Using the body and performance Terry Faleono brings to light contemporary issues facing New Zealanders today.

Born in Samoa, and now living and working in New Zealand Terry is a contemporary dancer and performance artist. For ten years Terry performed with the dance and theatre company MAU under the direction of Lemi Ponifasio. Now he dances for his own dance and theatre company TuMAU as well performing as a soloist in gallery spaces and festivals in Auckland. Dance has taken Terry across New Zealand as well as over seas, he has danced in countries such as New Caledonia, Belgium, Holland, England and

Through a varied and wide reaching practice Terry’s dance often references contemporary issues of the time. For Terry, dance is used a vessel for story telling, both his own stories and others that need to be told. Through movement Terry highlights the importance of time of space and shows audiences the power of the narrative through movement.

ManAtua is an ongoing project choreographed by Terry Faleono and Peresetene Afato for the dance company TuMAU. So far there have been four iterations – at the Avondale Markets, Whau Arts Festival, Mangere Arts Centre Ngā tohu o Uenuku and Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery – each with there own references to various contexts and sites.   These dance ceremonies utilise flags referencing the potential changing of the flag and what that change might mean to our histories. At Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery the performance occurred at the top of Soldiers Memorial Walkway in Titirangi and referenced the varied legacies of war united by that single flag. During WWI many Pacific Islands connected with New Zealand with the recruitment of Cook Island and Niuean troops to join the Māori Battalion and the seizure of Western Samoa from German governance. These three Island nations as well as Māori and British all connected under this one flag and ManAtua brings to the forefront is not only a memorial of these histories but the question of what happens when this flag or symbol then changes.

Terry has performed in a variety of different spaces including ManAtua, Te Uru Waitakere Contemporary Gallery, 2016; ManAtua, Mangere Arts Centre - Ngā tohu o Uenuku, 2015; I AM, Aotea Centre, Auckland, 2015; I AM, Edinburgh Play House, Scotland, 2014; Offstage 5, Artspace, 2013; More Than We Know, Gus Fisher Gallery, 2013; Finding Neitherland, ST PAUL St Gallery, 2011 and McCahon House Trust, Auckland, 2010.