When Atamira Dance Company takes the stage, it’s more than a performance—it’s a visceral, powerful expression of Māori culture that moves beyond the norm. For “Te Wheke/The Octopus,” Osborne Shiwan channeled that intensity into a striking visual campaign. Inspired by the eight tentacles of the octopus, symbolizing the work’s eight choreographers, they fused traditional artistry with contemporary design, creating bold, abstract forms through drone photography and typography. Their design mirrors the depth and movement of the ocean, capturing both the grace and strength of Māori storytelling. It’s a campaign that doesn’t just promote; it elevates.
By: Lloyd Osborne, Strategy Director, Osborne Shiwan
Atamira Dance Company is Aotearoa/New Zealand’s leading Māori contemporary dance theatre creator.
Te Wheke/The Octopus is a collaborative new work that brings together Aotearoa/New Zealand’s leading names in dance. Eight choreographers and dancers are symbolized by the eight tentacles of Te Wheke, a guardian on this journey from the past into the future. The work includes solo and ensemble expressions of darkness and light, all happening within the shape-shifting worlds of floating black silk.
We have worked with Atamira Dance Company for over a decade, creating the brand and campaigns to help promote their performance work. Our brief for “Te Wheke” was to create a campaign that resonated with a Māori audience as well as those wanting to experience the power of contemporary Māori culture.
Our campaigns for Atamira build on the brand platform “mythologies woven in movement,” encompassing a visual language that is unique to both the client and the audience.
Our challenge is to creatively move the design forward with each campaign while retaining the foundation of the original brand.
We always work closely with the choreographers to identify key figurative movements within the practice. This is usually done very early on, and some of the ideas we present for the campaign can influence the final performance. It’s a wonderfully collaborative process.
With “Te Wheke,” this process led to the idea of creating an abstracted octopus and seabed through photography and typography. We shot stills and video overhead by drone to create a typographic “figure eight” with Petra Leary. Our challenge was to capture the perfect writhing forms from all the dancers as they moved together. This was a first for Atamira, and we greatly appreciated their trust in us.
We shot portraitures with Toaki Okano. Here, we really wanted to connect with the audience. The bold eye contact reflects a powerfully Indigenous creative vision. The portraiture is graphically sliced into eight parts, creating a watery distortion that further represents the eight choreographers/tentacles.
Photographed against a dark background, lighting embodies ocean surface light beams, shining through to the seabed.
The bespoke typographic lettering fades in and out, interweaving with figures, like seaweed, creating a sense of rhythm and movement. When used as a series, the typography links the posters together as it overlaps the edges.
The campaign, including posters, publication, and digital, uses Te Reo Māori and English, reflecting changes within Aotearoa/New Zealand. We believe that understanding language is vital to understanding each other.
Te Wheke toured locally to great success. In 2023, Atamira Dance Company was selected for the Performing Arts Global Exchange program with Mid Atlantic Arts and toured Te Wheke internationally.
In addition to Graphis, our work for “Te Wheke” has been recognized by ADC (USA), AGDA (Australia), Best (NZ), and TDC (USA).
With “Te Wheke,” we wanted to take some well-calculated, creative risks, as we do with all of our projects. With the increasing homogenization of design styles, it’s important to refocus on the importance of design thinking and direction. Good design can only come from doing something different and better at every opportunity.
Osborne Shiwan is a creative partnership based in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Strategy director Lloyd Osborne and creative director Shabnam Shiwan create authentic experiences, contributing to better business and communities. Their work has been recognized by ADC (USA), AGDA (Australia), AIGA (USA), Clio (USA), Fast Company (USA), the Good Design Awards (Australia), the One Show (USA), the Red Dot Awards (Germany), and TDC (USA). They are advisory board members for the Type Directors Club. Lloyd is a co-creator and convenor of Type Here, a competition championing the design voice of Aotearoa/New Zealand. Shabnam participates in Here Now, a global mentorship for BIPOC creatives.
