‘Is this all there is?’ Reflecting on the Dunedin Writers & Readers Festival 2023
Kiringāua Cassidy is a born performer. On the kapa haka stage, he’s fearless, his composition skills are razor sharp. A poet, at home with English and Te Reo Kāi Tahu, to create experiences and spaces of transcendence. He is a gifted translator, he can strum a great tune, his whistle meets no match... and he is a writer too! After the festival we asked Kiringāua for his perspective - we were not quite expecting this incandescent response:
Erupting minds and fiery tongues burn scorching sentences into my memories. Every word is a spark, igniting the hearts of the hopeful, keeping the masses huddled close enough together to feel some kind of comfort in the warmth of their numbers. Manaia gets the crowds to click their fingers – it reminds me of the crackling fires we sit around to tell pūrākau.
Witi tells us about the stories he used to read in his youth, where the dreaded dragon drowned shining, armoured princes in flames. They swore to save the distressed damsels, but what they couldn’t foresee was the terrifying taniwha locked up in the tower instead. Set that taniwha free, I dare you. Unleash it and witness the rainstorm of chaotic harmony that soaks the next collective of foolish geniuses and puts out the dragon’s unforgiving fire. Let it do as the dragon’s breath once did and unite our forefathers in a different fight. The era of the dragon is ancient now, its ruins are what we use as life lessons to draw from the past and drive into the future. Like a child flipping an hourglass on its arse, it’s only a matter of time before time itself doesn’t matter.
Starving, strapped, stricken, sad and stupid. One descriptive word for every finger on a colonising hand settled around the throats of my people, choking my identity out. They decide every three years whether to loosen or tighten their strangling grip. The words of Ati ring in my head, “... still fucking here”, and so we fucking are. As we sit in awe of dragons and taniwha, the colonising hand will keep groping and strangling us long enough to ensure my mokopuna welcome the bitter cold end like an old friend – they can’t even remember how snug the warmth really felt. These colonising hands choose their colours wisely. Myself? I’ve been seeing red for so long I didn’t notice how blue everyone around me was. To put it plainly, nothing is black and white anymore, so we better sort our shit out before we’re deep in the brown shit, pushing up green grass and pink flowers for the buzzing political insects to pollinate and take back to their beloved honeycomb of sweet nothings.
They forget that we are both dragons and taniwha, they forget that in the towers within our hearts and minds is the power to inflame and to heal, to incite and to diffuse. We are one and the same, and that sets us apart from the rest. Old Witi sings “Is this all there is?” and I damn sure hope not. If this is all there is, my friends, fuck it, keep dancing like the flickering flames that set alight long before our time, and will continue to dance long after we are gone. Before the curtain finally closes on our time, an emboldened, optimistic harmony rings out as a roaring river and washes the masses of their pain and suffering. They heed the river’s call, and they sail on forever on the river of no return. Ake, ake, ake.
– For the masterminds that hosted a creative festival during a hectic election weekend
