CONJAH is a creative force of ‘feeling’; bleeding beyond the traditional boundaries of physical performance and creating immersive worlds inhabited by compelling beings. CONJAH’s work is consistently in conversation with non-human phenomena, the body’s memory, cultural-mapping, political resistance, and emotional rigour.
CONJAH are a Tagata Moana duo of artists, world-builders, dance-theatre makers, poets, film-makers, vocalists, writers and entity-benders that co-create and grow with other artists to build work collectively.
CONJAH are known for their formidable performance impact and creative voice that is balanced by their deep care for others.
If a creative practice is a map, then CONJAH are geographically based at the collision of multiple visions.
Through performance and practice, CONJAH pushes into the potential of our collective dreams and nightmares, exploring what happens when we face them.
OOSHCON
CONJAH, directed in partnership by Jahra Wasasala and ooshcon, embody an intersection of Fijian/Pākeha and Samoan/Pākeha heritage, hailing from the villages of Sorokoba and Naduri in Fiji, and Lalomanu and Vailele in Samoa.
Jahra is born and raised on the unceded Ngati Whatua whenua of Tāmaki Makaurau, and Ooshcon is born and raised on the unceded whenua of the Taranaki Whānui ki Te Ūpoko o Te Ika whenua of the Te Awa Kairangi region.
Jahra and ooshcon intertwine their solo bodies of work based within non-human phenomena, cultural mapping, political resistance, and emotional rigor to coalesce into a shared practice. Deeply informed in an ever-learning relationship with their cultures and social-mapping, CONJAH’s performance works are theatrical experiences rooted in ecologies of transformation and kin-ship (human and non-human). CONJAH’s approach, affectionately dubbed 'Oceanic Terror-fi, draws from and contributes to an everlasting lineage of Indigenous Future-Mythos and a collective movement towards liberation and resistance.
JAHRA WASASALA
CONJAH's pantheon of practice continues to expand through an array of mediums including Contemporary Theatre, Performance, World-Building, Creature Study, Cultural Learning, Street-Born Dance and Cultures, Physical Theatre, Poetry, Film, Sculpture, Voice Work, Photography, and Digital Art collaborations. With a commitment to collaborative partnership, CONJAH fosters an environment where each collaborative artist retains creative agency and where relationship is the gathering point for developing performance work.
CONJAH are award-winning artists, receiving the Arts Foundation Springboard Award in 2022, including mentor-ship from internationally acclaimed artist, Lisa Reihana MNZM. Jahra and ooshcon are also XIII WRLD Faculty members; an elite team of highly-skilled Street Dancers and a development training programme.
CONJAH are currently in development for their full-length performance work set to premiere in 2025
at Kia Mau Festival, Aotearoa (NZ).
“CONJAH represents this fiercely unique, 21st century Moana Oceania energy that has been cultivated on the edge of the Pacific ocean in Aotearoa.
They are channelling these forces, this epic ancestral magic, that can only be expressed in pure movement and body language.”
“Both (Jahra and Ooshcon) were engaging in deeply embodied ways with energy that is not human, but was once human…To see them dance with it was terrifying and breath-taking at the same time.”
“I’ve not seen Pacific dance so raw, so full of promise, as this, since I saw my first viewing of Lemi Ponifasio’s work in Samoa more than twenty years ago.”