Shafia Stevens

Shafia has Maori heritage from her Mothers side and began delving into her roots, studying Maori language, history and culture.

During this time she received many requests for training from the NZ Dance community who were mainly based in the North Island.She went on to facilitate three 3-year trainings over the next eleven years.

After four intense years of study with Maori groups, several Maori dances started to come through and were ‘cooked’ with the help of an enthusiastic group of trainees. There is now a body of work of around 16 dances that draws upon the indigenous wisdom of the beautiful Maori culture and expressed through the cultural lens of DUP.

Shafia has shared these dances nationwide in Aotearoa and taken them to Australia, UK, Ireland, Germany, Russia and the Czech Republic. She is looking forward to sharing some of these wisdom gems with you all.