Post #174827 by freddiefreelance on Tue, Jul 26, 2005 11:29 AM

Maori actress dies
27 July 2005
By PAUL MADGWICK in GREYMOUTH

Maori actress, artist and intellectual Tungia Baker has died after a long illness.

She was best known for her role as Hira in the 1993 internationally acclaimed film The Piano, which starred Sam Neill, Harvey Keitel and Holly Hunter.

For the past 10 years she has lived on the West Coast, but as her cancer worsened she returned to the family home in Otaki, Manawatu, to be among her Ngati Raukawa people. She will be buried tomorrow.

Baker was well known in New Zealand acting circles, especially in the 1990s, when she appeared in short films and television dramas such as Mokopuna, a children's series, Mirror Mirror, and a period mini-series, Greenstone.

She featured in a 1998 Australian production, A Difficult Woman, and last appeared in a 2002 television drama, Mataku, directed by Cliff Curtis.

As well as film, Baker was a respected stage actress, with performances alongside fellow Maori actors Jim Moriarty and Rena Owen.

Having learnt to speak fluent Maori in her student years, she became respected nationally as a scholar of the language and teacher of traditional karanga (women's call).

In 1998, she collaborated with Richard Nunns on a CD using traditional instruments, and was also a prolific songwriter.

After moving to the West Coast, initially to pioneer a Maori management position at Grey Base Hospital, Baker scripted a play about Ngai Tahu prophet Te Maiharoa and was pivotal in community arts initiatives and festivals.

Her later weaving included tukutuku panels for the marae at Bruce Bay and reviving the lost art of kuta weaving.