Lemi ponifasio biography of donald

  • Lemi Ponifasio is a Samoan and New Zealand choreographer, dancer, stage director, designer and artist.
  • Lemi Ponifasio is a Postwar & Contemporary artist who was born in 1964.
  • Lemi Ponifasio is a theater director, New Zealand Arts Laureate, tufuga, and Samoan high chief; he has been described as a profound visionary whose work.

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    As Dione Joseph wraps-up her coverage of NZ at Edinburgh for The Big Idea, she shares her conversation with MAU choreographer Lemi Ponifasio on art, philosophy and a tapestry of ideas.

    As Dione Joseph wraps-up her coverage of NZ at Edinburgh for The Big Idea, she shares her conversation with MAU choreographer Lemi Ponifasio on art, philosophy and a tapestry of ideas.

    'He incites us to dissolve the tendency to desire comprehension and instead unfurl the cramped wings of the imagination.'

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    When I hurried down Leith walk to meet Lemi Ponifasio I only knew one thing. I was late. White-rabbit-no-time-to-talk-to-Alice late because my last interview had unexpectedly gone overtime. Eventually I arrived, hot and somewhat disorientated as I tried to switch gears from my last conversation to this.

    Supposedly we were going to talk about I AM the latest work from MAU which was premiering at the Edinburgh International Arts Festival. As we greeted each other I hurriedly went over

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    Salā Lemi Ponifasio isn’t easily defined. He’s never had any formal training in dance or theatre. He doesn’t see himself as a choreographer. He didn’t even set out to be an artist. Yet he’s regarded within the international arts community as a leading light in theatre and dance. 

    Lemi has won international awards as a choreographer, designer, musikdrama director, and for his theatre and dance works. His work has been presented on the world’s biggest stages. MAU, the company he formed 21 years ago, is New Zealand’s most prolific internationally.

    His standing in the art world is such that he’s been invited to the Venice Biennale an unprecedented three times — for visual arts, dance and theatre. Last year he was the director of choice for the biggest teatralisk production in Canadian history, the Luminato Festival’s revival of Apocalypsis, a two-part musical epic with more than a thousand performers and crew. And this year, he was chosen by UNESCO to give the annual

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    Born in a micro-village in Samoa but educated in traditional western schools, Lemi Ponifasio is not your average dancer.

    With MAU – a community of socially committed, but not necessarily artistically inclined individuals, which he founded 15 years ago and named after the Samoan independence movement – Ponifasio pushes political and artistic boundaries, even by contemporary dance standards. His pieces combine ancestral ceremony and performance culture with contemporary video art; he describes them as an expression of life itself, a space of awakening and transformation.

    Ponifasio and MAU company performed Tempest: Without A Body at the 2010 Tanz in August festival on August 28 and 29.

    What are Tempest’s main themes?

    The piece begins with the idea of this suspension of rights. We have created for ourselves a kind of spectator society where we watch but are not a part of it. So I started to perform it: the consequences of our inaction.

    Your work carries a strong political w

  • lemi ponifasio biography of donald