An Honest Conversation with Tupe Lualua & Sacha Copland

Sacha Copland and Tupe Lualua will talk dance and attempt to be honest for 1 hour. There is no script and no choreography, the performance can over ever happen once. Introducing Tupe Lualua! "My name is Tupe, I'm 42 years in, born in Wellington and raised in Porirua. My parents were born and raised in Sāmoa and I'm the youngest of eight. I've done a lot of amazing things in my life and dancing is one of them. I'm rarely on stage these days but when I am, I love being a vessel for story." A graduate of Whitireia NZ and Victoria University, Tupe Lualua is a practitioner of Pacific dance, film and theatre. From 2009 - 2019 she taught Siva Sāmoa on the Bachelor of Applied Arts at Whitireia and founded the Le Moana dance company in 2013, creating works such as Fatu Na Totō, 1918 and Purple Onion. Since 2014, Le Moana have hosted the annual Measina Festival and produce works by Auckland based Choreographer Tupua Tigafua. In 2019, Tupe was awarded the Creative NZ Sāmoa Artist in Residence and prior to that she was a specialist choreographer for the World of Wearable Arts 2018. She danced for Choreographer Regine Chopinot in Aotearoa, Japan and New Caledonia before featuring in the critically acclaimed The White Guitar by The Conch. Tupe is currently the Senior Tutor in Movement and Creative Practice at Toi Whakaari: NZ School of Drama.