A powerful new haka theatre work is bringing the history, grief and resilience of the Tarawera eruption back to the stage, opening exactly 140 years after one of Aotearoa’s most devastating volcanic events.
Tērā te Auahi, created through Te Whare Tapere o Te Arawa, marks the anniversary of the 1886 eruption of Mt Tarawera, which destroyed villages, buried communities and forever changed the lives of whānau across Te Arawa.
For Movement Creative Maiau Houltham, the production is a deeply physical and cultural act of remembrance, using haka, movement, waiata and contemporary Māori performance to carry the memories of those who lived through the eruption into the present day.
The decision to premiere on the exact 140-year anniversary gives the work added significance. Rather than treating the eruption as a distant historical event, the production places whakapapa, whenua and intergenerational memory at the centre of the story.
Tērā te Auahi honours the kōeke who survived the eruption and those who were lost, while also speaking directly to their descendants. Through performance, the work explores the trauma of disaster, the strength of survival and the enduring relationship between Te Arawa people and their whenua.
The production also reflects the growing strength of haka theatre as a contemporary Māori art form. By combining traditional performance practices with modern staging, movement and storytelling, haka theatre offers a distinctive way to share Māori histories with both local and international audiences.
For Te Arawa, the story of Tarawera is not only about destruction. It is also about resilience, identity and the responsibility to keep ancestral memory alive.
As Tērā te Auahi opens, it stands as both a tribute and a wero — reminding audiences that history is carried not only in books and archives, but in bodies, voices, whakapapa and performance.
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