# Lemi Ponifasio

Salā Lemi Ponifasio is a Samoan theatre director, choreographer, and artist who works internationally. He is known for his radical approach to theatre, dance, art and activism, and for his collaboration with communities. He founded the performing arts company MAU.

## Early life and education

Salā Lemi Ponifasio was born in Lano, Samoa. He moved to New Zealand when he was 15 years old.
While at high school in New Zealand he started to attend a series of workshops with the Maori Matua Tohunga master artist Irirangi Tiakiawa in Rotoiti. Ponifasio was then invited by Maori performing arts leader Tama Huata to work with him as part of his Maori cultural group Takitimu Trust, performing in communities throughout New Zealand and in reservations in Canada.

## Career

Ponifasio began his artistic career as an avant-garde experimental performer, staging his epic ten-year solo dance investigation Body in Crisis, primarily in non-theatrical and outdoor spaces.
His brief encounter with modern dance, butoh, and classical ballet in the 1980s made him skeptical about the notion of contemporary dance and launched his search for the origin of his own dance. He started to travel the world and danced continuously.
He explored the life of the body through cosmic vision, genealogy, philosophy, architecture, chant, dance and ceremonies of indigenous communities, especially Maori, Kiribati, Kanaky people of New Caledonia, Samoa, Tonga, Tahiti and the diverse islands of the Pacific region.
After a decade of travelling, living and performing in many countries, Ponifasio returned to New Zealand. Reading Maori rights activist Eva Rickard 'squote "only dead fish flow with the current", he decided to call his first group performance work Fish of the Day.
Ponifasio formed MAU - the philosophical foundation and direction of his work, the name of his work, and the communities he works with. MAU is a Samoan word that means the declaration to the truth of a matter as an effort to transform. With a group of young performers and friends, Ponifasio created Illumina as the first work of MAU performed at the Galaxy Theatre, Auckland in 1992. MAU focuses on arts and culture, avant-garde, and philosophy.
Ponifasio's collaborators are people from all walks of life; the works are performed in factories, remote villages, opera houses, schools, marae, castles, galleries, and stadiums. His projects have included fully staged operas, theatre, dance, exhibitions, community forums and festivals in more than 40 countries. One of Ponifasio's longtime collaborators for over 25 years is lighting designer Helen Todd, and light is often mentioned in reviews of the work of MAU. At the forefront of the international art scene, Ponifasio performs and exhibits his work worldwide including the Festival d'Avignon, BAM Brooklyn Academy of Music New York, Ruhrtriennale, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts New York, Edinburgh International Festival, Theater der Welt, Théâtre de la Ville Paris, Onassis Cultural Centre Athens, London's Southbank Centre, Holland Festival, Carriageworks Sydney, Luminato Festival in Toronto, Vienna Festival, Berliner Festspiele, Santiago a Mil Chile, the Venice Biennale, and in the Pacific region.
While established within the international avant-garde, Ponifasio grounds his work within local communities and Māori and diverse Oceanic cultures.

### Works

Ponifasio's works include: Song Of The Earth (2023) with Pacific communities and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra; Chosen and Beloved (2020) with MAU Wāhine and NZ Symphony Orchestra; Jerusalem (2020); House Of Night and Day (2020) exhibition at Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa; Transfigured Night (2020) with MAU Wāhine, Hawke's Bay Orchestra, Kahurangi Māori Dance and the Huata Whānau; Love To Death / Amor a la muerte (2020) with MAU Mapuche; KANAKA (2019) with Theatre Du Kanaky; choreography for staging of Idomeneo (Mozart) at Salzburg Festival (2019); Mausina (2018) with MAU Wāhine; Standing in Time (2017) a mauopera with MAU Wāhine; Die Gabe Der Kinder (2017) with children and community of Hamburg; Lagimoana (2015) for the 56th Venice Biennale Visual Arts Exhibition; Apocalypsis (2015) with music of R. Murray Schafer at the Luminato Festival, Toronto; I AM: Mapuche (2015) and Ceremonia de Memorias (2016) with MAU Mapuche the indigenous people of Chile; I AM (2014) for the 100th Anniversary of WW1, premiered at the Avignon Festival and followed by seasons at such places as the Edinburgh International Festival and the Ruhrtriennale, Germany.
Other MAU creations include The Crimson House (2014), probing the nature of power and a world that sees all and no longer forgets; Stones in Her Mouth (2013), a mauopera with Maori women as transmitters of a life force through oratory and ancient chants; Orff's opera Prometheus for the Ruhrtriennale (2012); Le Savali: Berlin (2011), confronting the imperial City of Berlin with its own communities of immigrant families in search of belonging and constrained by threat of deportation; Birds With Skymirrors (2010), responding to the disappearing Pacific Islands, homelands to most of his performers and devastated by climate change; and Tempest: Without A Body (2008), concerning power and terror and the unlawful use of state power post 9/11.

## Recognition and awards

In 2023, Ponifasio became a World Theatre Ambassador of the International Theatre Institute (ITI).
In 2016, ITI invited Ponifasio to write the official message for International Dance Day.
The work I AM MAPUCHE was recognized by the Circle of Art Critics of Chile as Best International Production of 2015 in the theater category. The show was produced as a co-production of Fundación Teatro a Mil and the MAU company, and it premiered in the scope of festival Santiago a Mil.
Ponifasio was the Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate in 2011, and was the recipient of the Senior Pacific Artist Award in 2012, courtesy of the Creative New Zealand Arts Pasifika Awards.