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Overview
Using handmade puppets, clay and stop-motion animation, A Māori Dragon Story is an early video work by artist Lisa Reihana that retells the Waitaha (South Island Māori) story of a female taniwha in Ohikuparuparu (Sumner). Reihana made the work in 1995 following her time in Christchurch as Trustbank Canterbury Artist in Residence, adapting the story from the late 19th century as told by Teone Taare Tikao a Kaumatua and Tohunga from Onuku in Akaroa. Reihana gained permission from the then Ngai Tahu Trust Board facilitated by Suzanne Ellison, to work with this Canterbury based Waitaha story. In the tale a beautiful woman named Hine Ao is cursed to death after spurning the love advances of a Chief much her senior - Tūrakipō. Her grief-stricken father Te Ake utters a powerful karakia against Tūrakipō and his people. Her ashes are transformed into a taniwha, whose meat poisons Turakipo’s people, killing them.
Reihana’s film relays an important Waitaha story and makes it accessible to those outside the tribe - Waitaha, Kati Mamoe and Ngai Tahu. It takes inspiration from pakiwaitara, customary Maori storytelling and whakapapa and the animation work of international filmmakers like Jan Švankmajer and the Brothers Quay, giving the story a haunting, cinematic edge. It also references modes familiar within popular children’s television of the 1970s such as Sesame Street. All of the puppets and imagery used in the animation were created by Reihana. It was also shot by her. A feature is Reihana’s imaginative use of material – from sequins to cellophane – to evoke texture and movement in the landscape and natural forms, and her adaption of Maori patterns and representation of meeting house decorations.