A Mountain, a Karanga is a diasporic duet, and an experiment with dialogues and cultural definitions, by Māori women dance makers Forest Vicky Kapo and Paea Leach. Drawing from embodied experiences of being Māori women, this performance-making process presents the cosmology and protocol of matauranga wahine (women’s knowledge) within modern Australia.

Karanga means to call out and to call in at once, to send a voiced vibration (song) into the world. Te maunga (the mountain) holds and grounds the whenua (land) as the voice calls out. It is a sacred and dense cartography from which to take perspective — high on lofty peaks with lofty ideals we future forward.

The artists — women, one queer, one mother, Australian, Māori — are exploring the social and political conversations of their world: what is it to be embodied voicing mountainhumans? During Adhocracy they will be framing their questions of calling from mountains through daily karanga, gatherings and showings.

Image: Sara Cowdell

FULL PROGRAM AVAILABLE HERE