Aotearoa based ensemble UPU Collective are currently touring a show called UPU (“upu” means words in many Polynesian languages) co-created by Grace Iwashita-Taylor and Fasitua Amosa.  It’s an hour long sequence of vignettes dealing with the historical experiences of the people of the islands; their journeys of exploration and settlement, their encounters with Europeans and, ultimately, their experience with capitalism and colonialism.  It’s playing a short run at Aki Studio before moving on to Brantford, Fredericton, St. John, Prince Albert and Camrose.

There’s a slightly tongue in cheek soundtrack about colonialism playing in the theatre as we take our seats but if doesn’t really prepare us for the rather striking opening. Six actors; dressed in a mixture of white and reed textiles face us on podia. They are mainly lit, brightly, from behind. There’s lots of haze. They ask three questions:

• Where are we from?
• Where will we go?
• To where will we return?

The answer is always “islands in the Ocean”. Pasifika to its people though Europeans call it by many names. All of this is accompanied by facial and body gesture. If you have ever faced a haka (and I have) you’ll recognise it. The physicality, the haze, the evocative lighting and the sound design will be with us throughout to great effect.

It’s playful and deadly serious by turns.  There’s a section on how Captain Cook was prepared an eaten in various versions of the story that feels like a weird cooking show.  There’s a section about SPAM (some people are missing?) that deals with its deadly but nutritional nature and its value as furniture polish.

It gets more serious as it touches on how Indigenous warrior culture has become “Gangs of Auckland”.  But the real venom is reserved for missionaries and how they replaced the joy of sex wth sin and guilt all the while objectifying both the virile and dangerous male (no punches pulled here) and the langorous and available maiden (“Fuck you Gauguin”).

But ultimately the deadliest part is how the People have been driven off the Land (and the Ocean) and turned into wage labour supplying world markets; making ketchup in the Watties factory maybe… (and I’ll wager that I was the only person in the audience who has worked in that plant)  or exotic curiosities for the high end tourist trade.  The people who navigated flimsy canoes over thousands of kilometers of ocean using memorised star charts have become a “cultural attraction”.

There’s a sense of bitterness but also a ton of humour.  It’s a very funny show and the cast members; Shadon Meredith, Fasitua Amosa, Miriama McDowell, Jarod Rawin, Nicola Kawana and Ana Corbet brilliantly use the words of a whole raft of poets to create characters drawn from across time and across Pasifika.  We visit Guam and Samoa and the Marshall Islands and Tahiti and, of course, Aotearoa.  Words, gesture and light combine to create a very moving experience.

Photos are by Daniel Boud and were taken at the Sydney Opera House.