Lemi Ponifasio


Salā Lemi Ponifasio is a Samoan and New Zealand director, artist, dancer, designer and choreographer. In 1995 he founded MAU in Auckland, working with communities and artists from all over the world.

Early life

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

Lemi 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 traveling, living and performing in many countries, Ponifasio returned to New Zealand. Reading Maori rights activist Eva Rickard quote "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. With a group of young performers and friends, Ponifasio created Illumina as the first work of MAU performed at the Galaxy Theatre, Auckland, New Zealand 1992.
Ponifasio collaborates with people in all walks of life, working in schools, universities, in factories, villages, opera houses, castles, galleries, and stadiums. The work has included fully staged operas, theatre, dance, exhibitions, festivals and community forums.
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, Athens, London’s Southbank Centre, Holland Festival, Carriageworks Sydney, Luminato Festival Toronto, Vienna Festival, Berliner Festspiele, Santiago a Mil Chile, the Venice Biennale and in the Pacific region.
In 2016, UNESCO invited Ponifasio to write the official message for International Dance Day.
Lemi Ponifasio’s most recent works include Standing in Time a mauopera with MAU Wahine, Die Gabe Der Kinder with children and community of Hamburg, Lagimoana for the Venice Biennale 56th Visual Arts Exhibition; Apocalypsis with music of R. Murray Schafer at the Luminato Festival, Toronto; I AM: Mapuche and Ceremonia de Memorias with MAU Mapuche the indigenous people of Chile; and I AM for the 100th Anniversary of WW1, which premiered at the Avignon Festival followed by seasons at such places as the Edinburgh International Festival and the Ruhrtriennale, Germany. His other creations include The Crimson House probing the nature of power and a world that sees all and no longer forgets; Stones in Her Mouth, a mauopera with Maori women as transmitters of a life force through oratory and ancient chants; Orff's opera Prometheus for the Ruhrtriennale ; Le Savali: Berlin 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 responding to the disappearing Pacific Islands, homelands to most of his performers and devastated by climate change; and Tempest: Without A Body concerning power and terror and the unlawful use of state power post 9/11.

Selected Works

Year and place of world premieres by Lemi Ponifasio