TAHI Ōtepoti - A Raptor in Dunedin

By TAHI Ōtepoti | Posted: Friday Oct 02, 2026

A collaboration between a poet, choreographer, dancer, and a composer, this show mines the depths of grief, faith, and growth.

Our / fire embered, we warm hands and tether our / faith to flesh. Distant dream of touch sleeps.

A Raptor in Dunedin is built around three poems. Two of them are sestinas, and the lines above are from the one called “River”. Both the music and the choreography reflect the rhythmic spirals of the sestina form, as well as of water, fire, earth and air. Ezra Pound once described the sestina as “a thin sheet of flame, folding and infolding on itself.” There is a very felt sense of this in A Raptor in Dunedin. It is elemental. Primal. And deeply intimate.

Tickets available via 2025 Dunedin Arts Festival