Nina Nawalowalo
- Director
- Actress
- Additional Crew
Name: Nina Nawalowalo ONZM
Disciplines: Theatre and Film Making
Awards: International Brotherhood of Magicians Comedy Award, Creative New Zealand Senior Pacific Artist Award, Officer of New Zealand Order of Merit Queens Birthday Honours, 2021 Arts Foundation Laureate receiving the Theresa Gattung award for Established Female Practitioner. Highlight: In a career spanning more than 35 years, internationally acclaimed theatre and film director Nina Nawalowalo has pioneered a platform for the telling of Pacific stories across the globe.
Artistic Director and Co-founder with Tom McCrory of Wellington-based theatre company The Conch. Nina is Theatre and Film Director. performer, mentor and teacher who has presented at over 42 international festivals, including the London International Mime Festival, British Festival of Visual Theatre, and the Moscow Arts Festival. From her ground breaking Vula (2002) birthed at Bats - which toured for 7 years including a 3 week season at The Sydney opera House and a sold out season at London's Barbican Centre, to Masi (2012), Marama and her unforgettable direction of the work of others such as Hone Kouka's The Prophet (2004) and Edinburgh festival award winning Duck death and the Tulip (2014), - Nina is renowned for her powerful visual and magical work exploring Pacific themes.
She is passionately committed to bringing untold stories into the light, and for using theatre as a vehicle to affect social change. In 2013 She established the Solomon Islands National Women's Theatre Company Stages of Change as a means to address violence against women and girls. The 15 strong company of women performed at the Melanesian Arts Festival in Papua New Guinea and at the EU Parliament in Brussels.
The White Guitar (2015), the powerful story of The Luafutu Family - Father Fa'amoana and 'sons Matthias and Malo aka renown hip hop artist Scribe. Told by the Luafutu family themselves, the sold-out show was lauded by critics with praise: "If there's any show that you're going to see in the next decade, this has to be it" [RNZ National]. It was described by The Press as "a seminal moment in New Zealand theatre history."
Her most recent show, A Boy Called Piano Bats (2019) continues the collaboration with the Luafutu family, to tell the story of Fa'amoana's experiences as a child in state care in the 1960's. This powerful and courageous story featured 3 generations of the Luafutu family, giving a 'voice to the voiceless'. The play was adapted into her first feature film winning Best Documentary feature a The Montreal Independent Film Festival and Official selection for NZIFF in 2022.
Awards: International Brotherhood of Magicians Comedy Award, Creative New Zealand Senior Pacific Artist Award, Officer of New Zealand Order of Merit Queens Birthday Honours, 2021 Arts Foundation Laureate receiving the Theresa Gattung award for Established Female Practitioner. Highlight: In a career spanning more than 35 years, internationally acclaimed theatre and film director Nina Nawalowalo has pioneered a platform for the telling of Pacific stories across the globe.
Artistic Director and Co-founder with Tom McCrory of Wellington-based theatre company The Conch. Nina is Theatre and Film Director. performer, mentor and teacher who has presented at over 42 international festivals, including the London International Mime Festival, British Festival of Visual Theatre, and the Moscow Arts Festival. From her ground breaking Vula (2002) birthed at Bats - which toured for 7 years including a 3 week season at The Sydney opera House and a sold out season at London's Barbican Centre, to Masi (2012), Marama and her unforgettable direction of the work of others such as Hone Kouka's The Prophet (2004) and Edinburgh festival award winning Duck death and the Tulip (2014), - Nina is renowned for her powerful visual and magical work exploring Pacific themes.
She is passionately committed to bringing untold stories into the light, and for using theatre as a vehicle to affect social change. In 2013 She established the Solomon Islands National Women's Theatre Company Stages of Change as a means to address violence against women and girls. The 15 strong company of women performed at the Melanesian Arts Festival in Papua New Guinea and at the EU Parliament in Brussels.
The White Guitar (2015), the powerful story of The Luafutu Family - Father Fa'amoana and 'sons Matthias and Malo aka renown hip hop artist Scribe. Told by the Luafutu family themselves, the sold-out show was lauded by critics with praise: "If there's any show that you're going to see in the next decade, this has to be it" [RNZ National]. It was described by The Press as "a seminal moment in New Zealand theatre history."
Her most recent show, A Boy Called Piano Bats (2019) continues the collaboration with the Luafutu family, to tell the story of Fa'amoana's experiences as a child in state care in the 1960's. This powerful and courageous story featured 3 generations of the Luafutu family, giving a 'voice to the voiceless'. The play was adapted into her first feature film winning Best Documentary feature a The Montreal Independent Film Festival and Official selection for NZIFF in 2022.
