The New Zealand premiere of an exhibition and performance series by artists Louise Potiki Bryant and Santee Smith

EXHIBITION
Blood Water Earth is an immersive video installation and ceramic display arising out of an international Indigenous collaboration between Kahnyen’kehàka artist Santee Smith (Artistic Director of Kaha:wi Dance Theatre) and Ngāi Tahu video/dance artist Louise Potiki Bryant. Blood Water Earth re-contextualises video designed for a series of dance productions by Kaha:wi Dance Theatre, which focus on the reawakening of the sacred feminine and incorporate imagery from both Aotearoa and Six Nations of the Grand River, Ontario, Canada. Blood Water Earth activates sacred alignments from cosmos to womb, its symbolic ritual renewal, and a conscious stripping away of colonial impacts on Indigenous women.

PERFORMANCES
Sat 9 March 8.00pm & Sun 10 March 6.00pm

Choreographed and performed by Santee Smith

Blood Water Earth is a ritual, an embodied incantation, traversing sacred alignments from cosmos to womb to whenua. Weaving performance, video, and music, it channels the ancestral, elemental, and the dream, awakening pre-colonial knowledges. Acknowledging inter-connectedness and shared experiences of Indigenous woman, Blood Water Earth places Konkwehon:we/Mana Wahine worldview in the vanguard.

This will be the premiere performance of Kaha:wi Dance Theatre’s Blood Water Earth in Aotearoa and Santee Smith’s first time performing in Tāmaki Makaurau.

Click here to book for Blood Water Earth performances

 

"Smith was a luminous presence as she danced live in the room, appearing at times on screen floating in rippling water. " – New Zealand Herald
Read the review here


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Production Credits for Blood Water Earth Exhibition
Collaborator / Artistic Direction / Concept Tekaronhiáhkhwa / Santee Smith from the Kahnyen’kehàka (Mohawk) Nation, Turtle Clan from Six Nations of the Grand River, Haldimand Treaty Territory, Turtle Island / ON, Canada
Collaborator / Video Artist / Editor / Installation Design Louise Potiki Bryant (Te Wai Pounamu, New Zealand)
Directors of Photography Paddy Free and Louise Potiki Bryant
Music Paddy Free (New Zealand)
Costume Design Adriana Fulop
Video Performers Nancy Wijohn, Bianca Hyslop, Santee Smith

Production Credits for Blood Water Earth Performance
Producer Kaha:wi Dance Theatre
Artistic Direction/Concept/Performer Santee Smith
Video Designer/Editor Louise Potiki Bryant
Director of Photography Paddy Free
Costume Design Adriana Fulop, Elaine Redding, Leigh Smith
Music Composition Cris Derksen, Paddy Free
Additional Music Adrian Harjo, Semiah Smith (vocals), Jo’el Komene (taonga pūoro)
Pottery Steve T. Smith of Talking Earth Pottery
Video Performers Nancy Wijohn, Bianca Hyslop, Santee Smith
Production Support Shane Powless, Evan Sandham

Image: Tony Nyberg

Presented by

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Supported by

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Canada Council for the Arts
Ontario Arts Council
Toronto Arts Council