MANU Dance Collective

MANU is a project-based dance collective providing spaces and opportunities for networking, collaboration, international touring to dance festivals in the Asia-Pacific region. MANU’s creative processes and structure is underpinned by Pacific-Māori values such as aiga/whānau/kainga (family and close relationship) and alofa/aroha/ofa (love). The collective was created solely for Māori and Pasifika dance students in tertiary dance training and now involves providing opportunities for tertiary dance graduates all over Aotearoa, New Zealand.

MANU and the SDGs:

Dance provides platforms for collaboration, healing, cultural understanding, understanding of ones’ own identity, empathy and compassion, critical thinking and innovation through performance and choreography. This work specifically looks at how without values and aspects in our lives such as – family, nature, our relationship to God or those around us, our history and ancestry, our stories and experiences we are affected. This work uses the metaphor of the ‘Pou’ or pillars that hold up the roof of a Samoan Fale or Māori Marae to symbolise these value systems and aspects and that without one of these pillars, our roof becomes unsteady and we struggle to stand strong in society.