’s great to see what ideas everyone has and share our own Kiwi young people’s creativity alongside our featured local and international artists’ stories about their successful creative journeys.

We are very grateful to New Zealand National Commission for UNESCO for supporting Create1World, including with prizes, and travel support for participants (if your school needs help with travel for students, please contact us on cre8oneworld@gmail.com to discuss – we want to see wide participation at Create1World!).

If you’d still like a bit more of a sense of what it’s like to come to a Create1World Conference before you sign up, check out the Radio New Zealand story here: http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/standing-room-only/audio/201807707/creative-activism

So get creating and registering, and come join us for Create1World 2018!

“Thank you so much for such an amazing conference today. I had little to no idea what was going to happen and it completely blew my mind how well put together it was. It was so interesting and fascinating to hear different perspectives from not only the panel internationally and domestically, but as well as from teachers/tutors within Massey University. Thank you so much once again❤️” (Student, Auckland)

 

Nights with Frankenstein – juggling BA and family

Writing an internationally acclaimed essay on the feminist themes of gothic novel Frankenstein may not be typical of how mothers spend precious evenings when their youngsters are in bed.

But for Helen Peters – Bachelor of Arts graduate and mother of four – immersing herself in writing about the social significance of a story about a mad scientist and his monster was bliss.

She graduated from the College of Humanities and Social Sciences (in absentia) last week and says being able to combine her passion for studying literature and history with motherhood was demanding but well worthwhile – for her personal fulfilment and being a role model to her children. The way she calmly deals with intermittent requests for rice crackers, ‘Gwain-Waves’ and drinks of water while discussing her intellectual life is evidence of her juggling panache.

Helen began her degree by distance three years ago by enrolling in one paper when she was living in Australia with four small children underfoot.

“I chose Massey because I could do it extramurally and I’d heard really positive things about the distance programme from friends,” she says.

She got an A+ for her first paper on Academic Writing, which boosted her confidence and encouraged her to continue studying.

Graduating is a milestone but being awarded a prestigious Highly Commended Undergraduate Award from the Ireland-based organisation was a highlight last year. She was one of four Massey BA students (the only ones from any New Zealand university) to receive the honour, after Massey lecturers impressed by her writing urged her to enter.

Discovering Frankenstein during a Gothic literature paper was a revelation that led to her award-winning essay. She’d had preconceived ideas about it from movies and popular culture. “I thought of it as a man with bolts in his head and a crazy scientist – a story that’s all about men. It is narrated by a man but it’s actually about women, and women’s place in society as the moral compass,” she says. “If you try and ignore this – like Victor Frankenstein does when he creates his monster – it leads to chaos and the breakdown of relationships and family. It was written in the 1800s by Mary Shelley, who grew up without a mother.

“I will never read another book again without seeing so much more – even one paper opens your world.”

Parenting and study?

The key to studying with young children, she says, is to have a great support network.

“It’s essential that you have someone who understands that you need that time to study, and also to reflect on what you’re studying as well – it’s not just reading something out of book and then regurgitating it. You’ve got to have that time to think it through and process it.”

Her husband Carl is her main support. “He jokes he’s supporting me so that one day I’ll have an awesome job and be able to buy him fancy golf clubs!”

Helen treats the time her kids are at school as her working day, from 9am to 2.30pm. From 7pm to 9pm, her husband helps by cooking dinner, bathing and putting children to bed.

“Even though all I wanted to do at the end of the day was curl up on the couch and watch TV, I would study while they were in bed.”

Her advice for students with young kids? Find that time of day that works best for you to study. If you do not have a partner as support, maybe extended family or friends can take kids for a few hours, she says. “Don’t be afraid to ask for time to study. It’s not selfish to ask for help – remember that the end result will benefit everybody.”

Another key to success in studying with kids is that “you have to have that real passion and drive for it,” says Helen, who wants to be a role model for her offspring, aged ten, eight and twins aged six. “When I’m studying I say to them ‘you can see mum making a big effort – one day you will go to higher education too’.”

Social history of maternity homes for unwed mums

With a BA under her belt, Helen plans to follow her passion for New Zealand history to do a master’s thesis on the oral histories of women in the mother and baby homes of the 1950s, 60s and 70s – a topic that has had little attention to date. She wants to examine how women were treated in these homes, inspired after seeing the 2009 New Zealand film Pieces of My Heart.

“As the tide of social mores was turning in 60s when birth control became more readily available, attitudes started to shift from conservative ideas about unmarried mothers into the attitudes we more or less see today,” Helen says.

“It’s no big deal having a baby out of wedlock today. I want to look at that era and have something tangible for those women to show; ‘this is what happened to me’ – for others to know about.”

While she senses some might question; “Why dredge up sad stories?” Helen believes women spend so much of history on the side lines. “There’s so much about women that the history books don’t record because they are more focused on men. Yet the history of women can tell you so much about the prevalent attitudes of society.”

She wants to find 20 women to interview who were accommodated in maternity homes around the country. “Girls would be sent ‘up north’ and come back seven months later, and nothing else was said. It was hushed up because of shame. As women, we want to talk about these big things. It would have been exceptionally painful to have had and held her baby and had it taken away, then go away and never talk about it.”

With her sights set on becoming a full-time academic engaged in teaching, research and writing, Helen believes the study of history – and humanities and social sciences in general – is vital.

“As a historian I think we live in extremely exciting – or interesting – times right now. You’ve got Trump, North Korea and more – one day I think people will look back at this time and think ‘what shall we read to understand what was happening?’.”

Her academic goals and dreams have evolved since she first began her BA journey, enrolling straight out of school in a law and arts degrees at Victoria University, eventually deciding law was not for her, but that she loved history. Helen studied on and off for two years until she moved north to be near her parents to catch her breath after a difficult relationship and mental health issues (post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety).

Her life direction changed when she met her husband, got engaged and pregnant, resuming study with a new sense of direction and a growing family.

Love for the BA

Helen is a keen champion of the BA, despite the negative attitudes she’s encountered. “There’s this feeling that a BA is just fluffing around reading books or sitting around talking about poetry. What people don’t realise is that it teaches you to critically think about people and society.”

She believes it is important we have people who can “read books, peel back the layers and see what a novel is saying about society. And people who study history – imagine if we didn’t record the Nuremburg trials after WW II and any other atrocities? All of this is important. Engineering helps to build things, but it doesn’t tell us about what society is like.”

She sees plenty of fertile areas for further research and envisages herself writing history books on “byways” of New Zealand history, including the lives of women as criminals, and women in mental health institutions. In her own family, a relative was put away for her ‘uncontrollable rage’. “What is that exactly? How many women were put away to be out of their husband’s way?”

Studying history has the potential, she says, to spark interest and awareness about tricky areas of our past and to track social change. “Women are expected to be silent – you have a baby and it gets adopted out and you can’t say anything. Or somebody gropes you at work and you have to be silent if you want that job.”

That’s why the history of women is her focus. “It’s a real privilege to do a masters and give a voice to these sorts of silences.”

Helen exemplifies what’s achievable for mature students with families. Her children enjoy coming to the Manawatū campus library to help her carry books, as well as the enriching conversations her study sparks on diverse topics and ideas.

Nurturing the life of the mind is essential counter to the everyday challenges and busy-ness of family life. “When I sit down at my computer and start writing I feel ‘I just love this!’.”

(Helen graduated in absentia due to the logistics of family life, but plans to cross the stage to be capped for her masters).