Performing manaaki and New Zealand refugee theatre

Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance ISSN: 1356-9783 (Print) 1470-112X (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/crde20 Performing manaaki and New Zealand refugee theatre Rand T. Hazou To cite this article: Rand T. Hazou (2018) Performing manaaki and New Zealand refugee theatre, Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance, 23:2, 228-241, DOI: 10.1080/13569783.2018.1440203 To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2018.1440203 Published online: 10 Apr 2018. Submit your article to this journal Article views: 34 View related articles View Crossmark data Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=crde20 RIDE: THE JOURNAL OF APPLIED THEATRE AND PERFORMANCE, 2018 VOL. 23, NO. 2, 228–241 https://doi.org/10.1080/13569783.2018.1440203 Performing manaaki and New Zealand refugee theatre Rand T. Hazou School of English and Media Studies, Massey University, Aotearoa, New Zealand ABSTRACT KEYWORDS In September 2015, and in response to the Syrian refugee crisis, there were widespread calls in New Zealand urging the Government to raise its annual Refugee Quota. Māori Party coleader Marama Fox argued that New Zealand could afford to take on more refugees as part of its global citizenship and suggested that New Zealand’s policy might be shaped by manaaki. The Māori concept of manaaki is most often translated as hospitality, care-giving, and compassion. This article draws on recent Māori scholarship that also situates manaaki as a social justice concept through its focus on enhancing the dignity and rights of others. This article explores the potential implications of manaaki and the reciprocal understandings underscoring this term through a brief and preliminary analysis of New Zealand refugee theatre. The article provides a context to this analysis by providing a brief survey of refugee theatre productions staged in New Zealand in recent years. To what extent has manaaki shaped the theatre staged in Aotearoa/New Zealand engaging with asylum seekers and refugees? In what ways might manaaki provide for a different ‘envisioning of asylum’? Refugee theatre; New Zealand; Kaupapa Māori Introduction: raising the refugee quota and manaaki In September 2015, and in response to refugees fleeing the on-going conflict in Syria, there were widespread calls in Aotearoa/New Zealand urging the Government to raise its annual refugee quota.1 New Zealand acceded to the UNHCR Convention in 1960 and under the Immigration Act 1987, the Government adopted a quota system of 750 places that prioritised refugees with high health and social needs (Mortensen 2008, 17).2 Amid the calls to increase the refugee quota, Māori Party co-leader Marama Fox argued that New Zealand could afford to take on more refugees as part of its global citizenship, suggesting that New Zealand’s policy might be shaped by manaaki (Gulliver 2015). The Māori concept of manaaki is often translated as hospitality, but it can also denote care-giving and compassion. Jacqueline Shea Murphy and Jack Gray explain that ‘manaaki means to care for, tanga means the doing of; the compound word means the act of looking after others, the reciprocal nurturing of relationships with kindness and respect’ (2013, 275, Note 2). In Tïkanga Māori: Living by Māori Values (2003), Hirini Mead offers a complex explanation of the term, suggesting that the values attached to manaaki underpin all Māori tikanga (customs, lore, or practices): CONTACT Rand T. Hazou [email protected] © 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 229 Manaakitanga focuses on positive human behaviour and encourages people to rise above their personal attitudes and feelings towards others and towards the issues they believe in. Being hospitable and looking after one’s visitors is given priority. The aim is to nurture relationships and as far as possible to respect the mana of other people no matter what their standing in society might be. (Mead 2003, 345) As Murphy and Gray also note, a key part of this word is mana, which they define as ‘force, power, [and] spiritual strength’ (2013, 275, Note 2). While mana can be a complex concept, it can be translated as spiritual authority and power (Royal 2003, 4), and as a feature of human relationships, it can be linked to the idea of ‘upholding the dignity and wellbeing of a person or persons’ (Tomlins-Jahnke and Mulholland 2011, 1). Manaaki and enhancing the rights of others In her chapter ‘Indigenous Peoples and Justice’, philosopher Krushil Watene (Ngāti Manu, Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei) considers social justice concepts from the perspectives of nonWestern philosophical traditions, and particularly from Māori perspectives. Watene highlights how the Māori creation narrative provides ‘an account of the relationships between all things, extending back to the origins of the universe’ (Watene 2016, 142). Watene explains that as a result of this world-view, rights and obligations for Māori are attached to their relationships and connections: ‘As all human and non-human creatures are ancestors and kin, we have obligations to each other—obligations to protect, enhance and conserve’ (143). In attempting to provide an indigenous conception of justice, Watene argues that ‘[w]ithin a relationship-based framework, justice is centrally about preserving relationships, reconnecting, and restoring rights and obligations’ (144). According to Watene: [F]rom a relationship-based perspective, we enhance our own lives by enhancing the lives of others (other human beings, other communities, non-human animals, and the natural world). Obligations to others are at the same time obligations to ourselves, as our rights and dignity make sense in relation to others’ rights and dignity. A relationship-based account can only speak in terms of belonging to rather than having ownership over each other and the natural world. (144) Thinking about justice in this way gives us a different starting point for thinking about whether our current (personal, social, global) relationships enhance (manaaki) or diminish dignity or mana (145). In her chapter, Watene defines manaaki as – ‘literally, to enhance mana’ of each other’s lives, where mana refers to ‘dignity and rights’ (143). Understood in this way, Manaaki offers a useful and powerful approach to exploring issues of social justice and provides a useful framework for attending, not only to humanitarian concerns such as the care of refugees through a focus on hospitality, but also the rights of refugees through its obligation to enhance the dignity of others. This article explores the potential implications of manaaki as a rights-based response to those seeking sanctuary through a brief and preliminary analysis of New Zealand refugee theatre. To what extent has manaaki shaped the theatre staged in Aotearoa/New Zealand engaging with asylum seekers and refugees? In responding to this question, I begin by providing a brief survey of refugee theatre productions staged in New Zealand in recent years. While there is a history of engagement with the refugee issue on the New 230 R. T. HAZOU Zealand stage, this history has been under-researched and somewhat neglected. This article aims to help remedy this situation by briefly documenting recent New Zealand refugee theatre in order to provide a context for some preliminary analysis of two theatre case studies; Tempest: Without A Body (2007) by MAU Theatre and Red Leap Theatre’s The Arrival (2009). The analysis focuses on the implications of manaaki as a rightsbased approach through the concept’s focus on the reciprocal fostering of mana and the importance it places on protecting the dignity of human beings. I conclude by considering whether manaaki might provide for a different ‘envisioning of asylum’ by potentially offering a more holistic vision for how humanitarian and rights-based responses to asylum might coalesce and come together. Refugee theatre in New Zealand: a short survey In an attempt to explore how manaaki might have shaped refugee theatre in New Zealand, I conducted a survey of theatre productions staged in Aotearoa since 2000 engaging with the refugee experience. This list is not exhaustive and it does not include published scripts of un-staged productions produced in New Zealand engaging with the refugee issue. It also does not include refugee theatre productions developed overseas that have toured to New Zealand, such as Hannie Rayson’s Two Brothers, staged at Circa Theatre in Wellington in April 2007. As part of constructing this theatre survey, I conducted searches via library databases, newspaper reviews of productions, and theatre review websites. I also contacted playwrights and directors to locate scripts of staged productions. For ease of reference, a summary of the productions listed in the short survey that follows are presented in Table 1. The issue of asylum seekers and refugees generated increased public interest and concern in New Zealand arguably in response to Australian government policies towards a rise in asylum seekers arriving in Australia by boat around 1999–2001. In 2001, the New Zealand government under Prime Minister Helen Clark accepted 131 refugees rescued by the cargo ship the MV Tampa whose claims for protection had been refused by the Australian government (Knott 2015). An early production highlighting the displacement of the refugee and migrant experience that was staged at this time at the City Gallery in Wellington was Turbulent Flux (2004) by Winning Productions. The multimedia performance combined text, moving image and music, and followed the lives of people caught in constant movement and transit. Over a dozen interviews with travellers and refugees formed the raw material for a monologue delivered by the solo performer (Julie Hill) accompanied by a video by Stephen Bain (Brown 2004). Another contemporary performance piece exploring the refugee experience was Tempest: Without A Body (2007) by MAU Theatre. Choreographed and directed by Lemi Ponifasio, the physical theatre production was inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest and explored themes of colonisation and racial subjugation by juxtaposing the story of Tūhoe Māori activist Tama Iti with the experience of Ahmed Zaoui, an Algerian refugee who was extrajudicially imprisoned in New Zealand (Sumic 2009). Along with Red Leap Theatre’s The Arrival (2009), initial theatre interventions staged in New Zealand at this time exploring the recent refugee experience might appear to be primarily devised physical theatre performances. Adapted by Kate Parker from the graphic novel by Australian-Vietnamese author Shaun Tan, and directed by Julie Nolan, the production mainly utilised the physical, dance, and RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 231 Table 1. A survey of recent refugee theatre productions staged in New Zealand. No. Premiere date Production 1 11 February 2004 2 11 March 2007 3 4 March 2009 4 12 March 2009 5 6 11 November 2010 20 October 2011 7 12 June 2015 8 14 October 2015 9 10 12 November 2015 16 January 2016 11 15 June 2016 12 4 May 2017 Turbulent Flux (2004) by Winning Productions. A gallery multimedia performance. Words by Julie Hill, music by Jeff Henderson, and video by Stephen Bain. Staged at the City Gallery Cinema, Wellington Tempest: Without A Body (2007) by MAU Theatre. A physical theatre production inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Directed and choreographed by Lemi Ponifasio. Staged at Corban Estate Arts Centre, Auckland Kia Ora Khalid (2009) by Capital E National Theatre for Children. Music by Gareth Farr. Words by Dave Armstrong. Directed by Sara Brodie. Staged at Opera House, Wellington The Arrival (2009) by Red Leap Theatre. Adapted by Kate Parker From the graphic novel by Shaun Tan. Directed by Julie Nolan. Staged at the Civic Theatre, Auckland Passage (2010) by Four Afloat productions. Words by Fiona Graham. Video by Stephen Bain. Directed by Lauren Jackson. Staged at Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland Thousand Hills (2011) by Mike Hudson, based on Francois Byamana and Bob Askew. Directed by Margaret-Mary Hollins. Staged at Herald Theatre, Aotea Centre, Auckland 2080 (2015) by Aroha White. Directed by Katie Wolfe. Presented by Hāpai Productions and WingHornTail. Staged at the BATS Theatre, Wellington Sea and Smoke (2015). Devised by University of Waikato Theatre Studies’ students. Directed by Laura Haughey. Staged at the Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts, Hamilton 2063 (2015) by Unitec 3rd year Students. Directed by Pedro Ilgenfritz. Produced by Unitec Department of Performing and Screen Arts. Staged at Q Theatre Loft, Auckland MiXit TEN: Gala Cabaret (2016). Directed by Ahi Karunaharan. Staged at TAPAC, The Auckland Performing Arts Centre, Auckland The Politician’s Wife (2016) by Angie Farrow. Directed by Stephen Bain. Staged at Centrepoint, Palmerston North In Transit (2017) presented by Tala Pasifika African Connection. Written by Wanjiku Kiarie Sanderson. Directed by Justine Simei-Barton. Staged at the Mangere Arts Centre, Auckland puppetry skills of the performers to tell the story of a man who is forced to flee his homeland and who journeys across a sea to a strange new world (Red Leap Website).3 Around this time, Kia Ora Khalid (2009) was staged by Capital E National Theatre for Children. With music by Gareth Farr and words by Dave Armstrong, the production was described as the ‘first professional opera to be created especially for children’ (Smythe and Becker 2009). Directed by Sara Brodie and staged at Opera House in Wellington, the story is set in a school playground where a newly arrived asylum seeker from Afghanistan, Khalid, is bullied for being perceived to be an illegal immigrant and a possible Taliban terrorist. Khalid’s story of fleeing Afghanistan and ending up in New Zealand is juxtaposed against the stories of some of the other children in the playground, who have Cambodian, Samoan, or Polish refugee backgrounds, ultimately highlighting the Opera’s message of cultural diversity and tolerance. The precarious journeys by boat that asylum seekers experience were explicitly referenced in the multimedia production Passage (2010) that was staged at Herald Theatre in Auckland, directed by Lauren Jackson, with text by Fiona Graham and video by Stephen Bain. The production referenced the precarious journeys of asylum seekers by incorporating a life-sized boat as a central set piece, which was described as an ‘artistic installation in itself’, creating compelling visual imagery when the wooden paddle blades sliced through the dry ice weaving around the base of the boat (Hughes 2010). Directed by Margaret-Mary Hollins and staged at Herald Theatre in Auckland, Thousand Hills (2011) was written by Mike Hudson based on the confronting story of Francois Byaman, a survivor of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, and the New Zealand Red Cross volunteer, Bob Askew, who helped Byaman escape to New Zealand from a refugee camp in Zaire. The play offered an uncompromising view of international aid workers who refer to 232 R. T. HAZOU themselves with the self-depreciating term ‘humanitarian junkies’ (Robertson 2011). In the overview of theatre productions staged in this period, this production also marks a shift from predominantly devised physical and multimedia productions with the advent of staged written plays engaging with the refugee experience. Continuing this theme, 2080 (2015) written by Aroha White is set in a dystopian future where climate change has forced millions of refugees to a New Zealand divided into three ‘class’ zones. Directed by Katie Wolfe, the play was staged at the BATS Theatre in Wellington as part of the Ahi Kaa Festival 2015 (Smythe 2015). The next couple of productions in this short survey are examples of how university theatre departments have engaged with the refugee issue. Sea and Smoke (2015) was devised by University of Waikato Theatre Studies’ students, directed by Laura Haughey and staged at the Gallagher Academy of Performing Arts in Hamilton. Inspired by the story of Jewish children transported to the UK just prior to the Second World War, the production tells the stories of refugees through the eyes of children forced to leave their families and homes for safety. The timely production also commented on and drew parallels to the emerging crisis of Syrian refugees (McRae 2015). While Sea and Smoke looked to the past for inspiration, Unitec’s production of 2063 (2015) was inspired by a vision of a dystopian future. Directed by Pedro Ilgenfritz, performed by third-year Unitec Institute of Technology Students, and staged at the Q Theatre Loft in Auckland, the production explored how future global warming and rising sea levels have forced mass migration to New Zealand where a rift develops between the attitudes between the urban corporate centres and the rest of the country (Joseph 2015). Emerging from university theatre departments, both productions suggest a growing critical and intellectual engagement with the refugee issue that may have been gaining purchase in academia at this time. The Politician’s Wife (2016) by Angie Farrow was directed by Stephan Bain and staged at the Centrepoint theatre in Palmerston North. The play follows the story of Kim, the wife of a right-wing anti-immigration politician, who ends up working as an aid officer for UNHCR in a refugee centre (Coleman 2016). Offering a critique of politicians who might attempt to capitalise on public fear by taking a hard-line on refugees in the lead-up to elections, the production points to the work of non-governmental organisations or community groups who often provide essential services abrogated by the state to newly arrived refugees or asylum seekers. An example of this kind of community group in New Zealand is Mixit, an arts organisation in West Auckland that provides various creative workshops to newly arrived migrant and refugee youth. Mixit has also produced several productions celebrating the experiences of the refugee and migrant youth that they work with. The MiXit Ten: Gala Cabaret was staged on 16 January 2016 at TAPAC theatre in Western Springs. The cabaret drew on key themes from the organisations history including arrivals and departures, as well as celebrating Mix-It’s work over the last 10 years (Parminter 2016). A final recent example of a theatre production staged in New Zealand that engages with the refugee experience is In Transit (2017), written by Wanjiku Kiarie Sanderson and directed by Justine Simei-Barton, and staged at the Mangere Arts Centre, Auckland. Presented by Tala Pasifika African Connection, in what was described as ‘the world’s first New Zealand African-Pasifika collaboration’ the play follows the story of Ahmed (Fathe Tesfamarium), a young drama graduate and aspiring writer who was born in New Zealand and is looking to capture and share the stories of his parent’s generation. RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 233 Ahmed’s research becomes a dramaturgical device that allows the production to incorporate several stories of African refugees who have made Aotearoa their home (Smythe 2017). In Transit was written in tribute to Kiarie Sanderson’s late husband – the actor and writer Martyn Sanderson, who is affectionately portrayed in the play as the character ‘Mzee Fikira’ by Stuart Devenie (Smythe 2017). Performing manaaki on stage? While the survey presented here demonstrates that there have been a fair number of productions staged in New Zealand in recent years that engage with the refugee experience, these productions do not cite the concept of manaaki explicitly. In the limited space that remains, I focus on two case studies, offering a brief and preliminary reading of the potential impact of manaaki on these productions. This analysis explores the impact of manaaki as a social justice principle through the concept’s focus on the reciprocal fostering of mana and the importance it places on protecting the dignity of human beings. I should note that this preliminary analysis is brief and contingent on several factors. First, as a non-Māori researcher, I am attentive to the potential dangers of cultural appropriation involved trying to apply a Māori concept in academic scholarship. As Hilary Halba explains, research can often legitimise the colonial project by ‘othering Māori as interesting subjects for the colonial gaze and Māori knowledges as curios to be consumed abroad’ (Halba 2009, 194). My research approach is guided by an acknowledgement of Kaupapa Māori and methodologies informed by Māori protocols which ‘privileges Māori knowledge and ways of being’ (Smith 2008, 120).4 My approach is also informed by my sense of responsibility to my institutional obligations to acknowledge the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi,5 and to promote Māori epistemologies within academia. Nevertheless, as a non-Māori researcher, I am wary about extending my analysis too far and risk misappropriating an understanding of an indigenous concept that I have only recently encountered. Secondly, my research of the case studies is limited. I did not attend the productions in person and there is an absence of scripts and video documentation. The limited details of the productions have been reconstructed mainly through ephemera, such as reviews, theatre programmes, and short online video clips. This makes it difficult to provide the kind in-depth dramaturgical analysis that might come from exploring actual excerpts from scripts or extended video documentation. Finally, I have pursued this research inquiry with a view that this is very much laying the initial groundwork for future inquiries that might explore the potential relevance and impact of manaaki on theatre in New Zealand in more detail. My aim in the limited space remaining in this article is to provide some brief analysis that explores how the concept of manaaki might have shaped or impacted on two theatre productions engaging with the refugee experience that have been staged in Aotearoa.6 Tempest: Without A Body Tempest: Without A Body (2007) is a physical theatre and dance piece directed and choreographed by Lemi Ponifasio. Salā Lemi Ponifasio is a Samoan and New Zealand choreographer, dancer, and director. He migrated to Auckland in 1978, as a 15-year-old to pursue studies, boarding with a Catholic priest for many years. In an interview, Ponifasio reflected 234 R. T. HAZOU explicitly on the manaaki he received from Catholic priests suggesting that it instilled in him a ‘certain kind of openness’. He described it as ‘Looking beyond rather than being concerned with yourself. And living in an environment where you’re constantly caring for the people out in the community’ (Husband 2016). Here, we get a sense of manaaki as a principle informing the practice of the artist. Ponifasio founded the contemporary physical theatre and dance company MAU in 1995. Mau is the Samoan word meaning both ‘vision’ and ‘revolution’ and was the name of the Samoan independence movement formed in 1908 that practices sustained non-violent resistance to German and New Zealand colonial rule (Horsley 2008). The suspension of human rights, statelessness, the environment, and the fight for beauty and hope are all topics explored by MAU. One reviewer describes Ponifasio’s work as ‘a call to action’, suggesting that he creates dance that ‘challenges and transforms people, shaking the apathy from their bones’ (Monk 2009). Tempest: Without A Body was presented by the Mau theatre company in March 2007 before later touring to Australia, Europe, Canada, and the United States (Sumic 2009). The production was inspired by Shakespeare’s The Tempest and explored themes of colonisation and racial subjugation, as well as human rights and state power (Monk 2009). Like Shakespeare’s text, the production opens with a storm, with the audience suddenly being hit by a ‘deafening wall of sound’. Moments later a tiny winged figure appears on stage. Facing upstage to look behind her, the angel turns towards the audience and emits a scream of horror, creating a sustained image that is accompanied by the heavy industrial drone of the music. As the reviewer Celine Sumic explains, the tiny winged figure is based on Paul Klee’s celebrated painting The Angel of History (Angelus Novus), who is depicted as being faced with the horrors of the past while being blown hopelessly towards the future (Sumic 2009). The opening, and the production as a whole, constitutes a critique of western civilisation and an indictment of neoliberalism, which constantly seems to subsume concerns about the environment or communal rights under the inevitable weight of ‘progress’ and ‘development’. The production interspersed dance sequences by a cadre of monk-like performers who glide across the stage enacting ritualised movements, with a speech delivered in direct address by Tūhoe Māori activist Tama Iti (Zimmerman 2015, 273–274). Iti was charged with illegally discharging a firearm in a public place, after he fired a shotgun into a New Zealand flag on 16 January 2005 during a pōwhiri or Māori greeting ceremony that formed part of a Waitangi Tribunal Hearing. The Waitangi Tribunal is a permanent commission of inquiry that makes recommendations on claims brought by Māori relating to Crown breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi.7 Iti said he had fired the shotgun because he wanted to recreate the 1860s East Cape War: ‘We wanted them to feel the heat and smoke, and Tūhoe outrage and disgust at the way we have been treated for 200 years’ (Field 2007).8 Delivered in Te Reo Māori, Iti’s speech was compiled by Ponifasio from remarks made by members of the Ngati Tūhoe tribe when they appeared before the Tribunal as part of their claim against the Crown for breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi. Translated in programme notes from Te Reo Māori, Iti’s speech begins: Your Majesty, Queen of England My mother is the mist; my father is the mountain, RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 235 Enquire as to where the mountain and the mist come from and I will tell you that is where I come from. (Zimmerman 2015, 276) Expressing Iti’s genealogy or whakapapa, the speech also emphasises Tūhoe rights and claims to sovereignty that were never ceded to the Crown. Importantly, Iti’s speech was also performed against the backdrop of a large projected image of Ahmed Zaoui, the Algerian refugee who was imprisoned extra judicially in New Zealand after being issued with a Security Risk Certificate in 2003 (Cox 2014, 53). The resonances that the production sets up between Iti and Zaoui might be read as a gesture towards the reciprocity of rights and the importance of protecting and enhancing the rights of others. As exemplified in the figures of Iti and Zaoui, the production highlights the experiences of two groups of people, and signals how the injustice directed at one refugee can mirror a history of rights abuse experienced by Māori. The potential reciprocity the production might be advancing is slightly troubled by reported views of Māori towards refugees appearing in Catherine Lane West-Newman article published in New Zealand Sociology. In her article, West-Newman suggests that negative attitudes towards refugees in New Zealand could be mitigated by the adoption of the Māori values of manaakitanga to create a more hospitable reception for asylum seekers. Her research draws on interviews with 20 Māori participants and on submissions and case analyses by refugee lawyers and human rights experts (West-Newman 2015, 10). Importantly West-Newman notes that while the Māori interviewed as part of her research did not frame their views in the language of human rights, they nevertheless expressed a different mindset and ‘a different hierarchy of values from those fostered in the neoliberal state’ (17). According to West-Newman, for her respondents: there was often acute awareness of the political implications that accepting immigrants of any kind could have for Māori claims to reparative justice. Those who were most sympathetic to the plight of refugees tended also to draw a parallel between the newcomers’ situation and their own as a colonised people who had at times been refugees within their own country. (17) In relation to the resonances between Māori and refugees as exemplified in the figures of Iti and Zaoui, Tempest: Without A Body potentially signals how the threat of injustice directed at one minority can easily be directed at others. In this mutual acknowledgment of the abuse of rights, the production might be read as advancing a reciprocal and relational notion of justice – one that ultimately depends on the enhancement of rights and dignity of others. The arrival The value of manaaki can also be subtly discerned in The Arrival (2009) by the Aucklandbased Red Leap theatre company. Commissioned by Auckland Arts Festival in 2009 before touring overseas to several Asian countries, the production was directed by Julie Nolan, and adapted by Kate Parker from the award-winning graphic novel by Vietnamese-Australian author Shaun Tan. The production was described on the Red Leap website as ‘a universal migrant tale set in a fantastical time and place’.9 Emulating the surreal and dreamlike imagery that Tan uses to illustrate his books, the production used puppetry, choreographed movements, and imaginative sets to explore the story of a man (Jarod Rawiri) who is forced to flee his homeland and who journeys across a sea to a strange new 236 R. T. HAZOU world. In the opening scene, the man huddles with his wife and daughter in their tormented homeland, with shadow puppets used to evoke a menacing threat through the use of black dragon-like tails that swirl about in the sky above a cluster of buildings. The man flees and ends up on a boat in a scene that depicts the long journey to a new land where passengers huddle and sway gently to the ocean waves. A moment later the man disembarks and is caught up in the throng of a strange city street, dodging the bodies of pedestrians that fly past him. The traveller’s world becomes increasingly surreal as he travels through the new city, where he is confronted with officialdom, endures medical inspection, acquires a strange pet, battles with a food-dispensing contraption, and dreams of his ‘back home’ (Smythe 2010). As Coleman explains in his review, the production brings to the stage ‘every immigrant’s nightmare: arriving in a new country faced with a strange new language, people and customs and the highs and lows of dealing with all this strangeness’ (Coleman 2010). According to Susana Gonçalves, each new experience that the traveller encounters helps him develop the identity and skill required to feel at ease with diversity. As such for Gonçalves, the play is ‘not only about displacement and distress; it is also about intercultural dialogue and hope’ (Gonçalves 2016, 17). Even though the man struggles to come to terms with the alien country around him, eventually he finds his feet through ‘the kindness of strangers who share their own struggles and history’ (Jones). In locating the man’s struggle among the dislocated experiences of others, the production gestures to the importance of reciprocity and the obligations to protect and enhance others. As the Red Leap website explains, the production is a tribute to migrants, refugees and displaced people worldwide and is ultimately a story of overcoming hardship and of hope. As reviewer Bridget Jones explained, The Arrival is ‘a story of belonging; of losing it, of searching for it, and ultimately, of finding it again’ (Jones 2012). The fact that this belonging is found through the help and support of others helps to situate the production as an example of theatre that gestures towards the reciprocal fostering of rights and dignity that underscores the concept of manaaki. In an email, a founding member of Red Leap, director Julie Nolan, explained that manaaki is employed as a cornerstone concept in the company’s process as a means for the members of the company to care for each other. Nolan also explained that ‘along the creation of the work we engaged with some people who had migrant and refugee experiences and that enriched the work and made us much more aware of the topic we were broaching, which brought more manaaki into the rehearsal room’ (Nolan, email to author, 21 October 2016). Here Nolan provides an understanding of manaaki as a principle of care that guides approaches to creative practice between theatremakers, and as a principle of care and obligation to the stories and experiences theatremakers are engaging with. The understanding of manaaki as a methodological approach to creative practice has also been documented in the collaborative work between dance scholar Jacqueline Shea Murphy and choreographer Jack Gray (Ngati Porou). In their article, the authors situate manaaki as an approach that frames their creative practice as well as a postcolonial dramaturgical device that might frame engagement with their work: If the colonial paradigm establishes situations in which the colonizer looks at something from a distance, and evaluates it for the taking, in ‘Manaakitanga in Motion’ we articulate a much RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 237 more complex and relational system of exchange between us—and one in which the third party observer (audience member, reader, witness) is an intimate part of the process. (Shea Murphy and Grey 2013, 244) In this excerpt, even though the authors are referring to their co-authored paper, they insist that the discussion they are presenting is ‘an academic iteration of the relational reciprocity’ activated in their collaborative performance work (244). Here we can discern the potential affordances manaaki might provide not only as an approach informing the creative process of theatre-making and the principle of care that guides the approaches between theatre-makers and their obligations to the stories they are engaging with, but also as a dramaturgical principle that might potentially impact on how audiences might be encouraged to engage with material. Running through these understandings of manaaki is the reciprocal attention to care that is required to enhance the dignity of all who might engage in the experiences of refugees that are presented on stage. Conclusion: performing manaaki and envisioning asylum It is difficult to assess the change that might have happened in the 10 years since my article was published by Research in Drama Education in the first special issue on ‘Performance and Asylum’. Alarmingly, the plight of refuges appears more critical than ever. The latest figures from the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR 2017) suggest that we are witnessing the highest levels of displacement on record, with an unprecedented 65.6 million forcibly displaced people around the world, and among them nearly 22.5 million who are refugees.10 In this intervening period, I have also found myself questioning the efficacy of the theory and concepts available to academics and scholars attempting to deepen our collective understanding and knowledge of the implications of the refugee experience. I also find myself struggling to find ways of moving beyond the various binary oppositions that we appear to have inherited as part of the legacy of colonialism (Said 1978). I now find myself employed at a university in New Zealand that acknowledges the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and aims to promote Māori epistemologies within academia. In their recent chapter, Māori scholars, Tahu Kukutai and Arama Rata, offer a vision for an indigenous approach to migration, suggesting that manaakitanga might be a useful framework that recognises the unique states and rights of Māori as tangata whenua (people of the land), but also gives substance the fullness of multiculturalism. Kukutai and Rata suggest that an immigration system underpinned by care and respect would go further in accommodating new migrants once they arrived. The authors argue that New Zealand’s ‘embarrassingly small refugee quota in the face of a major global refugee crisis, and our failure to recognise the plight of climate refugees, could not be tolerated within a system where care and respect are central’ (Kukutai and Rata 2017, 42). This approach mirrors other recent refugee scholarship looking for a more holistic engagement with humanitarian responses to refugees that brings together a ‘duty-based responsibility’ with a ‘rights-based approach’ (Chatty 2017). Indeed, there has often been diverging views among advocates and commentators on how best to mount a case for the support of asylum seekers and refugees, with those who insist upon the efficacy of humanitarian arguments (Dauvergne 2000) and those who prioritise human rights and 238 R. T. HAZOU obligations under international law (Taylor 2001). As a concept that attends to humanitarian concerns through its focus on care and hospitality, as well as its conception as a social justice principle through its obligation to enhance the dignity and rights of others, manaaki offers a potentially useful vision for how humanitarian and rights-based responses to asylum might converge. In this article, I set out to explore the extent to which these understandings of manaaki may have shaped the theatre engaging with asylum seekers and refugees in Aotearoa New Zealand. In the brief analysis I have provided of the two theatre case studies, I have attempted to highlight the reciprocal fostering of rights and dignity that underscores the concept of manaaki, as well as its methodological influence as an approach to devising and cross-cultural theatre practice. In attempting to explore the extent to which manaaki has shaped New Zealand refugee theatre, the reciprocal understandings underscoring this term might offer a different ‘envisioning of asylum’ by offering a way to bridge persistent binaries such as self/other, citizen/refugee, or performer/audience, which often frame engagement with the refugee experience. Perhaps it is through a better appreciation of the reciprocal fostering of rights and dignity that further alliances and understandings might be promoted to better engage with those seeking sanctuary and protection. Notes 1. Under this quota system, New Zealand accepts people from overseas who have been recognized and mandated as refugees by the UNHCR. These are usually people who have been languishing in refugee camps overseas and have applied to the UNHCR for protection. The UNHCR assesses their claim against the 1951 Convention, and then petitions countries like New Zealand to resettle those they find meet the refugee definition. As well as these ‘quota refugees’, New Zealand also accepts ‘convention refugees’. This second group of people is asylum seekers who have applied for protection usually within the country and whose refugee status is then recognised by domestic authorities within New Zealand. A third group of refugees that the government also accepts are known as ‘family reunion refugees’ who have been sponsored by refugee family members already residing in New Zealand (Mortensen 2008, 5–6). 2. In June 2016, the New Zealand National Coalition Government acquiesced to public pressure and announced that it would increase the size of its annual Refugee Quota from 750 to 1000 places per year from 2018 (Wong and Gower 2016). 3. Shaun Tan’s graphic novel was also the basis for a production by the West Australian company Spare Parts Puppet Theatre in 2006. It was also adapted into London production in 2013 by Tamasha Theatre, which co-created by Kristine Landon-Smith and Sita Brahmachari. 4. My research for this paper has been informed by readings sourced through the university library, and more importantly, through conversations and consultations with Māori colleagues. Please refer to the Section ‘Acknowledgements’. 5. Signed in 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi is a founding document of New Zealand representing an agreement between the British Crown and about 540 Māori chiefs. The Treaty provided the basis for British governance while guaranteeing Māori rights and sovereignty. The principles of the Treaty are an attempt to address the historical abrogation of the Crown’s responsibility to Māori and allow the application of the Treaty in a contemporary context through enacting principles of partnership, reciprocity, autonomy, and active protection. See the Waitangi Tribunal website: www.waitangitribunal.govt.nz 6. Elsewhere I have explored examples of refugee theatre staged in New Zealand by theorising the notions ‘precarity’ and ‘the denizen’. See Hazou (2017). 7. Waitangi Tribunal website: https://waitangitribunal.govt.nz/ RESEARCH IN DRAMA EDUCATION 239 8. Later this same year, Iti was among at least 17 people arrested by police under the Terrorism Suppression Act on 15 October 2007 in a series of controversial raids associated with a property near his home in the Ureweras, which the New Zealand police suspected was being used for paramilitary training. 9. Red Leap Website: http://redleaptheatre.co.nz/productions/the-arrival/ 10. See the UNHCR website: http://www.unhcr.org/ Acknowledgements The author’s research for this paper has been informed by readings sourced through the university library, and more importantly, through conversations and consultations with Māori colleagues. Here, he would like to acknowledge Dr Valance Smith (Ngāpuhi, Waikato, and Ngāti Mahuta), Lecturer in Te Ara Poutama, the Faculty of Māori Development, at Auckland University of Technology who kindly shared his own understandings and knowledge of the term. He would also like to acknowledge the generosity and expertise of two of his Massey colleagues; Margaret Kawharu (Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei), Senior Māori Advisor at Massey University, and Dr Krushil Watene (Ngāti Manu and Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei), Lecturer in Philosophy at Massey University, who have both guided his understanding and his research for this paper. Disclosure statement No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author. Notes on contributor Rand Hazou is a Senior Lecturer in Theatre at Massey University in Aotearoa/New Zealand. His research primarily explores the theatre and performance engaging with issues of social justice. His research on Asylum Seeker and Refugee Theatre has been published in a series of international journal articles. He has a developing research profile related to Palestinian theatre. 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