Salon Mika shoot for Edinburgh, 2014. Millinery by Shona Tawhiao (Pacific Sisters). The jacket, by Elizabeth Whiting, is now in the permanent collection of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. Photo by Phil Fogle.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Thank you to the photographers, creatives and stylists who contributed to the artist Mika.

Mika lives on fast-forward. But he decided early on that his life was worth memorialising. Over three decades ago, he set himself to the task of preserving his history in photographs, artefacts and narratives – preliminary steps towards writing an autobiography. Calling it Mātiro, which he translates as ‘to gaze within’ or ‘look inside’ (the word also implies ‘with longing’ or ‘desire’), he wanted the book to be introspective, something he knew was ironic given his reputation as an extrovert. He wanted his own voice to be set within the diverse voices of his many friends and collaborators, and the book itself to be a work of art, filled with beautiful and provocative images: his personal journey as a mirror held up to New Zealand social history, both fabulous and revolutionary. Almost ten years have passed since he brought this project to me. Brushing past our obvious differences – the gay Māori performance artist and the Jewish-American performance scholar – he invited me to set my own recollections of the past half-century against his, and to be my usual academic self and something more in so doing. As a thing of the past, this book seems already to be standing still, while Mika carries on full speed ahead.

Even so I press pause now, again, to thank Mika for his tremendous enthusiasm, generosity and patience, for telling me stories and showing me pictures, and for creating conversations that have challenged and moved me beyond measure. Mika’s words are interwoven throughout the book in ways that are attributed where appropriate; often as not they are reproduced from notes taken along the way and, with the many details of performances and people, have been confirmed retrospectively as he read drafts of chapters. While never telling me what to think or say, he has been alert and corrective as needed. For this, again, I thank him. For his insistence on maintaining the integrity of the project, and for his persistence in pushing me to see it through, thanks are also due.

We both must offer huge thanks to Julian Cook, whose contribution to the shape and contents of the project has been profound. It was with Julian that we developed the first timelines from the 1960s to 2010 (and beyond, once that threshold was breached) and shaped the story that emerged from the chronology. Julian’s sharp eye for aesthetic detail, curatorial finesse and, above all, true grit in shearing what we see here from the 155,000-plus (155,000!!) images in Mika’s archive, have made the ‘art’ of this book possible. Julian’s memories are bound up with Mika’s and mine in the making of this book, and I must thank him for his grace as a collaborator, for the clarity of his vision and for speaking his truth. I’m sure I didn’t always listen as I should, but I hope I’ve heard enough for I Have Loved Me a Man: The Life and Times of Mika to ring true.

It was Mark James Hamilton who introduced me to Mika and organised the fateful field trip to Timaru; over the years he has shared his ideas about what his collaborations with Mika meant both aesthetically and socially. I have been explicit where possible in crediting his PhD thesis, but my debt to him runs throughout the book. As does my gratitude to Te Rita Papesch, who introduced me to kapa haka some twenty years ago when we were colleagues at the University of Canterbury and who has encouraged me to process and present the knowledge she’s given me on my own terms. Moe Meyer’s provocations about queer performance, drag and camp were at the heart of a decade of animated, coffee-fuelled debate. I miss him now, and hope some of his spirit lives on in I Have Loved Me a Man.

When we were starting out, we invited Mika’s friends, collaborators and former lovers to share their memories. We are most grateful to Witi Ihimaera for kindly allowing us to publish his remembrances as the foreword. In addition, the recollections offered by Nicholas Alexander, Tim Coffey, Trevor Doig, Loretta Livingston and Sue Schuster have informed the story told in ways that are not always visible but are important nonetheless. I owe a big thank you also to Lexie Matheson for her perspective on Mika’s life and times, especially for bringing her own memories of Christchurch in the 1970s and 1980s to the surface where we could see them and, perhaps, put them to rest again. I have leaned on Jay Tewake, whose ability to light up the room has made the trek to Mika’s studio a real pleasure more times than I can count, and on Lance Loughlin, whose steady presence has saved me during more than one panic over finding the thing – the thing! – that Mika says I need to do the job properly.

As always, the generosity of colleagues and their insights and perspectives have forced me to do more than just chatter on. Pare Keiha has been rather relentless in urging me forward. Peter Falkenberg helped me set the stage for this work with a joint paper offered at the 2009 Performance Studies international conference in Zagreb, and his sense of humour and scepticism have been crucial to my thinking here as elsewhere. Peter Cleave has been endlessly enthusiastic for the project. Paul Moon has gone beyond the call of collegial duty in reviewing and providing precise feedback for the first full version of the book. His adamant support has given me courage whenever I’ve faltered.

A huge thank you must go to Sam Elworthy at Auckland University Press for welcoming the project and seeing it through. Thanks also to Katharina Bauer and Matt Turner for their patience and exactitude in guiding the manuscript to fruition, and to Katrina Duncan for her grace in finding the perfect place for each of the 200-odd images in this book. Parts of this book have been adapted from previous publications: ‘Mika on the Mirror Ball Stage’ (Theatre Annual) and ‘Skirting Burlesque’ (Australasian Drama Studies). My deepest gratitude to both editors, Dorothy Chansky and Peta Tait, and to the peer reviewers, who in guiding these articles to print helped me to craft effective ways of talking about Mika’s performance art in the academic frame. The first step towards this project was funded by a small but handy College of Arts Research Fund grant (University of Canterbury, 2008). The curation of images was further supported, in part, by a research grant from Auckland University of Technology (2016).

For their unflagging good cheer as I wafted into long digressions about Mika’s work, and for friendship and understanding above and beyond when I’ve been in the writing tunnel, in particular, I must thank Bettina Wallace, Colin Goodrich, Lorna Piatti-Farnell and Jani Katarina Taituha Wilson. And finally, my daughter, Casey Larkin Mazer Carsel, must be thanked again, as always, for giving way to my performance research when I’m sure she could imagine other ways for us to spend our days and evenings together. I hope she remembers her childhood conversations with Mika at the kitchen table – on everything from condoms to intellectual property rights – as fondly as I do, and that such lessons are being put to use appropriately now that she’s away at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Thanks, Casey, for putting up with both of us. This one’s for you.