'The Pā Collective: Developing Dramaturgical Intersections, Collaborations and Performing Layers of Place Post-Empire'

Pā, pā
Pah pah pah
Papatuanuku
Rising from the ground
Through the silt-ash strata
Searching her lost home.
Standing on the edge of the
Swampy muddy wetlands
Looking up the hillside
At the green green grass.1

PAH was a place responsive performance and exhibition created by the Pā Collective for the Auckland Arts Festival, 10–15 March 2015, at the Pah Homestead in Auckland.2

PAH took place in the context of broader attempts to shift grounds for choreography, theatre, and inter-disciplinary performance in New Zealand, and in ways that escape the traditional stage and Western European aesthetic concepts. Largely defined through ongoing practices of questioning, seeking, unsettling, and activating, this work, with its openness to altered times and spaces, was researched onsite and integrated the audience as witness through a long-term project composed of a series of elements: a performance in situ; an exhibition of paintings, an installation, and a photography and videography exhibition.