Pork and Poll Taxes 人頭猪税
It all begins with an idea.
A play by Talia Pua
1890s New Zealand. A family struggling to forge a better life by sending their men to New Gold Mountain, must reconsider their beliefs on belonging, sacrifice and family when the father chooses to immigrate.
Role
Playwright
Director
Year
2021
Producers
Proudly Asian Theatre
Hand Pulled Collective
Funders
Creative New Zealand
Chinese Poll Tax Heritage Trust
Awards
Adam NZ Play Award Finalist, 2021
Winner of Playmarket’s b4 25 Play Award, 2022
Pork and Poll Taxes underwent development in 2020 thanks to the support of Creative New Zealand and Chinese Poll Tax Heritage Trust.
It had its sold out premiere season at the Herald Theatre, Auckland, 2021.
Talia’s playwriting and directing debut, Pork and Poll Taxes, explores the early Chinese immigrant experience in New Zealand. Set in the 1890s amidst the backdrop of increasing civil unrest and poverty in China, and the mounting racism in New Zealand which culminates in the raising of poll tax from £10 to £100.
“I am forever grateful to my ancestors for the sacrifices they made, and their stories couldn’t be told better than through Pork and Poll Taxes.”
“A moving tribute to those affected by the Poll Tax, and by divisive, racist immigration policies, Pork and Poll Taxes is a resounding success.”
Click to view the full programme
Premiere Season Credits
Producer: Marianne Infante
Assistant Producer: Natalya Mandich-Dohnt
Directing Mentor: Chye-Ling Huang
Script Advisor: Renee Liang
Movement Director: Yin-Chi Lee
Language Coach and Cantonese Translator: Audrey Chan
Marketing Manager: Alyssa Medel-Khew
Stage Manager: Lisa Joe
Set Design: Micheal McCabe
Sound Design: Nikita Tu-Bryant
Costuming: Wilson Ong Jun Liang
Lighting: Paul Bennett
Props Design: Cinta Damerell
Photography: John Rata
Graphic Design: Alyssa Pua
Script Development Movement Workshop
Script Development Credits
Producer: Natalya Mandich-Dohnt
Mentors: Chye-Ling Huang & Marianne Infante, Proudly Asian Theatre
Dramaturgy: Renee Liang
Movement Director: Yin-Chi Lee
Script Advisor: Eleanor Bishop (Asian Ink)
Script Development Table Read
Script Developed with
Proudly Asian Theatre
Asian Ink
Red Leap Theatre – The Greenhouse Programme
Continuum
It all begins with an idea.
Continuum is a game where you explore your heritage through conversation and tactile play.
Gold Pin Winner Student Public Good
Role
Designer
Year
2018
Exhibitions
Creative Humans, Ōrakei Local Board, 2022
World of Cultures: Pā Nui, 2022
Yölk Fest, 2021
AUT Brightside, 2020
In ‘Continuum’, players begin at the centre of the board and start each round by revealing two opposing statements about heritage. These statements form questions which guide players through a conversation about their personal connection with their heritage. At the end of the game, the players’ answers will be mapped out on the board.
Over 2022 and 2023, Continuum has engaged with local communities at libraries across Tāmaki Makaurau.
Available to hire for exhibitions and events.
Continuum is beautifully hand-crafted by the creator from plywood using laser-cutting and woodworking techniques.
The board design is inspired by family tree diagrams, and antique Chinese tables to draw upon the social significance of the table as a place of gathering and community.
How to Throw a Chinese Funeral 婆婆再见
A play by Jill Kwan
When Lily and Anna’s grandmother passes away, they must reunite with their family in Malaysia to orchestrate her Taoist funeral - a custom lost even to their headstrong mum and outrageous Auntie.
Role
Set Design
Year
2023
Co-Produced By:
Hand Pulled Collective
Proudly Asian Theatre
Venue
Basement Mainspace
Creative Team
Co-Producers - Natalya Mandich-Dohnt, John Rata
Playwright & Director - Jill Kwan
Lighting & Scenet Design, Operator - Rae Longshaw-Park
Props Design - Cinta Damerell
Props Assistant - JingCheng Zhao
Set Design Mentor - John Veryt
Set Assistant - Tema Pua
Shadow Puppetry & Projections Design - Darryl Chin
Shadow Puppet Assistant - Yin-Chi Lee
Music Composition & Sound Design - Fiona Chua
Directing Mentor - Ahi Karunaharn
Dramaturge - Renee Liang
Cantonese Translation & Coach - Audrey Chan
Marketing Mananger - Jennifer Cheuk
Photography - John Rata
Stage Manager - Lisa Joe
Cast - Lisa Zhang, Ann An, Janet Tan, Yoong Ru Heng, Mustaq Missouri and Charles Chan
What drew me to this project was the fact that it was based in Malaysia. As a New Zealand born Malaysian-Chinese, I cannot recall any other time I have heard my parents’ accents and our culture depicted on a New Zealand stage. Jill’s directorial vision was ambitious, involving puppetry and projection, which made for fun design challenges.
婆婆 Po Po’s altar is the obtrusive “mountain” at the centre of the story, which all the characters and plot revolves around. Drawing upon Taoist and Buddhist beliefs, that the spirit remains on earth for a few days before going to heaven, I wanted to extend the altar to the entire house. I drew inspiration from the materiality of Chinese paper offerings and joss paper.
In Chinese ancestor worship, burning paper offerings is a physical expression of kinship and filial piety to ensure the wellbeing of the deceased in the afterlife.
Suspended white screens displaying the architecture of the house form the joss paper backdrop to the golden centre of the altar. This transforms the house into a transient space, the meeting place between the living and the dead, past and present. As character Yi explains, “ [婆婆 Po Po] is still with us!”.
Rituals of Similarity
A contemporary dance duet by Brittany and Natasha Kohler for Dance Plant Collective, unravelling the intricate layers of twinhood.
Role
Set Design
Year
2023
Co-Presented By:
Dance Plant Collective and Q Theatre
Venue
Q Loft
Creative Team
Choreographers and Performers - Brittany Kohler and Natasha Kohler
Producer - Julie Zhu
Costume Designer - Zoë McNicholas
Lighting Designer & Op - Paul Bennett
Sound Designer - Lucien Johnson
This was a very special collaboration. Being a twin myself, there was an instant understanding which made for a seamless design process.
At the start of the project, Brit and Tash presented me with a beautiful mood board of inflated spaces and soft moldable forms, all in a striking colour scheme of pinks and oranges. We wanted to transport the audience into the world of the womb.
The drape of the sheer curtains echoes the shape of ultrasound scans and cocoons the dancers in a womb-like arena that feels altogether otherworldly yet familiar, enveloping yet expansive, homely yet sacred.
Photographs by Amanda Billing
“Though minimal, where designer Talia Pua excels is in textures. Tapere Nui’s black box has become a white cocoon, a blank canvas for the liminal spaces the performers move through. The sheer white drapes work beautifully to catch the performer’s shadows, while also bringing to mind a vaguely recalled term from high school biology - the amniotic sac.”
To Grow Roots Where They Land
It all begins with an idea.
落地⽣根
A series of portraits telling the story of 6 descendants of Chinese Refugee wives who arrived in Aotearoa during 1939-1940.
Role
Graphic Design
Writer
Year
2021
Commissioned by
Britomart
Collaborators
Photographer - John Rata
Historian - Lily Lee
For Lunar New Year 2021, Britomart commissioned me to design a series of poster panels to be exhibited around the Britomart Pavilions, and flags located at the entrance of Takutai Square and around the precinct.
This exhibition would go alongside my Whale Tale, also commissioned by Britomart, which tells the migration story of early Chinese immigrants to Aotearoa. 落地⽣根 To Grow Roots Where They Land expands upon this narrative by sharing the story of the arrival of the Chinese refugee wives as told through their descendants. Chinese New Year is a time for families to be together, so it made sense for me to tell this significant point in Chinese New Zealand history.
Photos by Joe Hockley
This project was such a humbling experience getting to work with historian Lily Lee, and having the honour to learn and share the amazing stories of these six wonderful people and their families.
Britomart also published my interviews with the Chinese descendants
Tangita i Tāngita
An interactive installation where participants create and contribute individual pepeha tiles to an evolving wider national pepeha.
Finalist Student Public Good
Role
Game Designer
Year
2019
Collaborator
Olivia Hobman
Exhibitions
Moonlight Exhibition at Silo 6, Auckland Art Week, 2019
Tangata i Tāngata is a collaborative installation that aims to highlight New Zealand’s evolving multicultural national identity through connecting self to the collective. By creating and contributing their own personal ‘pepeha tile’, participants are encouraged to self-reflect on their own identity within a New Zealand-specific framework, and reflect on how they connect to the wider collective.
Photographs by Stefan Marks
Pepeha is a way of introducing yourself in Māori that acknowledges the people and places you are connected to. The Au to Whakawhānaungatanga framework locates au (self) at the centre of one’s expanding relationship networks.
Whale Tale: 新金山 New Gold Mountain
A painted sculpture telling the migration story of Aotearoa’s first non-European and Pacific settlers.
Role
Artist
Year
2022
Commissioned by
Britomart Group
Exhibitions
Whale Tales Auckland Art Trail
First arriving in the 1860s to work the abandoned gold claims in Otago, the Chinese have played an important and often overlooked role in the formation of Aotearoa’s multicultural identity. For the thousands of men who came in search of their fortune, and the wives and children who later followed, Aotearoa was 新金山, New Gold Mountain: a land full of golden promise for a better life.
Photographs by Joe Hockley
My artist interview with Jeremy Hansen
Not Woman Enough
It all begins with an idea.
Not Woman Enough is a shocking, gut-wrenching and snort-laughingly, bare-all conversation into the wonder of womanhood through the lens of three different Asian women.
Role
Set & Prop Design
Year
2023
Venue
Basement Theatre
Mainspace
Creative Team
Presented by Proudly Asian Theatre
Director: Sanada Chatterjee
Playwright: Hweiling Ow
Producer: Natasha Daniel
Lighting: Rachael Longshaw-Park
Sound: Carawei Gao
Stage Manager: Ariadne Baltazar
Premiere Cast: Shervonne Grierson, Isla Mayo, Anjula Prakash
To make the set, I only used second-hand textiles, primarily bras, bedsheets and stockings, which I sourced from opshops. This creative constraint led to many interesting discoveries on ways to transform these ‘feminine’ textiles into biomorphic sculptures that are both beautiful and repulsive.
For me, this really capture the struggle each of the characters have with womanhood: something that is both beautiful and messy, and ultimately human.
I was very much inspired by the term ‘bare all’, taken from the show’s blurb. Each of the three women in the play suffer from a female-related medical condition. This got me interested in exploring rupturing surfaces, cancerous growths and body horror. I took a lot of inspiration from the striking yonic forms of Magdalena Abakonowicz and visceral body horror sculptures of Tina Kim.
“…this almost body horror set-up framed the narrative in a different light. The typical notion of women’s bodies as soft and delicate was redefined as a dripping, chaotic landscape of pink and red ”
“The stage design also encompassed so much of what it feels like to be a woman, of being trapped inside a body that dictates your entire worth - but what happens when this body rebels against you?”
