Roma Potiki

Roma Potiki (born 1958 ) is a New Zealand poet, playwright, visual artist, curator, theatre actor and director, as well as a commentator on Māori theatre. She is of Te Rarawa, Te Aupōuri and Ngāti Rangitihi descent. As well as being a published poet, her work is included in the permanent collection of the Dowse Art Museum.

Background Roma Potiki was born in Lower Hutt, a city in the Wellington Region, and grew up in the suburb Wainuiomata. As a child she attended Wainuiomata Primary School, Woodhatton Primary School, Wainuiomata College and Wellington High School. Her first play was written while at primary school and she also started writing poetry at school. This company was linked to the Māori protest movement and they toured a theatre production in 1979 - 1980 to marae and schools.

In 1990, she was a founding director of another theatre company He Ara Hou. They performed and toured a play called Whatungarongaro.

Roma Potiki's writing includes poetry contribution to many anthologies, as well as published volumes. She has written the foreword to books of New Zealand Māori plays and contributed text to exhibition catalogues. As an artist, Potiki has exhibited art work and one of her pieces Hinewai is in the collection of the Dowse Art Museum.

He Ara Hou and Whatungarongaro Before actor Rena Owen was in Once Were Warriors, she performed a similar role in theatre company He Ara Hou's play Whatungarongaro that Potiki co-created. Owen's performance in Whatungarongaro influenced her being cast in Once Were Warriors.

Playwright and director of theatre company Tawata Productions Hone Kouka cites seeing Whatungarongaro in 1991 at the Depot Theatre in Wellington as being life changing and convincing him that innovative Māori theatre had no boundaries. Another New Zealand theatre and film writer Briar Grace-Smith was an assistant to Potiki and learnt from the process of making Whatungarongaro. Roma Potiki (1995) Publisher: Wai-te-ata Press, Wellington, N.Z. Shaking the Tree (1998)

Selected list:

Te Ao Marama: Vol 4: Contemporary Maori Writing for Children (1994) ed. Witi Ihimaera Oxford (1997) My Heart Goes Swimming : New Zealand Love Poems (2000) ed. Jenny Bornholdt, Gregory O'Brien